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HALF BROKE

One of our recommended books for 2020 is Half Broke by Ginger Gaffney

A top-ranked horse trainer’s gorgeous, life-affirming memoir that offers profound insight into the fascinating ways both horses and humans seek relationships to survive.

At the start of this remarkable story of recovery, healing, and redemption, Ginger Gaffney answers a call to help retrain the troubled horses at an alternative prison ranch in New Mexico, a facility run entirely by the prisoners. The horses are scavenging through the dumpsters, kicking and running down the residents when they bring the trash out after meals. One horse is severely injured.

The horses and residents arrive at the ranch broken in one way or many: the horses are defensive and terrified,

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THE OTHER BENNET SISTER

One of our recommended books for 2020 is The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow

Mary, the bookish ugly duckling of Pride and Prejudice’s five Bennet sisters, emerges from the shadows and transforms into a desired woman with choices of her own.

What if Mary Bennet’s life took a different path from that laid out for her in Pride and Prejudice? What if the frustrated intellectual of the Bennet family, the marginalized middle daughter, the plain girl who takes refuge in her books, eventually found the fulfillment enjoyed by her prettier, more confident sisters? This is the plot of Janice Hadlow’s The Other Bennet Sister,

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A WOMAN IS NO MAN

One of our recommended books for 2020 is A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum

In her debut novel Etaf Rum tells the story of three generations of Palestinian-American women struggling to express their individual desires within the confines of their Arab culture in the wake of shocking intimate violence in their community—a story of culture and honor, secrets and betrayals, love and violence. Set in an America at once foreign to many and staggeringly close at hand, A Woman Is No Man is an intimate glimpse into a controlling and closed cultural world, and a universal tale about family and the ways silence and shame can destroy those we have sworn to protect.

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REAL LIFE

One of our recommended books for 2020 is Real Life by Adeline Dieudonné

The innocence of fairy tales meets the terror of a Stephen King thriller in this international bestseller by Belgian author Adeline Dieudonné. A #1 bestseller in France, Real Life has won 14 prestigious European literary awards, is being translated into 20 languages and was just selected by the American Booksellers Association as the only translated debut honored as part of their Indies Introduce program. In Real Life, the young heroine struggles to free herself from her abusive father and indifferent mother through science, education, and courageous resilience and reminds us of Turtle in Gabriel Tallent’s My Absolute Darling.

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THE SCENT KEEPER

One of our recommended books for 2020 is The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister

Erica Bauermeister, the national bestselling author of The School of Essential Ingredients, presents a moving and evocative coming-of-age novel about childhood stories, families lost and found, and how a fragrance conjures memories capable of shaping the course of our lives.

Emmeline lives an enchanted childhood on a remote island with her father, who teaches her about the natural world through her senses. What he won’t explain are the mysterious scents stored in the drawers that line the walls of their cabin, or the origin of the machine that creates them. As Emmeline grows,

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IN MY OWN MOCCASINS

One of our recommended books for 2020 is In My Own Moccasins by Helen Knott

A reflection on what can be said about addiction, trauma, and the pains of sexual violence.

Helen Knott, a highly accomplished Indigenous woman, seems to have it all. But in her memoir, she offers a different perspective. In My Own Moccasins is an unflinching account of addiction, intergenerational trauma, and the wounds brought on by sexual violence. It is also the story of sisterhood, the power of ceremony, the love of family, and the possibility of redemption.

With gripping moments of withdrawal, times of spiritual awareness, and historical insights going back to the signing of Treaty 8 by her great-great grandfather,

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