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The First Desire
Nancy Reisman - 2004
Fidgeting over coffee with sugar and cream he explains: Their sister is gone. Three days earlier Goldie left to go shopping and she has not returned. With Goldie's disappearance as the catalyst, The First Desire takes us deep into the life of the Cohen family and Buffalo, New York, from the Great Depression to the years immediately following World War II. Shifting perspectives from siblings Sadie, Jo, Goldie, and Irving we learn of the secrets they have managed to keep hidden--and of Lillian, the beautiful woman their father took as a lover while his wife was dying. In this astonishing novel Reisman brings to life the love, grief, and desires that ultimately bind one family together.
The Dating Game
Susan Buchanan - 2012
That’s all Glaswegian recruitment consultant Gill does. Her friends fix her up with numerous blind dates, none suitable, until one day Gill decides enough is enough.Seeing an ad on a bus billboard for Happy Ever After dating agency ‘for the busy professional’, on impulse she signs up. Soon she has problems juggling her social life as well as her work diary.Before long she’s experiencing laughs, lust and … could it be love? But just when things are looking up for Gill, an unexpected reunion forces her to make an impossible choice.Will she get her happy ever after, or is she destined to be married to her job forever?
Breakout at Stalingrad
Heinrich Gerlach - 2016
The original version of the classic novel of the epic World War II battle, confiscated by the Russian secret services in 1949, and now rediscovered in the Russian archives.
The Huntress
Kate Quinn - 2019
When the Nazis attack the Soviet Union, she risks everything to join the legendary Night Witches, an all-female night bomber regiment wreaking havoc on the invading Germans. When she is stranded behind enemy lines, Nina becomes the prey of a lethal Nazi murderess known as the Huntress, and only Nina’s bravery and cunning will keep her alive.Transformed by the horrors he witnessed from Omaha Beach to the Nuremberg Trials, British war correspondent Ian Graham has become a Nazi hunter. Yet one target eludes him: a vicious predator known as the Huntress. To find her, the fierce, disciplined investigator joins forces with the only witness to escape the Huntress alive: the brazen, cocksure Nina. But a shared secret could derail their mission unless Ian and Nina force themselves to confront it.Growing up in post-war Boston, seventeen-year-old Jordan McBride is determined to become a photographer. When her long-widowed father unexpectedly comes homes with a new fiancée, Jordan is thrilled. But there is something disconcerting about the soft-spoken German widow. Certain that danger is lurking, Jordan begins to delve into her new stepmother’s past—only to discover that there are mysteries buried deep in her family . . . secrets that may threaten all Jordan holds dear.In this immersive, heart-wrenching story, Kate Quinn illuminates the consequences of war on individual lives, and the price we pay to seek justice and truth.
The Last Green Valley
Mark T. Sullivan - 2021
But after already living under Stalin’s horrifying regime, Emil and Adeline decide they must run in retreat from their land with the wolves they despise to escape the Soviets and go in search of freedom.Caught between two warring forces and overcoming horrific trials to pursue their hope of immigrating to the West, the Martels’ story is a brutal, complex, and ultimately triumphant tale that illuminates the extraordinary power of love, faith, and one family’s incredible will to survive and see their dreams realized.
Cleaning Her House
Irene Vartanoff - 2018
Yet her mom, always critical of her, is furious that Elinor is touching any part of the overflowing collection of random possessions. When county inspector Race Ericson threatens a court summons if the hoard isn’t massively reduced in a hurry, he pushes Elinor to choose: Surrender to her mother’s insistence that she do nothing, obey her bossy elder sister’s edict that she sort carefully through every single pile, or satisfy Race’s demand that she ruthlessly clear out the junk? Elinor has never been shy with attractive men. Satisfying Race would be a pleasure. But when family secrets come to light and surprises turn up on her doorstep, Elinor’s task gets even more complicated, forcing her to reevaluate her long-held beliefs about her family—and her life choices. Cleaning Her House is a meaty stand-alone women's fiction novel featuring a rich variety of characters, a romance with a hint of steam, family secrets, and a ton of clutter. There's a happy ending, too. (Maybe not for the clutter.)
Boldness Be My Friend
Richard Pape - 1953
Stirling bomber goes on a special mission to destroy Goering's residence which is used as operational headquarters for the air defence of Berlin. His aircraft, after the operation has been successfully accomplished, is shot down. Wounded, he is hunted across Holland, joins the Dutch underground and is captured in Leyden waiting to be taken off by a British submarine.The description of the Berlin raid, the last moments of the aircraft and the pursuit across Holland are among the best dramatic passages to come out of the war. But this is only the beginning of the most fantastic tale, which, interspersed with intrigue and violence, with setbacks and recapture, takes Pape across the breadth of German-occupied Europe; to Poland and Czechoslovakia; to Austria and Hungary and almost to the Yugoslav partisans.
The Distant Hours
Kate Morton - 2010
The elder Blythe sisters are twins and have spent most of their lives looking after the third and youngest sister, Juniper, who hasn’t been the same since her fiance jilted her in 1941. Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother’s past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in ‘the distant hours’ of the past has been waiting a long time for someone to find it. Morton once again enthralls readers with an atmospheric story featuring unforgettable characters beset by love and circumstance and haunted by memory, that reminds us of the rich power of storytelling.
Lights All Night Long
Lydia Fitzpatrick - 2019
. . . One of the most propulsive, un-put-downable literary novels I've read in ages."--Anthony Marra, author of
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Fifteen-year-old Ilya arrives in Louisiana from his native Russia for what should be the adventure of his life: a year in America as an exchange student. But all is not right in Ilya's world: he's consumed by the fate of his older brother Vladimir, the magnetic rebel to Ilya's dutiful wunderkind, back in their tiny Russian hometown. The two have always been close, spending their days dreaming of escaping to America. But when Ilya was tapped for the exchange, Vladimir disappeared into their town's seedy, drug-plagued underworld. Just before Ilya left, the murders of three young women rocked the town's usual calm, and Vladimir found himself in prison.With the help of Sadie, who has secrets of her own, Ilya embarks on a mission to prove Vladimir's innocence. Piecing together the timeline of the murders and Vladimir's descent into addiction, Ilya discovers the radical lengths to which Vladimir has gone to protect him--a truth he could only have learned by leaving him behind. A rich tale of belonging and the pull of homes both native and adopted, Lights All Night Long is a spellbinding story of the fierce bond between brothers determined to find a way back to each other.
Parachute Girls
Jenny Hammerle - 2014
Young Kay learns to live life to its fullest- embracing every precious moment. American pilot, Ray, enlists and plunges headlong into the war effort. A note, found in a parachute, brings the two together and thus begins a romance so lasting and true it turns despair into joy...Join Kay and her friends Constance, Theresa, Veronica, and Hilda in a sewing shop turned parachute factory, where the girls experience some of life’s toughest lessons. Through friendship, they come together overcoming grief and difficulty to rise above. Parachute Girls details Kay’s incredible journey through war and love in an unforgettable tale of loyalty, romance, and heroism.
The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope
Rhonda Riley - 2013
She rescues him, and it quickly becomes clear he is not a man...and not one of us. The rescued body recovers at an unnatural speed, and just as fast, Evelyn and Adam fall deeply in love. In The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope, Rhonda Riley reveals the exhilarating, terrifying mystery inherent in all relationships: No matter how deeply we love someone, and no matter how much we will sacrifice for them, we can only know them so well...
The Lost Wife
Alyson Richman - 2011
'Do you remember me now?' he asked, trembling. She looked at him again, as if giving weight and bone to a ghost. 'Lenka, it's me,' he said. 'Josef. Your husband.' During the last moments of calm in prewar Prague, Lenka, a young art student, falls in love with Josef. They marry - but soon, like so many others, they are torn apart by the currents of war. In America Josef becomes a successful obstetrician and raises a family, though he never forgets the wife he thinks died in the camps. But in the Nazi ghetto of Terez??n - and later in Auschwitz - Lenka has survived, relying on her skills as an artist and the memories of a husband she believes she will never see again. Now, decades later, an unexpected encounter in New York brings Lenka and Josef back together. From the comfort of life in Prague before the occupation to the horrors of Nazi Europe, The Lost Wife explores the endurance of first love, the resilience of the human spirit and our capacity to remember.
Keigo Higashino Collection Box: The Devotion of Suspect X, Salvation of a Saint, Malice
Keigo Higashino - 2015
The Red Scarf
Kate Furnivall - 2008
Now, its gifted author delivers another sweeping historical novel. Davinsky Labor Camp, Siberia, 1933: Only two things in this wretched place keep Sofia from giving up hope: the prospect of freedom, and the stories told by her friend and fellow prisoner Anna, of a charmed childhood in Petrograd, and her fervent girlhood love for a passionate revolutionary named Vasily. After a perilous escape, Sofia endures months of desolation and hardship. But, clinging to a promise she made to Anna, she subsists on the belief that someday she will track down Vasily. In a remote village, she's nursed back to health by a Gypsy family, and there she finds more than refuge, she also finds Mikhail Pashin, who, her heart tells her, is Vasily in disguise. He's everything she has ever wanted but he belongs to Anna. After coming this far, Sofia is tantalizingly close to freedom, family?even a future. All that stands in her way is the secret past that could endanger everything she has come to hold dear.
Destiny's Champions
D. Levesque - 2020
Special Race? Why not. Unknown Questlines? A staff that he thinks is so overpowered that he doesn’t even want to chance casting it? Sure. Multiple women, who aren’t even human? Yes please!Jason just wanted to build a cabin in the woods in the newest VRMMORPG. But apparently, the “Gods” of this game had other plans for him. Adventure awaits for no one, especially when it’s coming to look for you.Follow Jason as he explores this new World called Destiny, and see if it’s namesake is what he has been waiting for all his life. But what the real Gods have in store for him isn’t what he expectedJason Morgan hates his life.Three years ago, a car accident landed him in a wheelchair. After two experimental surgeries, he still can’t walk. Now, broke, and living as a ward of the State, Jason wants nothing more than to walk again and to get out of this hellhole of a hospital.Enter Games For Life, a gaming company that runs a massive VRMMORPG system. They invite Jason to test their groundbreaking pod technology. In their gaming World Destiny, time and reality are not what they seem. There, Jason can even walk again! What could possibly go wrong?Maybe Jason should have read the fine print on the contract a little more closely…