Book picks similar to
A Mother's Promise by K.D. Alden


historical-fiction
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fiction
hfvbt

Run with the Horsemen


Ferrol Sams - 1982
    is a precocious, sensitive, and rambunctious boy trying to make it through adolescence during the depression years. On a red-clay farm in Georgia he learns all there is to know about cotton chopping, hog killing, watermelon thumping, and mule handling. School provides a quick course in practical joking, schoolboy crushes, athletic glory, and clandestine sex. But it is Porter's family - his genteel, patient mother, his swarm of cousins, his snuff-dipping grandmother, and, most of all, his beloved though flawed father - who teach Porter the painful truths about growing up strong enough to run with the horsemen.

The Berlin Zookeeper


Anna Stuart - 2021
    One shocking wartime secret. And a family mystery just waiting to be discovered...Berlin Zoo, 1943: Ten-year-old Adelaide and her newborn sister are orphaned after a devastating night of bombing. Heartbroken and frightened, Adelaide runs to her mother’s closest friend, Katharina Heinroth, and the kind zookeeper takes the two little girls under her protection. As the bombing intensifies, Adelaide tries to shut out the horrors of war by caring for her tiny sister and playing with the adorable baby monkeys. But when Katharina organises a dangerous operation to enable children and animals to escape the battle-scarred city, something goes wrong. And Adelaide has to promise her adopted mother to keep a shocking secret. A secret that will change Adelaide’s life forever.Berlin Zoo, 2019: Bethan Taylor notices the elderly lady sitting on the bench next to her seems confused, her thoughts flitting between past and present. Ada talks of her childhood, played out in an underground bunker beneath the animal enclosures during the war. As Ada’s story unfolds, Bethan is surprised to hear a name she recognises…Katharina Heinroth is at the top of a list of German names Bethan found in a hidden compartment of her late mother’s jewellery box. Bethan’s father couldn’t tell her anything about the crumpled piece of paper and she’s been searching for the meaning ever since.As the two women are brought together by the pain of the past can they help each other to heal? And after decades of silence, can Ada help Bethan to uncover a long-buried family mystery?An unforgettable and heart-wrenching novel of a brave orphan girl and a shocking wartime secret. Inspired by a true WW2 story and perfect for fans of Orphan Train, The Tattooist of Auschwitz and The Alice Network.

Lost Boy Found


Kirsten Alexander - 2019
    Originally published in Australia as Half Moon Lake.In 1913, on a summer's day at Half Moon Lake, Louisiana, four-year-old Sonny Davenport walks into the woods and never returns. The boy's mysterious disappearance from the family's lake house makes front-page news in their home town of Opelousas. John Henry and Mary Davenport are wealthy and influential, and will do anything to find their son. For two years, the Davenports search across the South, offer increasingly large rewards and struggle not to give in to despair. Then, at the moment when all hope seems lost, the boy is found in the company of a tramp. But is he truly Sonny Davenport? The circumstances of his discovery raise more questions than answers. And when Grace Mill, an unwed farm worker, travels from Alabama to lay claim to the child, newspapers, townsfolk, even the Davenports' own friends, take sides. As the tramp's kidnapping trial begins, and two desperate mothers fight for ownership of the boy, the people of Opelousas discover that truth is more complicated than they'd ever dreamed.

Firebrand


Gillian Philip - 2010
    The Sidhe are at peace until their queen determines to destroy the protecting veil. But exiled brothers Seth and Conal have vowed that they will survive and return to reclaim their fortress and save the veil.

Swimming in the Moon


Pamela Schoenewaldt - 2013
    She's no nightingale with the gorgeous tones, tender and passionate, peaking and plummeting as dramatically as her moods. Yet in the rough world she's chosen, Lucia's words may truly change lives.In 1904, fourteen-year-old Lucia and her young mother Teresa are servants in a count's lush villa on the Bay of Naples. Between scrubbing floors and polishing silver, Teresa soothes the unhappy countess with song until one morning's calamity hurls mother and daughter to America, exchanging their gilded cage for icy winds off Lake Erie and Cleveland's taut immigrant neighborhoods. Lucia blossoms and Teresa wins fleeting fame on the tawdry stage of vaudeville until old demons threaten their new life. In factories and workhouses, Lucia finds her own stage, giving voice to those who have given her a home. As roles reverse, mother and daughter reshape their fierce and primal bond.

Time to Say Goodbye


S.D. Robertson - 2016
    After all, he promised her so when her mother died. And he's going to do everything he can to keep his word.What Will doesn't know is that the promise he made to his little girl might be harder to keep than he imagined. When he's faced with an impossible decision, Will finds that the most obvious choice might not be the right one.But the future is full of unexpected surprises. And father and daughter are about to embark on an unforgettable journey together . . .

The Memory Keeper


Jenny Hale - 2021
    She has the perfect job at a New York magazine, a small but elegant apartment in the upper west side, and an incredibly successful beau named Miles Monahan. This year, for her thirty-fifth birthday, she’s leaving the icy city sludge for sunshine! She’s got tickets for two to Barbados, and she’s all packed and meeting Miles at the airport for a week of cocktails, sandy beaches, and the music of steel drums. But her life is turned upside down in the span of that one morning. Hannah is rocked by the news that her beloved grandmother is very sick, and Hannah needs to come home to her small Tennessee town right away to be with her family and help run her gran’s dilapidated flower shop. It also means she has to face Ethan Wright, the best friend she’d left behind so many years ago. If that isn’t enough to deal with, she discovers her boyfriend is seeing someone else. With flights grounded and rental cars in great demand due to the winter snowstorm, she’s stranded at the airport. On her birthday, instead of waking up in a stylish beachfront hotel in Miles’s arms like she thought, she finds herself packed like sardines into a car, with two passengers, on a ride-share from LaGuardia Airport to her hometown of Franklin, Tennessee.When everything seems to be going wrong, it’s the kindness of a handsome businessman from Hannah’s past named Liam McGuire that might just save her. But a new development that threatens Gran’s shop and secrets surrounding Liam could alter both their lives forever. A heartwarming, sweet romance that will have you laughing, crying, and best of all, hugging those around you a little tighter. If you loved the Christmas movies based on Jenny’s books and are looking for more feel-good, small town romance, look no further!

Acts of Faith


Philip Caputo - 2005
    Into this desolate theater come aid workers, missionaries, and mercenaries of conscience whose courage and idealism sometimes coexist with treacherous moral blindness. There’s the entrepreneurial American pilot who goes from flying food and medicine to smuggling arms, the Kenyan aid worker who can’t help seeing the tawdry underside of his enterprise, and the evangelical Christian who comes to Sudan to redeem slaves and falls in love with a charismatic rebel commander. As their fates intersect and our understanding of their characters deepens, it becomes apparent that Acts of Faith is one of those rare novels that combine high moral seriousness with irresistible narrative wizardry.

Kiss


Jill Mansell - 1993
    Gina, who caused the accident, has more important things to worry about - her husband's mistress is pregnant and she's suddenly on her own. Why should she care about Izzy? Yet somehow the well-heeled Gina finds herself opening her home to Izzy and her spirited teenage daughter. And it's there that Izzy meets heart-stoppingly handsome Sam, whose lingering kiss is all it takes for her to find the true love that has always eluded her - though there are just a few obstacles between that first kiss and the 'happy ever after'...

Seeing Miss Heartstone


Nichole Van - 2018
    This current novel is a greatly expanded version of that plot, adding over 200 pages of text and creating a more robust, well-developed story.Miss Belle Heartstone—heiress and savvy businesswoman—needs a husband. Immediately. As in, yesterday would not have been soon enough. Her mother’s attempts at matchmaking have been disastrous. So Belle decides to solve the problem her way—survey the market and purchase the best groom available. Colin Radcliffe, Marquess of Blake—debt-ridden and penniless—needs a large infusion of cash. Desperately. Preferably cash that does not come with a wife attached. It is no surprise, then, when he receives Miss Heartstone’s brazen proposal—her cash, his title, their marriage—that he politely declines. But before he leaves her, Blake suggests something truly radical: Maybe before finding a husband, Belle should find herself. His simple words send them both on an unexpected journey, spanning continents and years, entwining their lives in ways neither could have foreseen. Can two lonely souls move past societal expectations and forge a unique life together?

The Lost Queen of Egypt


Lucile Morrison - 1937
    We come to know and love this girl, called Small Bird by her family, through the events of her colorful childhood and her marriage to Tutankhaten, a boy of royal birth. Her efforts to save the kingdom from conniving priests and soldiers were gallant and dramatic.While the fate of the Queen is unknown, in her story Lucile Morrison ventures to suppose a satisfying ending to the romance. An extraordinarily accurate, vivid picture of domestic and court life which will enrich any study of the culture of ancient Egypt.Illustrations by Franz Geritz, done in the style of ancient Egypt, help set the mood of Ankhsen­amon's story as the clock is turned back more than three thousand years. Color frontispiece and newly recolored map end pages.

Squalor, New Mexico


Lisette Brodey - 2009
    From the moment Darla asks to know more about her mysterious aunt, she is offered nothing but half-truths, distortions, and evasions. As Darla grows into her teen years, her life is oddly yet profoundly affected by this woman she has never known. She can't help but notice that Rebecca seems to exist only in dark corners of conversations and that no one ever wants to talk about her - with Darla. Squalor, New Mexico is a coming-of-age story shrouded in family mystery. As the plot takes twists and turns, secrets are revealed not only to Darla but to the "secret keepers" as well. Darla learns that families are only as strong as the truths they hold and as weak as the secrets they keep.

Promised to the Crown


Aimie K. Runyan - 2016
    Runyan masterfully blends fact and fiction to explore the founding of New France through the experiences of three young women who, in 1667, answer Louis XIV’s call and journey to the Canadian colony.They are known as the filles du roi, or “King’s Daughters”—young women who leave prosperous France for an uncertain future across the Atlantic. Their duty is to marry and bring forth a new generation of loyal citizens. Each prospective bride has her reason for leaving—poverty, family rejection, a broken engagement. Despite their different backgrounds, Rose, Nicole, and Elisabeth all believe that marriage to a stranger is their best, perhaps only, chance of happiness.Once in Quebec, Elisabeth quickly accepts baker Gilbert Beaumont, who wants a business partner as well as a wife. Nicole, a farmer’s daughter from Rouen, marries a charming officer who promises comfort and security. Scarred by her traumatic past, Rose decides to take holy vows rather than marry. Yet no matter how carefully she chooses, each will be tested by hardship and heartbreaking loss—and sustained by the strength found in their uncommon friendship, and the precarious freedom offered by their new home.

Hao: Stories


Ye Chun - 2021
     The most common word in Chinese, perhaps, a ubiquitous syllable people utter and hear all the time, which is supposed to mean good. But what is hao in this world, where good books are burned, good people condemned, meanness considered a good trait, violence good conduct? People say hao when their eyes are marred with suspicion and dread. They say hao when they are tattered inside.By turns reflective and visceral, the stories in Hao examine the ways in which women can be silenced as they grapple with sexism and racism, and how they find their own language to define their experience.In "Gold Mountain," a young mother hides above a ransacked store during the San Francisco anti-Chinese riot of 1877. In "A Drawer," an illiterate mother invents a language through drawing. And in "Stars," a graduate student loses her ability to speak after a stroke. Together, these twelve stories create an unsettling, hypnotic collection spanning centuries, in which language and children act simultaneously as tethers and casting lines, the reasons and the tools for moving forward after trauma. "You'll come away from this beautiful book changed" (Julia Fine, author of The Upstairs House).

Little Wonders


Kate Rorick - 2020
    Not her best day. And caught on viral video.   Yep, “Halloween Mom” is now internet famous.The posting culprit: tattooed, blue-haired, west-coast transplant Daisy McGulch, out of place in the posh New England town and unable to blend with the other perfect mommies of Little Wonders Preschool.While she couldn’t care less about organic snacks (paleo-preferred) or the winter quarters of the Little Wonders chickens, she’s not about to admit she’s the one who accidently brought Quinn’s worst moment to the entire world—she’d be kicked out of town!But when Quinn and Daisy find themselves unlikely cohorts in the fight for Little Wonders Parents Association supremacy, they also discover they have more in common than they expected…but the internet is forever.  Can Quinn live down her new reputation?  And how far will Daisy go to keep the truth from coming to light?Hilarious, clever, and unforgettable, Little Wonders offers a glimpse into the high-pressure world of modern momming, with natural toys, scrutinized playdates, PTA politics, and social media gone amok.