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CHOSEN

It all begins with a fantasy . . . caseworker in her “paperwork-signing” suit alongside beaming parents cradling their adopted newborn: this is the blissful picture that keeps Chloe Pinter, director of Portland’s Chosen Child domestic adoption program, happy as she juggles the demands of her boss and the incessant needs of adoptive and biological parents.

But the dream job that offers Chloe refuge from her turbulent personal life soon becomes a nightmare involving three very different couples: the college sweethearts who, after suffering fertility problems, are now expecting their own baby; the wealthy husband and desperate wife for whom adoption is a last chance;

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PROOF OF HEAVEN

A mother’s faith, a child’s courage, a doctor’s dedication—a moving and thought-provoking tale of hope, love, and family…

He might be young, but Colm already recognizes the truth: that he’s sick and not getting better. His mother, Cathleen, fiercely believes her faith will protect her ailing son, but Colm is not so sure. With a wisdom far beyond his years, Colm has come to terms with his probable fate, but he does have one special wish. He wants to meet his father who abandoned his beloved mother before Colm was born.

But the quest to find the dying boy’s missing parent soon becomes a powerful journey of emotional discovery—a test of belief and an anxious search for proof of heaven.

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FORSAKING ALL OTHERS

Camilla Fox is alive. The last thing she remembers is being lost in the

snow after leaving her home to escape the Mormon faith she no longer

calls her own. She’s been taken in by the 5th Infantry Regiment of the

US Army and given over to the personal care of Captain Charles Brandon.

As she regains her strength, memories of her two children she had to

leave behind come flooding back, threatening to break her heart. Camilla

is determined to reunite with her daughters. But when news of her

father’s grave illness reaches her,

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THE SISTERS

Growing up in hardscrabble Kentucky in the 1920s, with their mother dead and their stepfather an ever-present threat, Bertie Fischer and her older sister Mabel have no one but each other—with perhaps a sweetheart for Bertie waiting in the wings. But on the day that Bertie receives her eighth-grade diploma, good intentions go terribly wrong. A choice made in desperate haste sets off a chain of misunderstandings that will divide the sisters and reverberate through three generations of women.

What happens when nothing turns out as you planned? From the Depression through World War II and Vietnam, and smaller events both tragic and joyful,

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RUINS

Usnavy has always been a true believer.

When the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959, he was just a young man

and eagerly signed on for all of its promises. But as the years have

passed, the sacrifices have outweighed the glories and he’s become

increasingly isolated in his revolutionary zeal. His friends openly mock

him, his wife dreams of owning a car totally outside their reach, and

his beloved fourteen-year-old daughter haunts the coast of Havana,

staring north.

In the summer of 1994, a few years after the collapse of

the Soviet Union,

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THE SILENCE OF TREES

In Chicago’s Ukrainian Village, Nadya Lysenko has built her life on a

foundation of secrets. When she was sixteen, Nadya snuck out of her

house in Western Ukraine to meet a fortuneteller in the woods. She never

expected it to be the last time she would see her family.

Decades later, Nadya continues to be haunted by the death of her parents

and sisters. The myths and magic of her childhood are still a part of

her reality: dreams unite friends across time and space, house spirits

misplace keys and glasses,

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