Monica West

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Maryland

A Novel

"Fifteen-year-old Miriam Horton is the oldest daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher and faith healer. Every summer, the Hortons pack themselves tight in their old minivan and travel through small southern towns for revival season: the time during which Miriam's father holds massive healing services, drawing thousands of people looking to be cured of ailments and disease. This revival season, though, doesn't go as planned, and after one service in which Reverend Horton's healing powers are tested like never before, Miriam witnesses a shocking act of violence behind the revival tent. From that point on, Miriam's belief in her father-and in her faith-begins to waver. When the Hortons return home from the revival circuit, Miriam's confusion only grows as she discovers that she might have the power to heal-even though her father and the church have always made it clear that this power is denied to women. Over the course of the next year, and as a new revival circuit approaches, Miriam must decide between her faith, her family, and her newfound power that might be able to save others, but, if discovered by her father, could destroy Miriam. A story of spiritual awakening and disillusionment in a southern, black, Evangelical community, REVIVAL SEASON is a haunting novel of complicated familial love, a young girl's coming into herself, and the price of being among the community of the faithful"--

Revival Season

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Jennifer E. Smith

An indie musician reeling from tragedy and a public breakdown reconnects with her estranged father on a week-long cruise in this "pitch-perfect story about the ways we recover love in the strangest places" (Rebecca Serle) from bestselling author Jennifer E. Smith. Greta James's rise to indie stardom was hard-won. Before she graced magazine covers and played to sold out venues, she spent her girlhood practicing her guitar in the family garage, full of big dreams and determination. Her first fan was her mother, Helen, who always encouraged Greta to follow her heart. But her father, Conrad, was less supportive; he saw only a precarious road ahead for his daughter, and always pushed her to make more practical choices. Greta has spent her life trying to prove him wrong. And she's succeeded beyond even her own wildest dreams. But a week after her mother's sudden death, and just before the launch of her high-stakes sophomore album, she completely falls apart on stage. The footage quickly goes viral, and she stops playing, her career suddenly in the exact kind of jeopardy her father always predicted. Months later, Greta--still heartbroken and humiliated and trying to find a way back to her music--reluctantly agrees to accompany Conrad on the week-long Alaskan cruise her parents had booked to celebrate their fortieth anniversary. It could be their last chance to heal old wounds and forge a new relationship in the wake of such loss. But the trip will also prove to be a voyage of discovery for them both, as well as for Ben Wilder, a historian also struggling with a major upheaval in his life. As Greta works to build back her confidence, and Ben confronts an uncertain future, they find themselves relying on each other to make sense of life's difficult, unexpected choices. In the end, Greta must face the biggest challenge of all: can she find a way to listen to the song within her while also making peace with those who love her?

The Unsinkable Greta James

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Dawn Dumont

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

"These stories interconnect the friendships of four First Nations people spanning over two decades against the cultural, political, and historical backdrop of the 1990s and early 2000s."--

Glass Beads

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Carol Ascher

Three generations of strong-minded Rosens have gone their own ways, keeping a safe distance from each other. When Peter Rosen, the octogenarian EmigrE professor, takes a bad fall in the snow, his estranged adult daughter Marlene begins flying regularly to Madison. Long days on Spooner Street amidst her ailing father's beloved German books enable Marlene to let go of old bitterness and rekindle her love for him. When her son, Noah, returns from Africa for a last visit with his grandfather, he instigates a deeper honesty, love and forgiveness among all three Rosens. " A] superb novel, tender, wise, and beautifully crafted. I found myself reading more slowly as the end of this stunning novel was in sight, not wanting to leave its embrace." - Marnie Muller, author of The Climate of the Country Award-winning essayist and fiction writer Ascher weaves a detailed, painstaking and generous tale of reconciliation among three generations. Elderly literature professor Peter Rosen, a cantankerous German EmigrE, is injured in an icy fall, and his estranged daughter Marlene is reluctantly called into service. Duty becomes something more textured and loving, with a gay Dominican homecare aide and Marlene's strong-willed biracial son adding drama and depth to the mix. - Chronogram "A thoroughly engaging and entertaining read from beginning to end, A CALL FROM SPOONER STREET documents author Carol Ascher as an extraordinary storytelling talent." - Midwest Book Review "A deftly crafted novel by a truly gifted author and one that will hold the reader's rapt attention from beginning to end." - Reviewer's Bookwatch Admittedly, seeing the words "death" and "holiday" in the same title can be a bit jarring. But the reality is that during this season of joy and love many people are dealing with either the approaching death of a loved one or grief over a loss that has already occurred. . . . A Call from Spooner Street by Carol Ascher is a good read for an adult child dealing with the death of an elderly parent. - Huffington Post

A Call from Spooner Street

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A tense and timely story about an Anglo-American journalist in Paris compelled to confront her own fears as terrorism threatens to engulf her family. Fiction, but the author has reported widely in the Middle East.

Paris Metro

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Lan Samantha Chang

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

An acclaimed storyteller returns with "a gorgeous and gripping literary mystery" that explores "family, betrayal, passion, race, culture and the American Dream" (Jean Kwok). The residents of Haven, Wisconsin, have dined on the Fine Chao restaurant's delicious Americanized Chinese food for thirty-five years, content to ignore any unsavory whispers about the family owners. Whether or not Big Leo Chao is honest, or his wife, Winnie, is happy, their food tastes good and their three sons earned scholarships to respectable colleges. But when the brothers reunite in Haven, the Chao family's secrets and simmering resentments erupt at last. Before long, brash, charismatic, and tyrannical patriarch Leo is found dead--presumed murdered--and his sons find they've drawn the exacting gaze of the entire town. The ensuing trial brings to light potential motives for all three brothers: Dagou, the restaurant's reckless head chef; Ming, financially successful but personally tortured; and the youngest, gentle but lost college student James. As the spotlight on the brothers tightens--and the family dog meets an unexpected fate--Dagou, Ming, and James must reckon with the legacy of their father's outsized appetites and their own future survival. Brimming with heartbreak, comedy, and suspense, The Family Chao offers a kaleidoscopic, highly entertaining portrait of a Chinese American family grappling with the dark undercurrents of a seemingly pleasant small town.

The Family Chao

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Cynthia Weil

It's the summer of 1963 and JJ Green is a born songwriter - which is a major problem, considering that her family considers the music business to be a cesspool of lowlifes and hustlers. Defying all the naysayers, JJ takes an internship at the Brill Building, the epicentre of a new sound that is rapidly changing the world: rock and roll. JJ is finally living her dream. She even finds herself a writing partner in Luke Silver, a boy with mesmerising green eyes who seems to connect instantly with her music.

I'm Glad I Did

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Carol Solomon

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Katherine Weinstein has always dreamed of becoming someone special. But when she finds herself at her second new school within two years, she'd settle for just being able to fit in. Standing out against the backdrop of pretty pastel girls at Middlebrook Junior High, Katherine prefers to read and write-and quickly finds a creative confidante in bubbly blonde Genevieve. Coming of age during the tumultuous social climate of the early 1960s, Katherine has plenty of lessons to learn, courtesy of a deceptive teacher, a cute Frankie Avalon lookalike, a mother who can't seem to stop getting pregnant, and a rabbi who's full of questions. But when Charlotte, Middlebrook's first black student, joins Katherine's class, those issues fade into the background as Katherine seeks the courage to face down racism and create a welcoming home for her new friend. Set in the Jewish suburbs of Baltimore, Imagining Katherine transports readers to the heart of the civil rights movement through the eyes of a young teen discovering life's triumphs and tragedies for the first time. A touching tale of family, friendship, and acceptance, Katherine's story serves as a testament to true courage-and those who stood up for fairness and equality along the way.

Imagining Katherine

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Kathleen Spivack

her second cousin Herbert, a former minor Austrian civil servant who believes in Esperanto and the international rights of man, a wheeler-dealer in New York, powerful in the social sphere, yet under the thumb of his wife, Adeline ... Michael, their missing homosexual son ... Felix, a German pediatrician who dabbles in genetic engineering ... the Tolstoi String Quartet, four men and their instruments, who for twenty years lived as one, playing the great concert halls of Europe, for whom music is their life; escaping to New York from Bremerhaven, smuggled out on a German submarine, their money sewn into the red silk linings of their instrument cases ... And watching them all, Herbert's eight-year-old granddaughter, Maria, witnessing the family's strange comings and goings, being regaled at night when most are asleep with the intoxicating, thrilling stories of their secret pasts ... of lives lived in St. Petersburg ...

Unspeakable Things

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Debra Spark

For as long Daniella has been married to Joel, they’ve received phone calls at odd hours, and late at night. Daniella knows the caller as Liesel, Joel’s first wife, a woman whose sudden departure devastated her husband. After years of disruptive, long-distance phone calls, Liesel rings to tell Joel she’s letting Idzia, the seventeen-year-old daughter he has never met, visit for the summer. Daniella and Joel prepare for Idzia’s arrival, but when Joel goes to pick her up from the airport, Idzia isn’t there. Back at home, the phone calls suddenly stop, and Joel and Daniella become haunted by the absence of someone who was never part of their life to begin with. Debra Spark’s fourth novel, Unknown Caller, tells the story of a brief, failed marriage and its complicated aftermath. Leaping effortlessly across decades and continents, it works to uncover the reasons for Idzia and Liesel’s disappearance and the deeper puzzle of Liesel’s identity. Spark’s candid, intricate novel highlights the near-impossibility of truly knowing another person, the pain in failing relationships, and the joy in successful ones.

Unknown Caller

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Anchee Min

A fictional portrait of the last empress of China follows Orchid, a beautiful teenager from an aristocratic family, who is chosen to become a low-ranking concubine of the emperor and rises to a position of power in the Chinese court.

Empress Orchid

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Beth Underdown

"Originally published in the United Kingdom by Viking, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd., London."

The Witchfinder's Sister

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Amal Rifa'i

Odelia Ainbinder

Sylke Tempel

A Palestinian Teenager, an Israeli Teenager, an Unlikely Friendship

An unsparing--yet hopeful--account of what it means to grow up in Jerusalem today as told through the candid exchange of letters between a Palestinian teenager and an Israeli teenager.

We Just Want to Live Here

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Kate Christensen

From the acclaimed PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of The Great Man comes a riveting high-seas adventure that combines Christensen's signature wit, irony, and humanity to create a striking and unforgettable vision of our times. The 1950s vintage ocean liner Queen Isabella is making her final voyage before heading to the scrapyard. For the guests on board, among them Christine Thorne, a former journalist turned Maine farmer, it's a chance to experience the bygone mid-twentieth century era of decadent luxury cruising, complete with fine dining, classic highballs, string quartets, and sophisticated jazz. Smoking is allowed but not cell phones--or children, for that matter. The Isabella sets sail from Long Beach, California into calm seas on a two-week retro cruise to Hawaii and back. But this is the second decade of an uncertain new millennium, not the sunny, heedless '50s, and certain disquieting signs of strife and malfunction above and below decks intrude on the festivities. Down in the main galley, Mick Szabo, a battle-weary Hungarian executive sous-chef, watches escalating tensions among the crew. Meanwhile, Miriam Koslow, an elderly Israeli violinist with the Sabra Quartet, becomes increasingly aware of the age-related vulnerabilities of the ship herself and the cynical corners cut by the cruise ship company, Cabaret. When a time of crisis begins, Christine, Mick, and Miriam find themselves facing the unknown together in an unexpected and startling test of their characters.

The Last Cruise

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Vanessa Blakeslee

Fifteen years after the harrowing afternoon that sent Mercedes fleeing Colombia, she returns to confront her father about what happened.

Juventud

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Mark Sullivan

Based on the true story of a forgotten hero, the USA Today and #1 Amazon Charts bestseller Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours.

Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager―obsessed with music, food, and girls―but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.

In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier―a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.

Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.

Fans of All the Light We Cannot See, The Nightingale, and Unbroken will enjoy this riveting saga of history, suspense, and love.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky

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Down Under is a passion-stoked novel about first love and second chances. A young Catholic teen, abused by his conservative father, falls in love with a prim Jewish girl whose strict parents reject him. CallDown Under a boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl tale with a twist: Romeo and Juliet in outer suburbia. Fate takes the boy, Collum Whitsun, to Australia, where he becomes an international movie star. Decades later, when his career derails and his mind unravels, he begins a quest back to the past. The girl he loved, Judy Pincus, is now Jude Ewington, a middle-aged mother of twin boys, with a long-term marriage in the doldrums. Nostalgia, hurt, and fantasy draw Collum and Jude together again, in a mating dance that reveals every shade of their folly and hope.

Down Under take a wise, witty look at the struggles of aging, class, faith, and love. Most of all it explores the hidden meanings of loyalty. Part farcical romp, part lyrical romance,Down Under explores the road not taken--and the mayhem that ensues when lives are daringly re-routed.

Down Under

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#hardcover #jewish #historical-fiction #literary-fiction #kibbutz-movement #israel #palestine

A brilliant, astonishing and politically timely page-turner set in 1921 Palestine, from the author of the bestselling novel Far to Go, nominated for the Man Booker Prize.

This beautifully written, shocking and timely novel whisks us back to 1921, when a band of young Jewish pioneers set out to realize a dream: the founding of a settlement on a patch of land that would, twenty-five years later, become Israel. One by one, we enter the minds of three compelling characters--Ida, an idealistic young woman escaping violence brewing in Europe; David, the charismatic and volatile group leader; and Hannah, a wife and mother struggling with her roles--to witness how the utopian dream is punctured by messy human entanglements. This is also the story of the land itself, revealing with compassion and irony how the pioneers chose to ignore the fact that their valley was already home to people whose lives they did not understand.     

Writing with restrained power, award-winning novelist Alison Pick creates unforgettable characters who, isolated within their utopian dream, are haunted by ghosts, compromised by secrets, and finally, despite flashes of love and hope, worn down by hardship, human frailty, and the pull of violent confrontation. Her astonishing conclusion forces us to confront the question of what is truly knowable in the human heart.

Strangers with the Same Dream

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#hardcover #jewish #historical-fiction #ottoman-empire #inquisition #family-saga

AUSA TODAYBest seller!

Bestselling author Nicole Dweck brings to life one of history's greatest yet overlooked stories of love and resilience.

In 2002, thirty-two-year-old Selim Osman, the last descendant of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, flees Istanbul for New York. In a twist of fate, he meets Hannah, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and an artist striving to understand the father she barely knows. Unaware that the connection they share goes back centuries, the two feel an immediate pull to one another. But as their story intertwines with that of their ancestors, the heroic but ultimately tragic decision that bound two families centuries ago ripples into the future, threatening to tear Hannah and Selim apart.

From a sixteenth-century harem to a seaside village in the Holy Land, from Nazi-occupied Paris to modern-day Manhattan, Nicole Dweck'sThe Debt of Tamar weaves a spellbinding tapestry of love, history, and fate that will enchant readers from the very first page.

The Debt of Tamar

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#hardcover #jewish-fiction #womens-domestic-life #contemporary-women #literary-fiction #grief-and-loss


Enduring a year marked by her husband's abandonment, her daughter's rebelliousness, and her best friend's shattering death, Isabel gains new insights into her friend's difficulties while considering a new relationship prospect.

Days of Awe

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A tale told from multiple perspectives traces the complicated relationship between Ann and Wade on a rugged landscape and how they came together in the aftermath of his first wife's imprisonment for a violent murder.

Idaho

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#hardcover #fiction #confusion #fiction-urban-life #coming-of-age #literary-fiction #new-york

A heart-wrenching debut novel about a young couple trying to find out what they really want in life--and whether or not that includes each other. Julia and Evan fall in love as undergraduates at Yale. For Evan, who grew up in a small town in Canada, Yale is a whole new world, and Julia--blond, beautiful and rich--is part of his vision for a successful future. After they graduate in 2008, they move together to New York city, where Evan takes a job at a hedge fund--another step forward in the life he imagines for himself. Julia, who has only known a life of privilege, graduates with an art history degree and no plan for her own future. She lands a low paying assistant job at a nonprofit, unsure about what she really wants, and wondering when everyone else figured that out for themselves. With the market crashing and banks failing around him, Evan becomes involved in an increasingly high-stakes deal at work, and begins to realize that the price of privilege may come with dangerous strings attached. Meanwhile, Julia reconnects with someone from her past--someone who offers her a vision of a different kind of life. Told in alternating perspectives, The Futures is a vivid story about love--falling in and out of it--betrayal, and the burning desire to be valued.

The Futures

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#paperback #fiction #classics #victorian #signet #literary-fiction

Set in a peasant village in rural, Victorian England, the author's best-known classic traces the persecution of one determined young woman by the closed-minded society around her and by fate on a cosmic scale.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

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#paperback #signet #classics #victorian #fiction #romance

Far from the Madding Crowd is perhaps the most pastoral of Hardy's Wessex novels. It tells the story of the young farmer Gabriel Oak and his love for and pursuit of the elusive Bathsheba Everdene, whose wayward nature leads her to both tragedy and true love. It tells of the dashing Sergeant Troy whose rakish philosophy of life was '...the past was yesterday; never, the day after'. And lastly, of the introverted and reclusive gentleman farmer, Mr Boldwood, whose love fills him with '...a fearful sense of exposure', when he first sets eyes on Bathsheba.

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