Elizabeth Wetmore

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Nevada

A Novel

Written with the haunting emotional power of Elizabeth Strout and Barbara Kingsolver, an astonishing debut novel that explores the lingering effects of a brutal crime on the women of one small Texas oil town in the 1970s. Mercy is hard in a place like this . . . It's February 1976, and Odessa, Texas, stands on the cusp of the next great oil boom. While the town's men embrace the coming prosperity, its women intimately know and fear the violence that always seems to follow. In the early hours of the morning after Valentine's Day, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead's ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager had been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field--an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law. When justice is evasive, one of the town's women decides to take matters into her own hands, setting the stage for a showdown with potentially devastating consequences. Valentine is a haunting exploration of the intersections of violence and race, class and region in a story that plumbs the depths of darkness and fear, yet offers a window into beauty and hope. Told through the alternating points of view of indelible characters who burrow deep in the reader's heart, this fierce, unflinching, darkly funny, and surprisingly tender novel illuminates women's strength and vulnerability, and reminds us that it is the stories we tell ourselves that keep us alive.

Valentine

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Melissa Fu

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Arizona

A moving debut novel about war, migration, and the power of telling stories, Peach Blossom Spring follows three generations of a Chinese family on their search for a place to call home. With every misfortune there is a blessing and within every blessing, the seeds of misfortune, and so it goes, until the end of time. It is 1938 in China and, as a young wife, Meilin's future is bright. But with the Japanese army approaching, Meilin and her four year old son, Renshu, are forced to flee their home. Relying on little but their wits and a beautifully illustrated hand scroll, filled with ancient fables that offer solace and wisdom, they must travel through a ravaged country, seeking refuge. Years later, Renshu has settled in America as Henry Dao. Though his daughter is desperate to understand her heritage, he refuses to talk about his childhood. How can he keep his family safe in this new land when the weight of his history threatens to drag them down? Yet how can Lily learn who she is if she can never know her family's story? Spanning continents and generations, Peach Blossom Spring is a bold and moving look at the history of modern China, told through the story of one family. It's about the power of our past, the hope for a better future, and the haunting question: What would it mean to finally be home?

Peach Blossom Spring

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#hardcover #juvenilefiction #fiction #middlegrade #refugee #alangratz #jewishboy #historicalfiction 

North Carolina

Refugee

Natashia Deón

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

New York

A Black immortal in 1930's Los Angeles must recover the memory of her past in order to discover who she truly is in this extraordinarily affecting novel for readers of N. K. Jemisin and Octavia E. Butler. Lou, a young Black woman, wakes up in an alley in 1930s Los Angeles with no memory of how she got there or where she’s from. Taken in by a caring foster family, Lou dedicates herself to her education while trying to put her mysterious origins behind her. She’ll go on to become the first Black female journalist at the Los Angeles Times, but Lou’s extraordinary life is about to take an even more remarkable turn. When she befriends a firefighter at a downtown boxing gym, Lou is shocked to realize that though she has no memory of meeting him, she’s been drawing his face for years. Increasingly certain that their paths previously crossed—and beset by unexplainable flashes from different eras haunting her dreams—Lou begins to believe she may be an immortal sent here for a very important reason, one that only others like her can explain. Setting out to investigate the mystery of her existence, Lou must make sense of the jumble of lifetimes calling to her, just as new forces threaten the existence of those around her. Immersed in the rich historical tapestry of Los Angeles—Prohibition, the creation of Route 66, and the collapse of the St. Francis Dam—The Perishing is a stunning examination of love and justice through the eyes of one miraculous woman whose fate seems linked to the city she comes to call home.

The Perishing

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Oklahoma

From the bestselling author of Prayers for Sale, Sandra Dallas' Westering Women is an inspiring celebration of sisterhood on the perilous Overland Trail

AG Journal's RURAL THEMES BOOKS FOR WINTER READING | Hasty Book Lists' BEST BOOKS COMING OUT IN JANUARY

"Exciting novel ... difficult to put down." --Booklist


"If you are an adventuresome young woman of high moral character and fine health, are you willing to travel to California in search of a good husband?"

It's February, 1852, and all around Chicago, Maggie sees postings soliciting "eligible women" to travel to the gold mines of Goosetown. A young seamstress with a small daughter, she has nothing to lose. She joins forty-three other women and two pious reverends on the dangerous 2,000-mile journey west.

None are prepared for the hardships they face on the trek or for the strengths they didn't know they possessed. Maggie discovers she's not the only one looking to leave dark secrets behind. And when her past catches up with her, it becomes clear a band of sisters will do whatever it takes to protect one of their own.

Westering Women

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Beatriz Williams

Indiana

The beloved author returns with a remarkable novel of both raw suspense and lyric beauty-- the story of a lost pilot and a wartime photographer that will leave its mark on your soul. In 1947, photographer and war correspondent Janey Everett arrives at a remote surfing village on the Hawaiian island of Kauai to research a planned biography of forgotten aviation pioneer Sam Mallory, who joined the loyalist forces in the Spanish Civil War and never returned. Obsessed with Sam's fate, Janey has tracked down Irene Lindquist, the owner of a local island-hopping airline, whom she believes might actually be the legendary Irene Foster, Mallory's onetime student and flying partner. Foster's disappearance during a round-the-world flight in 1937 remains one of the world's greatest unsolved mysteries. At first, the flinty Mrs. Lindquist denies any connection to Foster. But Janey informs her that the wreck of Sam Mallory's airplane has recently been discovered in a Spanish desert, and piece by piece, the details of Foster's extraordinary life emerge: from the beginnings of her flying career in Southern California, to her complicated, passionate relationship with Mallory, to the collapse of her marriage to her aggressive career manager, the publishing scion George Morrow. As Irene spins her tale to its searing conclusion, Janey's past gathers its own power. The duel between the two women takes a heartstopping turn. To whom does Mallory rightfully belong? Can we ever come to terms with the loss of those we love, and the lives we might have lived?

Her Last Flight

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Priscilla Royal

California

Death never wanders far from beloved Prioress Eleanor whether she's home at Tyndal in Norfolk or traveling the realm. The local abbot begs her help. The village priest has been found dead and standing over him is, a reliable witness says, the ghost of Hywel, the village stonemason yet a Welshman, and recently hanged for slaying some sleeping English soldiers.

The Twice-Hanged Man

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Rita Williams-Garcia

Missouri

A Sitting in St. James

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Delaware

The Girls in the Picture

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Rebecca Wells

Maryland

Looks back to the years of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood's origins in Thornton, Louisiana, during which Vivi, Teensy, Caro, and Necie endure crises of faith, lapses in parenting, brushes with alcoholism, and glimpses into racial bigotry.

Ya-Yas in Bloom

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R. Simpson

Former library book but still in excellent shape

Kansas

Investigators Prudence MacKenzie and ex-Pinkerton Geoffrey Hunter discover all that glitters is not gold in the Gilded Age, whether on the island of Manhattan or an island off the coast of Georgia ... DEATH BRINGS A SHADOW In spring 1889, Prudence and Geoffrey set sail from New York Harbor on a private yacht bound for Bradford Island, where her friend Eleanor Dickson is to be wed. The Sea Islands along the Georgia coast serve as a winter playground for the likes of the Carnegies, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and Dicksons. Despite her Yankee pedigree, Eleanor is marrying a Southern gentleman, Teddy Bennett, and Prudence is thrilled to be the maid of honor. But days before the wedding, the bride is nowhere to be found. A frantic search of the island turns up her drowned corpse in an alligator-infested swamp. Prudence is devastated, but as they prepare the body for burial, she and Geoffrey discover evidence of bruising that indicates Eleanor was held under--most dishonorably murdered. Determined to seek justice for her beloved friend, Prudence begins to investigate with Geoffrey's help and is quickly led into a morass of voodoo spells and dark deeds from the days of slavery. As Prudence and Geoffrey pursue a killer, they soon discover that Eleanor will not be the last to die on Bradford Island ...

Death Brings a Shadow

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Rush Limbaugh

New Jersey

Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans

Substitute middle-school history teacher Rush Revere takes his students back in time to experience American history as it happens aboard the Mayflower and on Plymouth Plantation.

Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims

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Virginia

Mrs. Everything

Previous owner’s bookplate and inscription on front free endpaper.

A Novel 

Granny Dan

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Button Man

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Florida

BOTM 

Queen of Thieves 

Sandra Brown

Alabama

A new page-turning historical thriller set in Prohibition-era Texas, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown​.

Blind Tiger

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Ohio

The honest and compelling story of a young girl's newfound independence, from her entrance into a new country to her frightening involvement in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. My heart filled with fear and hope at the same time. I had the feeling that I was brought to America for a purpose. Something important would happen to me here. I remembered the words of the poem, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses . . ." "Here we are, America," I whispered. "We're just exactly what you ordered." When she arrives on Ellis Island as a seventeen-year-old Irish immigrant, Rose Nolan is looking for a land of opportunities; what she finds is far from all she'd dreamed. Stubborn and tenacious, she refuses to give up. Left alone to fend for herself and her younger sister, Rose is thrust into a hard-knock life of tenements and factory work.When the devastating Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 rushes into Rose's life, her confusions are brought to an all-too-painful head. To whom and to what can she turn when everything around her is in ashes?

Ashes of Roses

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THIS TIME, JOHN GRISHAM TAKES YOU TO A DIFFERENT KIND OF COURT. In the summer of his seventeenth year, Sam­uel Sooleymon gets the chance of a lifetime: a trip to the United States with his South Sudanese teammates to play in a showcase basket­ball tournament. He has never been away from home, nor has he ever been on an airplane. The opportunity to be scouted by dozens of college coaches is a dream come true. Samuel is an amazing athlete, with speed, quick­ness, and an astonishing vertical leap. The rest of his game, though, needs work, and the American coaches are less than impressed. During the tournament, Samuel receives dev­astating news from home: A civil war is raging across South Sudan, and rebel troops have ran­sacked his village. His father is dead, his sister is missing, and his mother and two younger brothers are in a refugee camp. Samuel desperately wants to go home, but it's just not possible. Partly out of sympathy, the coach of North Carolina Central offers him a scholar­ship. Samuel moves to Durham, enrolls in classes, joins the team, and prepares to sit out his freshman season. There is plenty of more mature talent and he isn't immediately needed. But Samuel has something no other player has: a fierce determination to succeed so he can bring his family to America. He works tirelessly on his game, shooting baskets every morning at dawn by himself in the gym, and soon he's dominating everyone in practice. With the Central team los­ing and suffering injury after injury, Sooley, as he is nicknamed, is called off the bench. And the legend begins. But how far can Sooley take his team? And will success allow him to save his family? Gripping and moving, Sooley showcases John Grisham's unparalleled storytelling powers in a whole new light. This is Grisham at the top of his game.

Sooley

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Judy Blume

Connecticut

A novel inspired by a series of passenger airplane crashes that occurred in 1951 and 1952 New Jersey reimagines the impact of the tragedies on three generations of families, friends and strangers. Reading-group guide available. By the author ofSummer Sisters .

In the Unlikely Event

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Jennie Fields

Michigan

Reimagines the midlife world of Edith Wharton and the impact of her affair with a young journalist on her longtime friendship with disapproving literary secretary Anna Bahlmann, in a tale told against the vivid backdrops of Gilded Age Paris, the Wharton's elegant home in Lenox and Henry James's English manse. By the author of Lily Beach. 25,000 first printing.

The Age of Desire

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Amy Brill

Pennsylvania

“Gorgeous . . . Sings with insights about love, work and how we create our own families”—Oprah.com

“Amy Brill shines in her sparkling debut novel.”—Vanity Fair

 “Brill's rich detail and research are hugely impressive; it's easy to envision the scenes she sees.”—USA Today

“Beautifully written and richly characterized.”—Kirkus (starred review)

“A terrifically poised and captivating debut."—Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife

A love story set in 1845 Nantucket, between a female astronomer and the unusual man who understands her dreams.

It is 1845, and Hannah Gardner Price has lived all twenty-four years of her life according to the principles of the Nantucket Quaker community in which she was raised, where simplicity and restraint are valued above all, and a woman’s path is expected to lead to marriage and motherhood. But up on the rooftop each night, Hannah pursues a very different—and elusive—goal: discovering a comet and thereby winning a gold medal awarded by the King of Denmark, something unheard of for a woman.

And then she meets Isaac Martin, a young, dark-skinned whaler from the Azores who, like herself, has ambitions beyond his expected station in life. Drawn to his intellectual curiosity and honest manner, Hannah agrees to take Isaac on as a student. But when their shared interest in the stars develops into something deeper, Hannah’s standing in the community begins to unravel, challenging her most fundamental beliefs about work and love, and ultimately changing the course of her life forever.

Inspired by the work of Maria Mitchell, the first professional female astronomer in America, The Movement of Stars is a richly drawn portrait of desire and ambition in the face of adversity.

The Movement of Stars

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Kate Atkinson

The stunning companion to Kate Atkinson's #1 bestseller Life After Life, "one of the best novels I've read this century" (Gillian Flynn). "He had been reconciled to death during the war and then suddenly the war was over and there was a next day and a next day. Part of him never adjusted to having a future." Kate Atkinson's dazzling Life After Life explored the possibility of infinite chances and the power of choices, following Ursula Todd as she lived through the turbulent events of the last century over and over again. A GOD IN RUINS tells the dramatic story of the 20th Century through Ursula's beloved younger brother Teddy--would-be poet, heroic pilot, husband, father, and grandfather-as he navigates the perils and progress of a rapidly changing world. After all that Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge is living in a future he never expected to have. An ingenious and moving exploration of one ordinary man's path through extraordinary times, A GOD IN RUINS proves once again that Kate Atkinson is one of the finest novelists of our age.

A God in Ruins

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James Dashner

Read the book, follow the guide, play the game. ￼

Infinity Ring: Book 1

Time has gone wrong, and best friends Dak Smyth and Sera Froste, together with the young Hystorian Riq, must use the infinity ring to travel back to one of the Great Breaks--a mutiny on the Santa Marâia--to correct history and defeat the SQ.

A Mutiny in Time

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