Bookmark the Blog


WHEN MADELINE WAS YOUNG

Jane Hamilton, award-winning author of The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World, is back in top form with a richly textured novel about a tragic accident and its effects on two generations of a family.

When Aaron Maciver’s beautiful young wife, Madeline, suffers brain damage in a bike accident, she is left with the intellectual powers of a six-year-old. In the years that follow, Aaron and his second wife care for Madeline with deep tenderness and devotion as they raise two children of their own.

Narrated by Aaron’s son,

read more

THE FISHERMAN’S QUILT

In The Fisherman’s Quilt, young Nora Hunter arrives in Alaska with her fisherman husband and infant daughter. She brings her first, fancy quilt to Alaska, along with an idealistic vision of life on America’s last frontier.

Soon after arriving in the town of Kodiak, Nora’s husband is off on a fishing boat, pursuing the “deadliest catch.” As she realizes she is the wife of a loner, Nora encounters the dark side of Kodiak culture – instability, alcoholism, greed, recklessness, disloyalty, loneliness, and drug-taking.

Nora doesn’t accept the culture she’s found and as she seeks another,

read more

GARDENIAS

In a story about love, independence, and the power of women, renowned author Faith Sullivan captures World War II on the home front. It is 1942, only a month after the United States has joined the war, and everything is in upheaval—including the Erhardt family. Arlene has left her husband to pursue a new life in California, taking her sister, Betty, and nine-year-old Lark with her.

Betty and Arlene quickly find jobs in the booming San Diego wartime industry, and a small house to rent in a housing project. In a community full of people with similarly uprooted lives,

read more

THE GARDEN OF RUTH

Sitting beneath a tree in ancient Bethlehem, Osnath, niece of the prophet Samuel, examines a dusty scrap of parchment she found hidden in her relative’s scroll room. Scrawled on the decaying page is an intriguing message addressed to Ruth the Moabite—great-grandmother of David, the future king of Israel. Compelled to discover the truth about Ruth’s life, Osnath begins searching for the identity of Ruth’s nameless lover and the secret that is still cloaked behind his anonymity. But as she digs deeper into the past, she finds her inquiries blocked by David’s brother Eliab. What is the long-buried truth he fears will come to light?

read more

THE THRALL’S TALE

Set in Viking Greenland in AD 985, this dramatic novel focuses on the intertwined lives of three women—Katla, who was born into slavery when Vikings seized her Irish mother; Thorbjorg, a seeress steeped in the pagan Norse religion; and Bibrau, the strange silent child Katla bears after she is brutally raped by her master’s son, Torvard. Together these women recount the hardship and wonder of the first years of the Norse colony and the great change that comes to the settlers after Leif, son of Eirik the Red, brings Christianity to Greenland. For Katla, who has long whispered her mother’s Christian blessings in secret,

read more

THE SWEET LIFE

In The Sweet Life, Lynn York catches up with the good people of Swan’s Knob, North Carolina for another poignant, funny, and beautifully realized glimpse of small-town life.

It’s been eight years since Roy Swan successfully won the hand of the piano teacher and resident choir director, Miss Wilma, and their lives have settled into a state of happy predictability. All that changes with the arrival Miss Wilma’s teenage granddaughter and Harper, the girl’s father. When Harper convinces Roy to let him stage a “small” country and bluegrass concert in his pasture, it draws thousands of screaming fans,

read more