Bookmark the Blog


WINTER’S RECKONING

One of our recommended books is Winter's Reckoning by Adele Holmes

In 1917, Madeline Fairbanks is an herbalist healer devoted to the people of Jamesville, a dying town in the Southern Appalachians. Renetta Morgan—with whom it is taboo to fraternize because of race—is her apprentice. Maddie’s precocious granddaughter, Hannah Tillman, is mesmerized by an ancestral box in Maddie’s possession that contains hints of a mystical heritage.

On a cold September wind, charismatic Carl Howard blows into town astraddle a stallion of near-mythic proportions. With no reason to doubt him, the town accepts him as their new pastor. But Carl casts a wider net, claiming power, leadership, and much more than he has a right to.

read more

THE ELEPHANT GIRL

One of our recommended books is The Elephant Girl by James Patterson, Ellen Banda-Aaku and Sophia Krevoy

#1 bestselling author James Patterson and award-winning author Ellen Banda-Aaku deliver an unforgettable story of a girl, an elephant, and their life-changing friendship.

Clever, sensitive Jama likes elephants better than people. While her classmates gossip—especially about the new boy, Leku—twelve-year-old Jama takes refuge at the watering hole outside her village. There she befriends a baby elephant she names Mbegu, Swahili for seed.

When Mbegu’s mother, frightened by poachers, stampedes, Jama and Mbegu are blamed for two deaths—one elephant and one human. Now Leku, whose mysterious and imposing father is head ranger at the conservancy, may be their only lifeline.

read more

DRAGONFLY EYES

One of our recommended books is Dragonfly Eyes by Cao Wenxuan

Ah-Mei and her French grandmother, Nainai, share a rare bond. Maybe it’s because Ah-Mei is the only girl grandchild. Or maybe it’s because the pair look so much alike and neither resembles the rest of their Chinese family. Politics and war make 1960s Shanghai a hard place to grow up, especially when racism and bigotry are rife, and everyone seems suspicious of Nainai’s European heritage and interracial marriage. In this time of political upheaval, Ah-Mei and her family suffer much—and when the family silk business falters, they are left with almost nothing. Ah-Mei and her grandmother are resourceful, but will the tender connection they share bring them enough strength to carry through?

read more

THE HIDDEN PALACE

One of our recommended books is The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker

In this enthralling historical epic, set in New York City and the Middle East in the years leading to World War I– the long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Golem and the Jinni–Helene Wecker revisits her beloved characters Chava and Ahmad as they confront unexpected new challenges in a rapidly changing human world.

Chava is a golem, a woman made of clay, who can hear the thoughts and longings of those around her and feels compelled by her nature to help them. Ahmad is a jinni, a restless creature of fire,

read more

LITTLE SOULS

One of our recommended books is Little Souls by Sandra Dallas

Sandra Dallas’s Little Souls is a gripping tale of sisterhood, loyalty, and secrets set in Denver amid America’s last deadly flu pandemic

Colorado, 1918. World War I is raging overseas, but it’s the home front battling for survival. With the Spanish Flu rampant, Denver’s schools are converted into hospitals, churches and funeral homes are closed, and nightly horse-drawn wagons collect corpses left in the street. Sisters Helen and Lutie have moved to Denver from Ohio after their parents’ death. Helen, a nurse, and Lutie, a carefree advertising designer at Neusteter’s department store, share a small, neat house and each finds a local beau – for Helen a doctor,

read more

THE TSARINA’S DAUGHTER

One of our recommended books is The Tsarina's Daughter by Ellen Alpsten

Ellen Alpsten’s stunning novel, The Tsarina’s Daughter, is the dramatic story of Elizabeth, daughter of Catherine I and Peter the Great, who ruled Russia during an extraordinary life marked by love, danger, passion and scandal.

Born into the House of Romanov to the all-powerful Peter the Great and his wife, Catherine, a former serf, beautiful Tsarevna Elizabeth is the envy of the Russian empire. She is insulated by luxury and spoiled by her father, who dreams for her to marry King Louis XV of France and rule in Versailles. But when a woodland creature gives her a Delphic prophecy,

read more