Book picks similar to
Flowing Water, Falling Flowers by X.H. Collins
historical-novel-society-reviews
literary-fiction
tablet-reads
signed
Hidden Latitudes: A Novel of Amelia Earhart
Alison Anderson - 1996
Many years later, a couple sailing around the world take refuge on an uncharted island. Although they believe the tiny atoll to be uninhabited, it is actually home to a mysterious woman who has been stranded there for more than forty years. As that woman ponders whether to stay hidden or step back into society, a tempestuous storm threatens to change the course of all their lives.
Wars of the Roses Series Collection
Conn Iggulden - 2019
Wars of the Roses Series Conn Iggulden 3 Books Collection Set Titles in the Set Stormbird, Trinity, Bloodline
Twilight
Katherine Mosby - 2005
Mosby, whose prose Time called "rich and accomplished," evokes in Twilight a complex moment in history seen through the prism of a poignant love story.By breaking off her engagement to an emotionally remote fiancé, Lavinia Gibbs avoids a stifling marriage -- but outrages her socially prominent family, who fear she has consigned herself to spinsterhood. Instead she sails for Europe to begin the process of rebuilding her life. Ever practical, Lavinia makes a new home in Paris, where she determines she needs more than beautiful architecture and entrée with the expats to make a full life. Lavinia wisely adds into the mix a pug and employment, but it is not until she meets the charming, enigmatic, and long-married Gaston Lesseur that she begins an extraordinary journey of self-discovery and sacrifice that will change her irrevocably.With luminous prose, Mosby examines the emotional landscape of adultery while creating a powerful yet poignant depiction of a woman's unlikely blossoming. Unlike Flaubert's Madame Bovary, for whom adultery provided escape from an unfulfilling marriage, Lavinia Gibbs longs for the domestic and the luxury of the quotidian in an increasingly precarious world. Mosby creates in Twilight a story that will resonate with readers long after they have finished this book.
When the Yellow Mocker Calls (Two Feather's Legacy Book 1)
Lila M Beckham - 2016
However, Charity soon discovers that her grandfather’s objective in making this trip is to get her married off and settled somewhere. Since her beloved grandmother’s passing several months earlier, her grandfather has worried about what would become of Charity should he, too, pass away. And, given his advanced age, he somehow senses that time is near; he does not want to die and leave young Charity alone and desolate. He and his wife reared Charity after her mother and father both died in a yellow fever epidemic when she was 3 years old. As they travel to Fort Charlotte, her grandfather tells her that before going to Fort Charlotte they will be making an overnight stop at his friend’s house. And, that a year or so earlier, he and his long-time friend, Eli Gulledge, talked about what would happen to Charity should both he and his wife pass away and have arranged for Charity and Eli’s son Henry to meet before that time comes to see if they will take a liking to one another. When Charity, who has never met Eli or his family, hears that, she threatens to act rude in order to make them not like her so that she can go back home with him, but her grandfather tells her that she cannot go back home with him and assures her that if young Henry doesn’t take a liking to her, he is sure that some young buck down in Fort Charlotte will be looking for a wife. Faced with the stark realization that her life is changing and she has no control of that change, many thoughts run through young Charity’s mind- she even contemplates running away, but doesn’t want to leave her grandfather alone. When her grandfather suddenly passes away that night at Eli’s house, that threat never comes to fruition. Young, Charity is forced to abide by her grandfather’s wishes and stay there with Eli’s family… When the Yellow Mocker Calls is based on my great-great-grandmother’s life; her spiritual journey, her never ending quest for knowledge, her love of family and storytelling, and, most importantly, her love for Henry…
On the Night Plain
J. Robert Lennon - 2001
His father has mysteriously disappeared, and Grant’s brother, Max, a lifelong rival, takes off on the day Grant returns, leaving him with a sickly flock and a pile of debt. When Max returns a year later with a young woman named Sophia, a contest of will begins between the brothers, reviving ghosts that Grant had hoped were banished from the homestead.
The Dressmaker's Son
Abbi Sherman Schaefer - 2013
Rachael's family comes to America to start a new life after fleeing the pogroms in Russia. Rebekah comes to America with her son, Samuel, fleeing his father, Misha, a Russian soldier with whom she had an affair and has threatened to take him away from her so he will not grow up as a Jew and the son of a cobbler. Set in the Lower East Side of New York and pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg, Russia, both women adjust to life in America until Misha kidnaps Samuel and returns with him to Russia. How Rebekah rises to the challenge of earning enough money as a designer of women's gowns to return to St. Petersburg to find her son, and the difficulties she encounters while there, including murder and prison, show the reader the full extent of a mother's ingenuity and determination when it comes to her child. Rachael also faces the possibility of losing a child to war when her son Solomon enlists in the army as America's entry into World War I approaches.
Walking Wounded
William McIlvanney - 1989
The walking wounded. These are the stories of ordinary people.
The Man Game
Lee Henderson - 2008
Thus begins The Man Game, Lee Henderson’s epic tale of loved requited and not, that crosses the contemporary and historical in an extravagant, anarchistic retelling of the early days of a pioneer town on the edge of the known world. In 1886, out of the smouldering ashes of the great fire that destroyed much of the city,Molly Erwagen—former vaudeville performer—arrives from Toronto with her beloved husband, Samuel, to start a new life. Meanwhile, Litz and Pisk, two lumberjacks exiled after the fire, and blamed for having started it, are trying to clear their names. Before long, they’ve teamed up with Molly to invent a new sport that will change the course of that fledgling city’s history.
All My Brother’s Secrets: A powerful true story of love, loss and brutality
Terence O’Neill - 2020
There they were to suffer brutal beatings and little care or love – they survived as best they could, looking out for each other, until the terrible morning when Terry couldn’t wake Dennis.In a time when the country was united by war and struggle, this landmark case shocked the nation and made headlines around the world. Terry, a small figure in the courtroom, captured the hearts of mothers and families everywhere, and the public outcry against the foster services led to the instigation of the first provisions to protect other vulnerable children from neglect and cruelty.This is the remarkable true story of a boy who couldn’t save his brother, but whose actions have gone to save many other children from the same fate.
Sarah Morris
D.E. Stevenson - 2019
Decisive, resourceful and independent, Sarah faces challenges in love and friendship from those around her and the wider circumstances of the war as she travels across the cities and countrysides of England and Scotland. Often described as gentle romances, D. E. Stevenson novels are neither overblown nor unduly tragic, populated with characters who quietly make those around them better simply because of their existence. Consistently satisfying, there is a good reason why Stevenson has amassed a devoted following.
Rebecca's Children: A saga of love & betrayal in 19th Century Wales
Kate Dunn - 2016
For fans of Nadine Dorries, Maeve Binchy, Freda Lightfoot and Dilly Court. Lives are on the line as the workers fight back in the Welsh countryside…
1829, Wales
For centuries. generations of the Jenkins family have eked out a living from their Carmarthenshire hill farm. But when a fire destroys virtually all of their possessions the children witness their lives crumbling around them. Mary and William find they have barely enough land left to provide for their basic needs. Their only option is to take on more work, but William longs for action, and Mary begins to suspect that he has become embroiled with the Rebecca-ites, a shadowy group of nationalists pitted against the English landowners whose tolls have bankrupted so many Welshman. As tensions mount, Mary becomes ever more torn between her mistrust of the rebels’ violence and her growing attraction to Jac Tŷ Isha, one of their leaders. And when the British government decides to put a stop to the revolt, the danger to the men she loves increases a hundredfold… REBECCA’S CHILDREN is a poignant, beautifully crafted saga of love and betrayal, set against the background of Wales in mid-1800s – a country aflame with political and social unrest. "An accomplished first novel." -
The Times
"A well-handled tale of passion, social injustice and nationalist fervour in nineteenth century Wales." -
The Liverpool Post
“Kate Dunn is a fine storyteller.” - Ben Elton
Orchard of Dust
Brian Edward Bahr - 2009
Product DescriptionPublishers Description:A Prohibition-era novel centering around the occurrence of a dust storm in southern Minnesota, Orchard of Dust follows the lives of a boy and his father as their town is invaded by a speakeasy.From the Back Cover:In the quiet born to the soil, the coming of a fresh generation quaked and rumbled as a people, displaced from their land, dreamed of once and tomorrow; they followed promised whispers of abundance through a desolation where men ripped at the land, wrenching what harvest the fields could spit until a protestation came against man, strangling the fields in dust; and this people broke their homes, shattering hearthstones against the collapsed shelter of forgotten desires that had turned to dead leaves.
The Officer's Affair: A novel of World War II
Samantha Grosser - 2018
When at last he arrives, she is devastated to find he is a different man, a man she cannot love. Disabled and embittered, Danny can never resume a normal life, and though Rachel is determined to restore their marriage, it seems the war has broken their lives beyond repair.Then Captain Andrews comes to visit, and despite a deep unease between Danny and his former commander, for Rachel the attraction is instant, her heart captured by the officer.But the tension between the two men seems to stem from an earlier time. What happened in Italy to make Danny so hostile to an officer he once trusted and admired? And why has Andrews come to visit him in the face of it?As Rachel struggles to shake off the ghosts of the war, she is torn between her loyalties to an empty marriage and her deepest desires. Only one can prevail in this heart-wrenching novel, which delves into the devastation left behind by the Second World War.
The Holding
Merilyn Simonds - 2004
Wandering there, she uncovers, in the ruins of a log cabin, the writings of a young woman who lived more than a hundred years before. Into Alyson's story Merilyn Simonds weaves the moving tale of Margaret MacBayne, who, with her family, left behind hardship in a seaside Scottish town in the hope of building a new home in the Canadian wilderness. Margaret, an expert on herbs, contemplates revenge when her brothers rob her of her happiness. When Alyson too suffers great loss, she must decide if retribution is worth the price. Taut and uplifting, sensuous and astute, The Holding is psychologically complex and beautifully rendered. Simonds brings us an intimate journey of discovery into the things we keep most guarded, whose truths often lie in unexpected places.