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SONG OF THE CROW
by Layne Maheu
The secrets of the dead are in her hands.
At a time when many of us are searching for meaning, Layne
Maheu's extraordinary debut asks us to linger with our
questions in an ancient world. And that turns out to be a good place
to ponder the unsettled state of things. In
"Song of the Crow," Maheu has created a lyrical meditation
on the relationship between humanity and the heavens.
This remarkable story is also a provocative portrait of
the reasons for human fear and hope--and of the role that
Free Will always plays when we struggle, not just to
make sense of things, but to survive.
THE CHILDREN'S WAR
by Monique Charlesworth
This is the story of two children caught in the midst of war.
It is 1939 and thirteen-year-old Ilse, half-Jewish, has been sent
out of Germany by her Aryan mother to a place of supposed safety.
Her journey takes her from the laby- inthine bazaars of Morocco to
Paris, a city made hectic at the threat of Nazi invasion. At the
same time in Germany, Nicolai, a boy miserably destined for the
Hitler Youth movement, finds comfort in the friendship of Ilse's
mother, the nursemaid hired to take care of his young sister.
Gripping, vivid, and utterly engaging, "The Children's War" is a
stunning novel of wartime lives, of parents and children, of
adventure and self-discovery.
ACTS OF FAITH
by Philip Caputo
T hirty years ago,
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and
journalist Philip Caputo crossed the deserts of Sudan and Eritrea on
foot and camelback, a journey that inspired his first novel, "Horn
of Africa," and awakened a lifelong fascination with Africa. His
travels have since taken him back to Sudan, as well as to Kenya,
Somalia, and Tanzania, and from those experiences he has fashioned
"Acts of Faith," his most ambitious novel. A stunning and timely
epic, it tells the stories of pilots, aid workers, missionaries, and
renegades struggling to relieve the misery wrought by the civil war
in Sudan.
Douglas Braithwaite, an American aviator who flies food and medicine
to Sudan's ravaged south, is torn between his altruism and powerful
personal ambitions. His partners are Fitzhugh Martin, a multiracial
Kenyan who sees Sudan as a cause that can give purpose to his
directionless life, and Wesley Dare, a hard-bitten bush pilot who is
not as cynical as he thinks he is and sacrifices all for the woman
he loves.
THE YEAR OF PLEASURES
by Elizabeth Berg
Betta Nolan moves to a small town after the death of her
husband to try to begin anew. Pursuing a dream of a different kind
of life, she is determined to find pleasure in her simple daily
routines. Among those who help her in both expected and unexpected
ways are the ten-year-old boy next door, three wild women friends
from her college days, a twenty-year-old who is struggling to find
his place in the world, and a handsome man who is ready for love
THE SNOW FOX
by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
Is one's fate created by the people one is lucky or unlucky enough
to love? "The Snow Fox" raises this question as it brings to life
three people who existed almost one thousand years ago in Japan. One
of them is Lord Norimasa, whose highest love is to reunify his
country and restore peace. The second is a member of his court, Lady
Utsu, one of the supreme poetic geniuses of her time. She is also a
woman renowned as the country's most beautiful woman, as famous for
her cruelty as for her beauty and artistry. The third is Matsuhito,
a samurai who apprentices himself to Lord Norimasa, and who, in
time,
becomes a legendary warrior.
THE SECRET LIVES OF FORTUNATE
WIVES
by Sarah Strohmeyer
FROM THE BOOK JACKET:
Pampered Hunting Hills, Ohio, socialite Marti Denton never realized
she was madly in love with John Harding until he impulsively married
Claire Stark, a beautiful but socially awkward newspaper reporter to
whom a "coming-out" party is a controversy, not a tradition. It's
not until the Hunting Hills wives are plunged into a series of
explosive scandals that the two women reach a new understanding of
each other and what it means to be a fortunate wife in the
twenty-first century.
In "The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives," Sarah Strohmeyer has
written a "Stepford Wives" for our time---funny, wise, and
eye-opening.
ALOFT
by Chang-rae Lee
"Aloft" offers a reexamination of the American dream from the inside
out, through the voice of Jerry Battle, a suburban middle-aged man
who has lived his entire life on Long Island, New York.
Battle's favorite diversion is to fly his small plane solo;
slipping away for quick flights over the Island or to the
coastal towns of New England, Jerry has been disappearing for years.
Then a family crisis occurs, and Jerry finds he must face his
disengagement in his relationships: with his deceased wife, the
circumstances of whose death he has never fully accepted; with his
former girlfriend, whom he
still longs for; with his daughter, who refuses to address the
disease that threatens her life; with his son, who is in danger of
losing the family business; and with his father, whom he has placed
in a nursing home.
PAWLEYS ISLAND
by Dorothea Benton Frank
FROM THE BOOK JACKET:
"New York Times" bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank takes us
to the unforgettable shores of Pawleys Island in this refreshingly
honest and funny novel about friendship, family, and finding
happiness by becoming who you are meant to be.
When Becca Sims wanders into the beautiful seaside Gallery Valentine
hoping to sell some of her watercolors, she has no idea her life is
about to be transformed by the gallery's owner and his best friend.
With vivid, unforgettable characters, dreamy Lowcountry setting, and
the authentically brazen, compulsively readable Southern voice that
have made her one of today's greatest storytellers, Dorothea Benton
Frank delivers her most extraordinary novel yet.
THE LAST KINGDOM
by Bernard Cornwell
FROM THE BOOK JACKET:
From Bernard Cornwell, the "New York Times" bestselling author whom
the "Washington Post" calls "perhaps the greatest writer of
historical adventure novels today," comes a saga of blood, rage,
fidelity, and betrayal that brings to center stage King Alfred the
Great, one of the most crucial (but oft-forgotten) figures in
English history. It is King Alfred and his heirs who, in the ninth
and tenth centuries, with their backs against the wall, fought to
secure the survival of the last outpost of Anglo-Saxon culture by
battling the ferocious Vikings, whose invading warriors had already
captured and occupied three of England's four kingdoms..
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