In Tobsha Learner’s The Witch of Cologne, 17th century heroine Ruth bas Elazer Saul is first introduced to the Zohar by her mother, and then by her nurse, Rosa, after her mother’s passing. Ruth employs this sacred knowledge in her career as a midwife, using revolutionary methods of childbirth and healing that lead to accusations of witchcraft, imprisonment, and a forbidden love affair with Detlef Von Tennen: a Catholic vice-bishop of the Dome.
Set in the medieval cities of Cologne and Amsterdam during the time of the Inquisition, The Witch of Cologne is the story of the complex relationship between German Jewry and their Christian neighbors.
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After Middle Eastern war correspondent Caddie Blair loses her colleague and lover in an ambush, she is devastated by grief and unmoored by the sudden loss of her journalistic detachment. Operating without her normal instinct and internal compass, Caddie becomes a member of the community, no longer an outsider, and therefore increasingly vulnerable and volatile, especially in the face of her growing desire for revenge. Illuminating and perceptive, The Distance Between Us is as relevant and timely as it is powerful and gripping.
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Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman devastated by his tragic love affair with a married Frenchwoman, joins the army when World War I breaks out. In 1916, now an officer, he commands a brigade of soldiers in a bizarre campaign waged beneath German lines. On this nightmarish battlefield, Stephen will become both death’s agent and its dispassionate witness. And he will be reunited with the woman whose memory he tried so desperately to erase. Birdsong is at once an erotic love story and a powerful evocation of the carnage of war.
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Disgrace—set in post–apartheid Cape Town and on a remote farm in the Eastern Cape—is deft, lean, quiet, and brutal. A heartbreaking novel about a man and his daughter, Disgrace is a portrait of the new South Africa that is ultimately about grace and love.
At fifty—two Professor David Lurie is divorced, filled with desire but lacking passion. An affair with one of his students leaves him jobless and friendless, except for his daughter, Lucy, who works her smallholding with her neighbor, Petrus, an African farmer now on the way to a modest prosperity. David’s attempts to relate to Lucy,
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When Melanie Marsh learns that her son Daniel is autistic, she becomes determined to fight to teach Daniel to speak, play, and become as normal as possible. Melanie’s enchanting disposition has helped her weather some of life’s storms, but Daniel’s autism may just push her over the brink, destroying her resolute optimism and bringing her unsteady marriage to its end. Surprisingly funny yet deeply moving, Daniel Isn’t Talking is the story of a mother and a family in crisis. What sets it apart from most novels about difficult subjects is Marti Leimbach’s ability to write about a sad and frightening situation with a seamless blend of warmth,
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Artist Miranda Jones loves the life she’s been building in the picturesque coastal town of Milford-Haven. But while persistent dreams of a deep connection with a man haunt her, she’s unable to tell whether dashing Zack Calvin’s attentions are genuine. Sally is distracted from dishing up her home cooking by the reappearance of her high school sweetheart, Vietnam Veteran Tony Fiorentino. With the disappearance of reporter Chris Christian, Deputy Delmar Johnson digs for clues. Meanwhile the Doobie Brothers give a sold-out concert at the Central Coast Bowl against a web of complex relationships backstage, and Samantha Hugo’s private journal reveals her struggle to discover whether her long lost child is farther away than ever,
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