Recommendations based on "Run River"
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By Ruta Sepetys
New York Times Bestseller and winner of the Carnegie Medal! "Masterfully crafted"—The Wall Street JournalFor readers of Between Shades of Gray and All the Light We Cannot See, Ruta Sepetys returns to WWII in this epic novel that shines a light on one of the war's most devastating—yet unknown—tragedies.World War II is drawing to a close in East Prussia and thousands of refugees are on a desperate trek toward freedom, many with something to hide. Among them are Joana, Emilia, and Florian, whose paths converge en route to the ship that promises salvation, the Wilhelm Gustloff. Forced by circumstance to unite, the three find their strength, courage, and trust in each other tested with each step closer to safety.Just when it seems freedom is within their grasp, tragedy strikes. Not country, nor culture, nor status matter as all ten thousand people—adults and children alike—aboard must fight for the same thing: survival.Told in alternating points of view and perfect for fans of Anthony Doerr's Pulitzer Prize-winning All the Light We Cannot See, Erik Larson's Dead Wake, and Elizabeth Wein's Printz Honor Book Code Name Verity, this masterful work of historical fiction is inspired by the real-life tragedy that was the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff—the greatest maritime disaster in history. As she did in Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys unearths a shockingly little-known casualty of a gruesome war, and proves that humanity and love can prevail, even in the darkest of hours.Praise for Salt to the Sea:Featured on NPR's Morning Edition ♦ "Superlative...masterfully crafted...[a] powerful work of historical fiction."—The Wall Street Journal ♦ "[Sepetys is] a master of YA fiction…she once again anchors a panoramic view of epic tragedy in perspectives that feel deeply textured and immediate."—Entertainment Weekly ♦ "Riveting...powerful...haunting."—The Washington Post ♦ "Compelling for both adult and teenage readers."—New York Times Book Review ♦ "Intimate, extraordinary, artfully crafted...brilliant."—Shelf Awareness ♦ "Historical fiction at its very, very best."—The Globe and Mail ♦ "[H]aunting, heartbreaking, hopeful and altogether gorgeous...one of the best young-adult novels to appear in a very long time."—Salt Lake Tribune ♦ *"This haunting gem of a novel begs to be remembered."—Booklist ♦ *"Artfully told and sensitively crafted...will leave readers weeping."—School Library Journal ♦ A PW and SLJ 2016 Book of the YearPraise for Between Shades of Gray:A New York Times Notable Book ♦ A Wall Street Journal Best Children’s Book ♦ A PW, SLJ, Booklist, and Kirkus Best Book ♦ iTunes 2011 Rewind Best Teen Novel ♦ A Carnegie Medal and William C. Morris Finalist ♦ A New York Times and International Bestseller ♦ "Few books are beautifully written, fewer still are important; this novel is both."—The Washington Post ♦ *"[A]n important book that deserves the widest possible readership."—Booklist
By Kiran Millwood Hargrave
After the men in an Arctic Norwegian town are wiped out, the women must survive a sinister threat in this "perfectly told" 1600s parable of "a world gone mad" (Adriana Trigiani).Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardø must fend for themselves.Three years later, a stranger arrives on their shore. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband's authority and terrified by it. In Vardø, and in Maren, Ursa sees something she has never seen before: independent women. But Absalom sees only a place untouched by God, and flooded with a mighty evil. As Maren and Ursa are drawn to one another in ways that surprise them both, the island begins to close in on them, with Absalom's iron rule threatening Vardø's very existence.Inspired by the real events of the Vardø storm and the 1621 witch trials, The Mercies is a story of love, evil, and obsession, set at the edge of civilization.One of the Best Books of the YearUSA TodayGood Housekeeping
By Diana Gabaldon
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The eighth book in Diana Gabaldon’s acclaimed Outlander saga, the basis for the Starz original series.“Features all the passion and swashbuckling that fans of this historical fantasy series have come to expect.”—People1778: France declares war on Great Britain, the British army leaves Philadelphia, and George Washington’s troops leave Valley Forge in pursuit. At this moment, Jamie Fraser returns from a presumed watery grave to discover that his best friend has married his wife, his illegitimate son has discovered (to his horror) who his father really is, and his beloved nephew, Ian, wants to marry a Quaker. Meanwhile, Jamie’s wife, Claire Randall, and his sister, Jenny, are busy picking up the pieces.The Frasers can only be thankful that their daughter Brianna and her family are safe in twentieth-century Scotland. Or not. In fact, Brianna is searching for her own son, who was kidnapped by a man determined to learn her family’s secrets. Her husband, Roger, has ventured into the past in search of the missing boy . . . never suspecting that the object of his quest has not left the present. Now, with Roger out of the way, the kidnapper can focus on his true target: Brianna herself.NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKLIST
By J. Ryan Stradal
A National Bestseller! “The perfect pick-me-up on a hot summer day.” —Washington Post “[A] charmer of a tale. . . Warm, witty and--like any good craft beer--complex, the saga delivers a subtly feminist and wholly life-affirming message.” —People Magazine A novel of family, Midwestern values, hard work, fate and the secrets of making a world-class beer, from the bestselling author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest Two sisters, one farm. A family is split when their father leaves their shared inheritance entirely to Helen, his younger daughter. Despite baking award-winning pies at the local nursing home, her older sister, Edith, struggles to make what most people would call a living. So she can't help wondering what her life would have been like with even a portion of the farm money her sister kept for herself. With the proceeds from the farm, Helen builds one of the most successful light breweries in the country, and makes their company motto ubiquitous: "Drink lots. It's Blotz." Where Edith has a heart as big as Minnesota, Helen's is as rigid as a steel keg. Yet one day, Helen will find she needs some help herself, and she could find a potential savior close to home. . . if it's not too late. Meanwhile, Edith's granddaughter, Diana, grows up knowing that the real world requires a tougher constitution than her grandmother possesses. She earns a shot at learning the IPA business from the ground up--will that change their fortunes forever, and perhaps reunite her splintered family? Here we meet a cast of lovable, funny, quintessentially American characters eager to make their mark in a world that's often stacked against them. In this deeply affecting family saga, resolution can take generations, but when it finally comes, we're surprised, moved, and delighted.
By Joanna Goodman
Philomena meets Orphan Train in this suspenseful, provocative novel filled with love, secrets, and deceit—the story of a young unwed mother who is forcibly separated from her daughter at birth and the lengths to which they go to find each other. In 1950s Quebec, French and English tolerate each other with precarious civility—much like Maggie Hughes’ parents. Maggie’s English-speaking father has ambitions for his daughter that don’t include marriage to the poor French boy on the next farm over. But Maggie’s heart is captured by Gabriel Phénix. When she becomes pregnant at fifteen, her parents force her to give baby Elodie up for adoption and get her life ‘back on track’. Elodie is raised in Quebec’s impoverished orphanage system. It’s a precarious enough existence that takes a tragic turn when Elodie, along with thousands of other orphans in Quebec, is declared mentally ill as the result of a new law that provides more funding to psychiatric hospitals than to orphanages. Bright and determined, Elodie withstands abysmal treatment at the nuns’ hands, finally earning her freedom at seventeen, when she is thrust into an alien, often unnerving world. Maggie, married to a businessman eager to start a family, cannot forget the daughter she was forced to abandon, and a chance reconnection with Gabriel spurs a wrenching choice. As time passes, the stories of Maggie and Elodie intertwine but never touch, until Maggie realizes she must take what she wants from life and go in search of her long-lost daughter, finally reclaiming the truth that has been denied them both.
By Kristin Dwyer
“A complete knockout. Readers will be thinking of this story long after they finish the final page.” —Adalyn Grace, New York Times bestselling author of Belladonna“Utterly compelling and impossible to put down.” —Rachel Griffin, New York Times bestselling author of Bring Me Your Midnight“I’ve never read a book that felt so much like picking up pieces of a broken heart—powerful, poignant, and true.” —Axie Oh, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea and XOXOAtlas has lost her way.In a last-ditch effort to pull her life together, she’s working on a community service program rehabbing trails in the Western Sierras. The only plus is that the days are so exhausting that Atlas might just be tired enough to forget that this was one of her dad’s favorite places in the world. Before cancer stole him from her life, that is.Using real names is forbidden on the trail. So Atlas becomes Maps, and with her team—Books, Sugar, Junior, and King—she heads into the wilderness. As she sheds the lies she’s built up as walls to protect herself, she realizes that four strangers might know her better than anyone has before. And with the end of the trail racing to meet them, Maps is left counting down the days until she returns to her old life—without her new family, and without King, who’s become more than just a friend.
By Barbara Keating, Stephanie Keating
An epic tale of impossible love, of families torn apart and a whole world of hidden secrets—"And to my daughter in France, I bequeath the remainder of my Estate." These words, read from the will of Irish academic Richard Kirwan, come as a complete surprise to his grieving family. Solange de Valnay's perfectly ordered world is shattered when she discovers the identity of her true father for the first time. But the truth of Richard Kirwan's liaison with her mother cannot remain buried, and the Kirwan children and their half-sister must overcome their differences and confront the past that unites them. What emerges is an extraordinary tale of an impossible but irresistible love affair, of passion and blind heroism, of sacrifices made for love and honor, and of four families whose resistance to the German forces, occupying France during the Second World War, binds them across borders and cultures and through war and peace.
By Kristin Hannah
For eighteen years, Jude Farraday has put her children's needs above her own, and it shows―her twins, Mia and Zach, are bright and happy teenagers. When Lexi Baill moves into their small, close-knit community, no one is more welcoming than Jude. Lexi, a former foster child with a dark past, quickly becomes Mia's best friend. Then Zach falls in love with Lexi and the three become inseparable.Jude does everything to keep her kids out of harm's way. But senior year of high school tests them all. It's a dangerous, explosive season of drinking, driving, parties, and kids who want to let loose. And then on a hot summer's night, one bad decision is made. In the blink of an eye, the Farraday family will be torn apart and Lexi will lose everything. In the years that follow, each must face the consequences of that single night and find a way to forget…or the courage to forgive.Vivid, universal, and emotionally complex, Night Road raises profound questions about motherhood, identity, love, and forgiveness. It is a luminous, heartbreaking novel that captures both the exquisite pain of loss and the stunning power of hope. This is Kristin Hannah at her very best, telling an unforgettable story about the longing for family, the resilience of the human heart, and the courage it takes to forgive the people we love."You cannot read Night Road and not be affected by the story and the characters. The total impact of the book will stay with you for days to come after it is finished." ―The Huffington Post
By Ann-Marie MacDonald
“the Sun Came Out After The War And Our World Went Technicolor. Everyone Had The Same Idea. Let’s Get Married. Let’s Have Kids. Let’s Be The Ones Who Do It Right.” The Way The Crow Flies, The Second Novel By Bestselling, Award-winning Author Ann-marie Macdonald, Is Set On The Royal Canadian Air Force Station Of Centralia During The Early Sixties. It Is A Time Of Optimism--infused With The Excitement Of The Space Race But Overshadowed By The Menace Of The Cold War--filtered Through The Rich Imagination And Quick Humour Of Eight-year-old Madeleine Mccarthy And The Idealism Of Her Father, Jack, A Career Officer. Ann-marie Macdonald Said In A Discussion With Oprah Winfrey About Her First Book, “a Happy Ending Is When Someone Can Walk Out Of The Rubble And Tell The Story.” Madeleine Achieves Her Childhood Dream Of Becoming A Comedian, Yet Twenty Years Later She Realises She Cannot Rest Until She Has Renewed The Quest For The Truth, And Confirmed How And Why The Child Was Murdered.. Publishers Weekly, In A Starred Review, Called The Way The Crow Flies “absorbing, Psychologically Rich…a Chronicle Of Innocence Betrayed”. With Compassion And Intelligence, And An Unerring Eye For The Absurd As Well As The Confusions Of Childhood, , Macdonald Evokes The Confusion Of Being Human And The Necessity Of Coming To Terms With Our Imperfections.
By Diane Richards
In the vein of The Paris Wife and The Personal Librarian comes this debut novel, a magnificent work of “biographical fiction” that reimagines the turbulent and triumphant early years of Ella Fitzgerald, arguably the greatest singer of the twentieth century.When fifteen-year-old Ella Fitzgerald’s mother dies at the height of the Depression in 1932, the teenager goes to work for the mob to support herself and her family. When the law finally catches up, the “ungovernable” adolescent is incarcerated in the New York Training School for Girls in upstate New York—a wicked prison infamous for its harsh treatment of inmates, especially Black ones. Determined to be free, Ella escapes and makes her way back to Harlem, where she is forced to dance for pennies on the street.Looking for a break into show business, Ella draws straws to appear at the Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night on November 21, 1934. Rather than perform a dance routine directly after “The World Famous Edwards Sisters” number, the homeless Ella, wearing men’s galoshes a size too big, risks everything when she decides to sing Judy instead. Four years later, at barely twenty-one, Ella Fitzgerald has become the bestselling female vocalist in America.Diane Richards’ Ella Fitzgerald is inspiring and intriguing—an emotionally rich, psychologically complex character, a flawed mother and wife who struggles with deep emotional scars and trauma and battles racism, sexism, and colorism as she learns to find her voice on the stage. Ella takes us from the brothels, speakeasys, and streets of Depression-era New York City to the grand hotel suites where Ella, now older and wiser, looks back on her life and finally confronts the demons from childhood that torment her.Compelling and rich in historical detail, Ella is a remarkable debut novel about an extraordinary woman.