Dawn's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 27 Apr 2025 06:00:46 -0700 60 Dawn's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Come Shell or High Water (A Haunted Shell Shop Mystery)]]> 218155571
As a professional storyteller, Maureen Nash can’t help but see the narrative cues woven through her life. Like the series of letters addressed to her late husband from a stranger—the proprietor of The Moon Shell, a shop on Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. The store is famous with shell collectors, but it’s the cryptic letters from Allen Withrow, the shop’s owner, that convince Maureen to travel to the small coastal town in the middle of hurricane season. At the very least, she expects she’ll get a good story out of the experience, never anticipating it could end up a murder mystery . . .

In Maureen’s first hours on the storm-lashed island, she averts several life-threatening accidents, stumbles over the body of a controversial Ocracoke local, and meets the ghost of an eighteenth-century Welsh pirate, Emrys Lloyd. To the untrained eye, all these unusual occurrences would seem to be random misfortunes, but Maureen senses there may be something connecting these stories. With Emrys’s supernatural assistance, and the support of a few new friends, Maureen sets out unravel the truth, find a killer, and hopefully give this tale a satisfying ending . . . while also rewriting her own.]]>
304 Molly MacRae 1496744284 Dawn 0 to-read 0.0 2024 Come Shell or High Water (A Haunted Shell Shop Mystery)
author: Molly MacRae
name: Dawn
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Silverleaf Rapids (Ransom Canyon #0)]]> 220585365
Virgin River meets Yellowstone against the breathtaking, rugged backdrop of West Texas in this compelling, emotional origin story behind New York Times bestselling author Jodi Thomas’s Ransom Canyon saga—filled with love, challenges, and a timeless passion for the land and its people.

Deep in the heart of Texas, five generations of Kirklands built the sprawling Double K Ranch, battling fire and frost, outlaws and disease. It’s said the dirt flows through their veins as sure as Silverleaf Rapids flows through Ransom Canyon. But the canyon also had a way of becoming part of just about anyone who landed there . . .

19-year-old Staten Kirkland was studying at Texas Tech when he got the news that the grandfather who raised him, J.R. Kirkland, was fighting for his life. Now Staten would have to leave college behind, not to mention the girl he loved. And he’d have to grow up overnight. More than that, he’d have to become a boss—the boss—running thousands of acres of ranch. He’d always hated change. But change was barreling toward him . . .

Rootless and stuck in the dull routine that was her life, college professor Charlotte Lane escaped into fiction. But now she was restless for a change—in the form of being the new high school teacher at the small town bordering Ransom Canyon. Still, at this point in her life, what if she couldn’t change—or even remember how? Maybe she’d find others to show her the way . . .

The youngest of six, Peggy Warner came last in every way, not even worth sending to college. Now 27, she’s never left home and lives in service to her aging parents and her married siblings� growing families. But she still has dreams—and under the big sky overlooking Ransom Canyon they may come true . . .]]>
272 Jodi Thomas 1496748158 Dawn 0 to-read 4.50 Silverleaf Rapids (Ransom Canyon #0)
author: Jodi Thomas
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Pocket Bear 220908889
Now, over a century later, Pocket serves as unofficial mayor of Second Chances Home for the Tossed and Treasured, where stuffed toy animals are refurbished and given a fresh opportunity to be loved. He and his best feline friend Zephyrina, a Maine Coon known far and wide as “The Cat Burglar,� have seen it all, and then some.

An unforgettable tale of bravery, loyalty, and kindness, Pocket reminds us all that love comes in many forms (sometimes filled with fluff), and that second chances are always possible.]]>
256 Katherine Applegate 1250904366 Dawn 0 to-read 0.0 Pocket Bear
author: Katherine Applegate
name: Dawn
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Alchemist 218129518
Combining magic, mysticism, wisdom and wonder into an inspiring tale of self-discovery, The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.

Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago's journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, most importantly, to follow our dreams.]]>
208 Paulo Coelho 0063442469 Dawn 0 to-read 4.00 1988 The Alchemist
author: Paulo Coelho
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Gashlycrumb Tinies (The Vinegar Works, #1)]]> 47558 64 Edward Gorey 0747541604 Dawn 5 4.07 1963 The Gashlycrumb Tinies (The Vinegar Works, #1)
author: Edward Gorey
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1963
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/11
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Steps to the Altar (Benni Harper, #9)]]> 1017513 Steps to the Altar finds her digging up clues to an unsolved murder—and struggling with a very personal crisis of the heart.

Benni Harper is busy planning two weddings—her best friend Elvia and Grandma Dove are both getting hitched. The last thing she needs is more work. But when the local historical society asks her to catalog the contents of some old trunks, she agrees—only to find they belonged to alleged murderer Maple Sullivan! Rumor has it that back in the 1940s she murdered her new husband, ran off with his best friend—and was never heard from again�

Benni knows how difficult marriage can be—especially since her husband’s gorgeous ex-girlfriend is back in the picture, posing a real threat. Suddenly Benni finds herself empathizing with Maple’s plight—and vows to investigate her case. But there’s more to this than meets the eye—and more than a few people who’d rather let sleeping dogs lie…]]>
320 Earlene Fowler 0425189449 Dawn 5 4.08 2002 Steps to the Altar (Benni Harper, #9)
author: Earlene Fowler
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Arkansas Traveler (Benni Harper, #8)]]> 647155 305 Earlene Fowler 0425184285 Dawn 5 3.99 2001 Arkansas Traveler (Benni Harper, #8)
author: Earlene Fowler
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves:
review:

]]>
The God of Small Things 22589931 The God of Small Things is an award-winning landmark that started for its author an esteemed career of fiction and political commentary that continues unabated.]]> 333 Arundhati Roy 0812979656 Dawn 0 to-read 4.02 1997 The God of Small Things
author: Arundhati Roy
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Ransom Canyon (Ransom Canyon, #1)]]> 204906163 In the remote west Texas town of Ransom Canyon, family can be made by blood or by choice.

Rancher Staten Kirkland, the last descendant of Ransom Canyon’s founding father, is rugged and practical to the last. No one knows that when his troubling memories threaten to overwhelm him, he runs to lovely, reclusive Quinn O’Grady…or that she has her own secret that no one living knows.

Young Lucas Reyes has his eye on the prize—college and the chance to become something more than a ranch hand's son. But one night, one wrong decision, will set his life on a course even he hadn't imagined.

Yancy Grey is running hard from his troubled past. He doesn’t plan to stick around Ransom Canyon, just stay long enough to learn the town’s weaknesses and how to use them for personal gain. Only Yancy, a common criminal since he was old enough to reach a car’s pedals, isn’t prepared for what he encounters.

In this dramatic series, the lives, loves and ambitions of four families will converge, set against a landscape that can be as unforgiving as it is beautiful, where passion, property and pride are worth fighting—and even dying—for.

Ransom Canyon

Book 1: Ransom Canyon
Book 2: Rustler's Moon
Book 3: Lone Heart Pass
Book 4: Sunrise Crossing
Book 5: Wild Horse Springs
Book 6: Indigo Lake
Book 7: Mistletoe Miracles
Book 8: Christmas in Winter Valley
]]>
304 Jodi Thomas 1335016899 Dawn 0 to-read 3.63 2015 Ransom Canyon (Ransom Canyon, #1)
author: Jodi Thomas
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
El Niño 210563251 From the beloved, New York Times bestselling author of Esperanza Rising and Echo comes an enthralling aquatic adventure rippling with mystery and magical realism. Perfect for fans of Kate DiCamillo, Tae Keller, Jacqueline Woodson, and Meg Medina.



Kai Sosa comes from a long line of competitive swimmers. And this is his summer to prove his own prowess on an elite invitational team, even if he is the weakest link. He hopes to carry the Sosa torch in a competition against the infamous Sea Wolves.

But recently, he's been haunted by a puzzling dream. One where he sees his dead sister, Cali, swimming in the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by dolphins. When he wakes, it's hard to hold back the dam of feeling he's been working so hard to contain the past two years. But he must, because feeling will mess with his race times.

Then one day, while surfing with a friend, Kai encounters a mysterious sea creature as big as he, with long black hair and a fluked tail, that insistently pokes his board. Kai is sure his mind and the sea are playing tricks, until the sea creature finds Kai twice more. When a school assignment about the weather phenomenon El Niño leads him to the local library-and a book Cali had checked out multiple times, about dolphins and a mythic Amazonian queen who once ruled over an underwater realm-Kai's grip on reality begins to fissure. What are the sea creature and the book trying to tell him? In a climactic head-to-head faceoff with the Sea Wolves, everything becomes clear as Kai tests his strength, unleashes the dam, and discovers that sometimes the only way to hold onto what we love is to let it go.]]>
256 Pam Muñoz Ryan 1338068555 Dawn 0 to-read 4.00 El Niño
author: Pam Muñoz Ryan
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Wild Lavender Bookshop (Someday Valley, #2)]]> 215808067
The trees that circle Someday Valley’s downtown of Honey Creek are dressed in their fall finest, providing a pretty backdrop for the local businesses—including the little bookshop loved by schoolteacher Cora Lee Buchanan. There in the cafe, under the watchful eye of owner Noah O’Brien, Cora Lee and her sister, Katherine, meet each Wednesday. Their talk mostly revolves around one their father, known to everyone in town as Bear.

Both Cora Lee and Katherine believe it’s time Bear found love again, and they’re compiling a list of prospects in a secret notebook. They’ve no idea Bear is aware of their plan—or that he has a secret of his own. As for the sisters, Katherine, beautiful and self-absorbed, is in search of her third husband, while Cora Lee is in love for the first time. On warm nights, she climbs up to her building’s roof to chat with Noah and listen to the melody of the water below. Yet there is more intrigue afoot in Honey Creek . . .

Andy Delane has arrived in town to hear the last wishes of the father she never met. She was shocked to get a letter from lawyer Jackson Landry, and has few expectations—of this mysterious will, or of Landry’s skill . . . But fall always brings changes, and this year there will be enough to alter not just the lives of those who call Honey Creek home, but the future of Someday Valley itself . . .]]>
272 Jodi Thomas 1420155113 Dawn 0 to-read 4.38 2024 The Wild Lavender Bookshop (Someday Valley, #2)
author: Jodi Thomas
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Happy All the Time 7942600 Happy All the Time follows four sane, intelligent, and good-intentioned people who manage to find love in spite of themselves.]]> 224 Laurie Colwin Dawn 0 to-read 3.89 1978 Happy All the Time
author: Laurie Colwin
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1978
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Mother Mary Comes to Me 224004055 A raw and deeply moving memoir from the legendary author of The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness that traces the complex relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, a fierce and formidable force who shaped Arundhati’s life both as a woman and a writer.

Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy’s first work of memoir, is a soaring account, both intimate and inspirational, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as “my shelter and my storm.�

“Heart-smashed� by her mother Mary’s death in September 2022 yet puzzled and “more than a little ashamed� by the intensity of her response, Roy began to write, to make sense of her feelings about the mother she ran from at age eighteen, “not because I didn’t love her, but in order to be able to continue to love her.� And so begins this astonishing, sometimes disturbing, and surprisingly funny memoir of the author’s journey from her childhood in Kerala, India, where her single mother founded a school, to the writing of her prizewinning novels and essays, through today.

With the scale, sweep, and depth of her novels, The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, and the passion, political clarity, and warmth of her essays, Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace—a memoir like no other.]]>
352 Arundhati Roy 1668094711 Dawn 0 to-read 4.75 2025 Mother Mary Comes to Me
author: Arundhati Roy
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.75
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Seven Sisters (Benni Harper, #7)]]> 165479
When Benni’s stepson announces his plans to marry into the wealthy, influential Brown family, she and her husband are invited to the Browns� sprawling ranch, Seven Sisters, to celebrate the engagement. But the party takes a tragic turn when a member of the esteemed family is murdered. While trying to unravel the feuding clan’s tangled past, Benni uncovers a shocking pattern of tragedy—and stitches a hodgepodge of clues into a very disturbing design…]]>
306 Earlene Fowler 0425179176 Dawn 5 4.00 2000 Seven Sisters (Benni Harper, #7)
author: Earlene Fowler
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/03
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry]]> 25814222 A charming, warmhearted novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller A Man Called Ove.

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is told with the same comic accuracy and beating heart as Fredrik Backman’s bestselling debut novel, A Man Called Ove. It is a story about life and death and one of the most important human rights: the right to be different.]]>
372 Fredrik Backman 1501115073 Dawn 0 to-read 4.07 2013 My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Nightingale 211003854 In love we find out who we want to be.
In war we find out who we are.

FRANCE, 1939

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.]]>
448 Kristin Hannah 1250370116 Dawn 0 to-read 4.75 2015 The Nightingale
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.75
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Mariner's Compass (Benni Harper, #6)]]> 647156
When Jacob Chandler died, he left his home in Morro Bay and all its contents to Benni Harper—the only stipulation being that she had to stay in the house, alone, for two weeks before the inheritance became hers. But Benni has never even heard of Jacob Chandler. Now she has two weeks to follow his scavenger-hunt set of clues to discover whether he is her guardian angel or personal demon. And soon she finds herself setting a course to a time and place in her own past—a place she and Jacob Chandler both knew as home…]]>
336 Earlene Fowler 0425174085 Dawn 5 4.07 1999 Mariner's Compass (Benni Harper, #6)
author: Earlene Fowler
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[For Everything a Season: Simple Musings on Living Well (Porch Talk series, #4)]]> 579064 224 Philip Gulley 0061252182 Dawn 0 4.26 1999 For Everything a Season: Simple Musings on Living Well (Porch Talk series, #4)
author: Philip Gulley
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves:
review:
Beyond wonderful !!! Philip is such a wonderful writer !!!
]]>
<![CDATA[Dove in the Window (Benni Harper, #5)]]> 171924
Benni and about two hundred of her relatives and friends are gathered for the family’s annual barbecue and cattle roundup. Among them is Shelby Johnson, a young photography student from a wealthy Chicago family who is drawn to San Celina by her love of the West and a passionate desire to catch it all on film. In Benni she finds a favorite subject and a new friend. But when Shelby’s body is discovered on the ranch the next morning, Benni’s closest relatives suddenly develop into prime murder suspects…]]>
302 Earlene Fowler 0425168948 Dawn 5 4.00 1998 Dove in the Window (Benni Harper, #5)
author: Earlene Fowler
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves:
review:
It is a wonderful book ! I am enjoying the Benni Harper mysteries immensely !
]]>
A Knight in Shining Armor 214152174 A Knight in Shining Armor Jude Deveraux's beloved bestseller has captivated readers the world over; now in a special edition featuring new material, this timeless love story greets a new generation. Abandoned by her lover, thoroughly modern Dougless Montgomery finds herself alone and brokenhearted in an old English church. She never dreamed that a love more powerful than time awaited her there...until Nicholas Stafford, Earl of Thornwyck, a sixteenth-century knight, appeared. Drawn to him by a bond so sudden and compelling that it defied reason, Dougless knew that Nicholas was nothing less than a a man who would not seek to change her, who found her perfect just as she was. But she could not know how strong were the chains that tied them to the past -- or the grand adventure that lay before them.]]> 400 Jude Deveraux 1668064944 Dawn 0 to-read 3.80 1989 A Knight in Shining Armor
author: Jude Deveraux
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Order of Swans 211665659 In this spellbinding, fantasy-rich novel, a woman is swept into a world where she has the power to alter fairy tales, and change a kingdom’s destiny�

To Kaley Arens, a PhD student and expert in folklore, fairy stories have always had a power and an allure beyond mere entertainment.

It’s only when Kaley accompanies her lifelong friend Jobi on a visit to his home that she realizes how much she still has to learn. Bellis isn’t the remote island that she believed it to be. It’s another world—a stunningly beautiful and seductive one, with its own royalty, its own rules, and inhabitants who breathe life into the tales she was taught were fiction.

Kaley’s presence is no simple holiday. She has a mysterious connection with Jobi and with Bellis, and abilities that may help determine this world’s fate. Tasked with locating a lost prince, Kaley and her companions—the enigmatic Tanek, a member of the Order of Swans, and Sojee, Kaley's colossal bodyguard—journey through a land both thrilling and terrifying, where the uncanny and the familiar go hand in hand.

But in fairy tales, heroes and villains are easy to discern. Here, nothing is quite as it seems. And though Kaley is discovering that she can change the outcome of the fairy tales she knows so well, her own story is unfolding in ways impossible to predict, with a destiny she could never have foretold…]]>
336 Jude Deveraux 0778368424 Dawn 0 to-read 3.19 2025 Order of Swans
author: Jude Deveraux
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Wishing Quilt 211960894 Texas is about to be wrapped up in love and homespun perfection with this new contemporary romance anthology featuring novellas from legendary, bestselling authors Jodi Thomas, Lori Wilde, and Patience Griffin! Three novellas weave tales of women whose quilting craft ultimately leads them down the path to love.

THE SECRET WISH * Jodi Thomas
The little town of While-a-Way, Texas, may as well be named Last Chance as far as Avery Cleveland is concerned. Running her late great-grandmother’s quilt shop is the only way to build back her life after losing her dancing career. But local sheriff Daniel Solis is stunned by Avery’s beauty and spirit—and hopes to show her how to stitch brand-new dreams together . . .

WISH UPON A WEDDING * Lori Wilde
Ellie Winter’s sister is holding a quilting bee as her bachelorette party, creating a memory quilt for their grandmother. If only the event weren’t happening at the ranch where Ellie spent childhood summers, now owned by the man she can’t forget. Four days surely isn’t enough time to fall in love again . . . but what about four long, hot, summer nights?

WHEN YOU WISH UPON A QUILT * Patience Griffin
Paige Holiday’s last visit to the International Quilt Festival in Houston ended in heartbreak. It seems like all the women in her family are unlucky in love. So at this year’s festival, Paige is focused solely on business, until a gorgeous cowboy crosses her path, ready to turn her life—and her luck—around . . .]]>
384 Jodi Thomas 1420153757 Dawn 0 to-read 3.82 2022 The Wishing Quilt
author: Jodi Thomas
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Mexican Gothic 57800389
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.]]>
301 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 052562080X Dawn 0 to-read 3.71 2020 Mexican Gothic
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Where the Rivers Merge 217223380 "This is book club fiction at its finest!" —Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author

FromNew York Timesbestselling author Mary Alice Monroe comes her highly anticipated Where the Rivers Merge, the first of two epic and triumphant novels celebrating one intrepid woman's life across multiple generations in the American South.

1908: The Lowcountry of South Carolina is at the cusp of change. Mayfield, the grand estate held for generations by the Rivers family, is the treasured home of young Eliza. Free spirited, she refuses to be confined by societal norms. Instead, Eliza revels in exploring the golden fields and sparkling ponds of Mayfield, observing wildlife, and riding horses.

But her halcyon days are cut short by the Great War, coastal storms, and unexpected challenges to Mayfield. As Eliza battles personal pains and the ravages of family turmoil over the years, her love and devotion for the natural world puts her on a collision course with the patriarchal traditions of a bygone era.

1988:At 88, Eliza is the scion of the Rivers/DeLancey family. She’s fought a lifetime to save her beloved Mayfield and is too independent and committed to quietly retire and leave the fate of the estate to her greedy son. She must make decisions that will assure the future of the land and her family—or watch them both be split apart.

Set against the evocative landscape of the twentieth-century low country,Where the Rivers Mergeis a dramatic and sweeping multigenerational family story of unyielding love, lessons learned, profound sacrifices, and the indomitable spirit of a woman determined to persevere in the face of change in order to protect her family legacy and the land she loves.]]>
352 Mary Alice Monroe 0063249421 Dawn 0 to-read 4.44 Where the Rivers Merge
author: Mary Alice Monroe
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.44
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
My Name Is Emilia del Valle 217245557 In this spellbinding historical novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea and The Wind Knows My Name, a young writer journeys to South America to uncover the truth about her father—and herself.

In San Francisco 1866, an Irish nun, left pregnant and abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia Del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman.

To pursue her passion for writing, she is willing to defy societal norms. At the age of sixteen, she begins to publish pulp fiction under a man’s pen name. When these fictional worlds can't contain her sense of adventure any longer, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at the San Francisco Examiner to hire her. There she is paired with another talented reporter, Eric Whelan.

As she proves herself, her restlessness returns, until an opportunity arises to cover a brewing civil war in Chile. She seizes it, along with Eric, and while there, begins to uncover the truth about her father and the country that represents her roots. But as the war escalates, Emilia finds herself in danger and at a crossroads, questioning both her identity and her destiny.

A riveting tale of self-discovery and love from one of the most masterful storytellers of our time, My Name is Emilia del Valle introduces a character who will never let hold of your heart.]]>
304 Isabel Allende 059397509X Dawn 0 to-read 4.02 2025 My Name Is Emilia del Valle
author: Isabel Allende
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[That Christmas Magic: Christmas Masquerade / The Gift of Christmas]]> 204316952 Available in one volume for the first time, Christmas Masquerade and The Gift of Christmas, two of Debbie Macomber’s classic holiday novels about finding love and faith and rediscovering oneself.

Christmas Masquerade: After Jo Marie first meets Andrew, her dream man, in the romantic crush of a Mardi Gras parade, she cannot stop thinking about him. But when their paths cross again later that year over the holidays, she’s devastated to discover that Andrew is actually engaged to be married. Jo soon notices, however, that the relationship between Andrew and his fiancée may not be what it seems. In the whirl of Christmas parties and festivities, the spark from Andrew and Jo’s first meeting remains, and though Jo holds back in fear of falling in love with a taken man, it seems his situation is more complicated than what meets the eye.

The Gift of Christmas: Cooper Masters gave Ashley Robbins the gift of her education when he lent her money for school years ago. Now, Ashley has graduated, affirmed her faith, and launched her career. She is able to pay Cooper back the money for her education and has achieved all of her goals—except for confessing her love for Cooper. Faith intertwines with love in this Christmas novel as Ashley works to achieve her final goal of winning Cooper’s heart.]]>
384 Debbie Macomber 0593496116 Dawn 0 to-read 3.63 2024 That Christmas Magic: Christmas Masquerade / The Gift of Christmas
author: Debbie Macomber
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Last of the Moon Girls 49571024
Lizzy discovers a Book of Remembrances meant to help Lizzy embrace her own special gifts. When she reconnects with Andrew Greyson, one of the few in town who believed in Althea’s innocence, she resolves to clear her Grandmother’s name.]]>
399 Barbara Davis 154200649X Dawn 0 to-read 4.13 2020 The Last of the Moon Girls
author: Barbara Davis
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
A Family of Strangers 41845111
All her life Ryan Gracey watched her perfect older sister from afar. Knowing she could never top Wendy’s achievements, she didn’t even try. Instead Ryan forged her own path while her family barely seemed to notice.

Now Wendy shares two little girls with her perfect husband while Ryan mourns the man she lost after a nearly fatal mistake in judgment. The sisters� choices have taken them in different directions, which is why Ryan is stunned when Wendy calls, begging for her help. There’s been a murder—and Wendy believes she’ll be wrongfully accused.

While Wendy lies low, Ryan moves back to their hometown to care for the nieces she hardly knows. The sleuthing skills she’s refined as a true-crime podcaster quickly rise to the surface as she digs for answers with the help of an unexpected ally. Yet the trail of clues Wendy’s left behind lead to nothing but questions. Blood may be thicker than water, but what does Ryan owe a sister who, with every revelation, becomes more and more a stranger?

Is Wendy, who always seemed so perfect, just a perfect liar—or worse?]]>
491 Emilie Richards 0778307859 Dawn 0 to-read 3.96 2019 A Family of Strangers
author: Emilie Richards
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
If Anything Happens To Me 202773018 From celebrated New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice comes a hotly anticipated YA thriller about two girls desperate to catch a murderer who's still on the loose.

Oli Parish is numb after the death of her sister Eloise. She was her other half who went missing one day and was later found buried in the woods. And the killer? He's still on the loose. This should scare Oli but nothing gets in the way of her visiting the site in the woods where her sister's body was discovered. Oli can sense Eloise's spirit there.

But on one of her visits, Oli hears a voice calling for help and then she sees a hand clawing its way through the dirt. But this is no ghost -- it's a young girl named Iris. She has no memory of what happened to her and how she ended up in the same shallow grave as Eloise. But Oli knows that Iris must in some way be connected to her sister's murder. Together, the two girls team up to try to help Iris recover her memory and unravel the mystery of who is behind the crimes.

Their detective work leads them all around Oli's seemingly idyllic small town -- and to her shock, to a classmate of hers named Harry, who may or may not be looking for a desperate way to help his ailing sister... and at the expense of other girls.

Told in Luanne Rice's breathtaking prose, and at a breakneck pace, this riveting mystery about sisters, hope, and the fight for what's right is perfect for fans of Family of Liars and A Good Girls' Guide To Murder.]]>
320 Luanne Rice 1338739530 Dawn 0 to-read 3.49 2024 If Anything Happens To Me
author: Luanne Rice
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
A Christmas Duet 205436000 A solo holiday trip inspires one woman to rediscover her passion—and remember that, sometimes, duets are more fun—in this romantic Christmas novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber.

Hailey Morgan’s life has always revolved around music. She once had big dreams of composing her own songs, but the reality of life has led her to working as an assistant high school band teacher in Portland, Oregon. As the holidays approach, Hailey dreads the annual tradition of Christmas with her meddling family, where she’ll have to play nice while dodging their traditional expectations.

When Hailey’s close friend offers her family’s empty cabin for a rejuvenating solo retreat, Hailey finally decides to do something to make herself happy. However, her arrival in small-town Podunk, Washington, is anything but peaceful when she discovers the cabin is occupied by several wild animals. Luckily, Jay, the mayor’s son—who happens to be an incredibly charming former musician—is more than willing to help.

Soon Hailey and Jay are nearly inseparable, chopping down and decorating a Christmas tree, sipping hot cocoa in front of a cozy fire, and best of all, playing music together. Jay’s encouragement and feedback inspire Hailey to believe she might succeed as a songwriter after all. But even in her snow-dusted oasis, family holiday drama still finds Hailey, threatening her newfound peace and confidence, while she realizes Jay might be more than he presents himself to be. Suddenly her Christmas paradise has become a winter storm and Hailey must weather through the challenges to stand up for herself and embrace the holiday spirit.]]>
288 Debbie Macomber 0593725336 Dawn 0 to-read 3.87 2024 A Christmas Duet
author: Debbie Macomber
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Summer Club 199797999
Mayhaven is the best keep secret in Massachusetts. Tucked between old cedars and a spring-fed lake, the Mayhaven beach club has long been the ultimate escape to understated exclusivity. It’s the place where Darcy Birch is supposed to be experiencing the best summer of her life, but there are a few things standing in her way. Her high-strung mother won’t stop hovering over her, her father is consumed by his job as president of Mayhaven, where she works as a summer camp counselor and things are not as rosy as they seem, and her neurodivergent little brother is struggling to live with a measure of independence not everyone is ready for.

Then there is the matter of the new neighbors. Flick Creevy, his mother, and stepfather have arrived in town, parking their enormous RV, not to mention all-night music and clouds of marijuana, in the Birches’s perfectly landscaped backyard.

Flick is not interested in the perfect summer or the girl next door. Pushed to get a job at Mayhaven by his mother, who had her eyes on a new life for their family, his own eyes have been opened to the ways of the upper crust. Even though Mayhaven prides itself on being an inclusive association of good New England families with good New England values, the fact either you’re on the inside or the outside.

As the heat of summer increases, it’s soon clear that the members of Mayhaven will have to struggle to stay cool in this sharply written and refreshing new novel that is perfect for fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Jennifer Weiner.]]>
336 Hannah McKinnon 1668025183 Dawn 0 to-read 3.36 2024 The Summer Club
author: Hannah McKinnon
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Come Shell or High Water (A Haunted Shell Shop Mystery #1)]]> 200799428
As a professional storyteller, Maureen Nash can’t help but see the narrative cues woven through her life. Like the series of letters addressed to her late husband from a stranger—the proprietor of The Moon Shell, a shop on Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. The store is famous with shell collectors, but it’s the cryptic letters from Allen Withrow, the shop’s owner, that convince Maureen to travel to the small coastal town in the middle of hurricane season. At the very least, she expects she’ll get a good story out of the experience, never anticipating it could end up a murder mystery . . .

In Maureen’s first hours on the storm-lashed island, she averts several life-threatening accidents, stumbles over the body of a controversial Ocracoke local, and meets the ghost of an eighteenth-century Welsh pirate, Emrys Lloyd. To the untrained eye, all these unusual occurrences would seem to be random misfortunes, but Maureen senses there may be something connecting these stories. With Emrys’s supernatural assistance, and the support of a few new friends, Maureen sets out unravel the truth, find a killer, and hopefully give this tale a satisfying ending . . . while also rewriting her own.]]>
304 Molly MacRae 1496744276 Dawn 0 to-read 3.67 2024 Come Shell or High Water (A Haunted Shell Shop Mystery #1)
author: Molly MacRae
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Close Knit 199465836
In the northernmost reaches of Scotland, where a string of little islands in the North Sea stretches towards Norway, lives Gertie MacIntyre, a proud island girl by birth. Her social circle is small but tight: family and friends, particularly the women in her knitting circle. In the whitewashed cottages of their hometown, everyone knows everyone, and the ladies of the knitting circle know more than most. In a place of long dark winters and geographic isolation, the knitting circle is a precious source of gossip, home, laughter, and comfort for them all. And while she knits, Gertie’s busily plotting what to do with the rest of her life.

When Gertie develops a crush on Callum Frost, who owns the local airline, she dares herself to take a job as an air stewardess on the little plane that serves the local islands. Terrifying at first, the sixteen-seat puddle jumper also offers the first taste of real freedom she’s ever known. Will Gertie’s future lie in the skies? Or will she need to go further afield to find the adventure she craves?]]>
318 Jenny Colgan 0063260565 Dawn 0 to-read 3.71 Close Knit
author: Jenny Colgan
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.71
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Tying the Knot: Yesterday's Hero / White Lace and Promises]]> 199486615 Available in one volume for the first Yesterday's Hero and White Lace and Promises, two of Debbie Macomber's classic novels about finding love in the most unexpected places.

Yesterday’s Hero: Nothing is going to keep marine biologist Leah Talmadge or world-famous photographer Cain Hawkins from seizing the opportunity to study the rare whales of the Diamantina Islands. But the traditional governor of the islands won't permit two unmarried people to live together, even for a once-in-a-lifetime expedition. The two refuse to miss out and decide to get married on paper only. And why not? They both desperately want to document the whales, and a fake marriage won't have any effect on their lives after this, right? But when the lines of their relationship begin to blur, the two must reevaluate what they want.

White Lace and Promises: Marrying Glenn Lambert was either the smartest thing Maggie Kingsbury has ever done or the craziest mistake of her life. It’s been a long time since they were children and best of friends. They went their separate way in adulthood, until a chance encounter at a wedding inspires a spontaneous leap of faith. As past disappointments and unhealed emotions start to wreak havoc on their lives, Glenn and Maggie need to decide whether they will remain strangers - or whether they belong together after all.]]>
432 Debbie Macomber 0593359844 Dawn 0 to-read 3.96 2024 Tying the Knot: Yesterday's Hero / White Lace and Promises
author: Debbie Macomber
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary]]> 204806515 Bestselling author Alice Hoffman delivers a stunning novel about one of contemporary history's most acclaimed figures, exploring the little-known details of Anne Frank's life before she went into hiding.

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl has captivated and inspired readers for decades. Published posthumously by her bereaved father, Anne's journal, written while she and her family were in hiding during World War II, has become one of the central texts of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust, as well as a work of literary genius.

With the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the Frank family's life is turned inside out, blow by blow, restriction by restriction. Prejudice, loss, and terror run rampant, and Anne is forced to bear witness as ordinary people become monsters, and children and families are caught up in the inescapable tide of violence.

In the midst of impossible danger, Anne, audacious and creative and fearless, discovers who she truly is. With a wisdom far beyond her years, she becomes a writer who will go on to change the world as we know it.

Critically acclaimed author Alice Hoffman weaves a lyrical and heart-wrenching story of the way the world closes in on the Frank family from the moment the Nazis invade the Netherlands until they are forced into hiding, bringing Anne to bold, vivid life. Based on extensive research and published in cooperation with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, When We Flew Away is an extraordinary and moving tour de force.

"Adding new poignance to a story whose ending we already knew, Alice Hoffman has deftly recreated the child Anne Frank with all her wit, mischief, and uncertainties. This fictionalized account of the increasingly desperate years that preceded the famous diary breaks readers' hearts one more time. But it reminds us of how important it is to remember and honor all that was lost." -- Lois Lowry, Newbery Award-winning author of Number the Stars]]>
304 Alice Hoffman 1338856944 Dawn 0 to-read 4.03 2024 When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary
author: Alice Hoffman
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Good Night, Irene 199510443
This “powerful, uplifting, and deeply personalnovel� (Kristin Hannah, #1 NYT bestselling author of The Four Winds ), at once“a heart-wrenching wartime drama”�(Christina Baker Kline, #1 NYT bestselling author of Orphan Train ) and “a moving and graceful tribute to heroic women� ( Publishers Weekly , starred review), asks the What if a friendship forged on the front lines of war defines a life forever?

In the tradition of The Nightingale and Transcription , this is a searing epic based on the magnificent and true story of courageousRed Cross women. “Urrea’s touch is sure, his exuberance carries you through . . . He is a generous writer, not just in his approach to his craft but in the broader sense of what he feels necessary to capture about life itself.� � Financial Times In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle.

After D-Day, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Their time in Europe will see them embroiled in danger, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald. Through her friendship with Dorothy, and a love affair with a courageous American fighter pilot named Hans, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope, which becomes more precarious by the day, is for all three of them to survive the war intact.

Taking as inspiration his mother’s own Red Cross service, Luis Alberto Urrea has delivered an overlooked story of women’s heroism in World War II. With its affecting and uplifting portrait of friendship and valor in harrowing circumstances, Good Night, Irene powerfully demonstrates yet again that Urrea’s “gifts as a storyteller are prodigious� (NPR).]]>
432 Luis Alberto Urrea 0316265950 Dawn 0 to-read 3.98 2023 Good Night, Irene
author: Luis Alberto Urrea
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Wild Lavender Bookshop (Someday Valley, #2)]]> 194477908
Return to the unforgettable world of Someday Valley, Texas, in this tender, uplifting novel of hearts in search of second chances.

The trees that circle Someday Valley’s downtown of Honey Creek are dressed in their fall finest, providing a pretty backdrop for the local businesses—including the little bookshop loved by schoolteacher Cora Lee Buchanan. There in the cafe, under the watchful eye of owner Noah O’Brien, Cora Lee and her sister, Katherine, meet each Wednesday. Their talk mostly revolves around one their father, known to everyone in town as Bear.

Both Cora Lee and Katherine believe it’s time Bear found love again, and they’re compiling a list of prospects in a secret notebook. They’ve no idea Bear is aware of their plan—or that he has a secret of his own. As for the sisters, Katherine, beautiful and self-absorbed, is in search of her third husband, while Cora Lee is in love for the first time. On warm nights, she climbs up to her building’s roof to chat with Noah and listen to the melody of the water below. Yet there is more intrigue afoot in Honey Creek . . .

Andy Delane has arrived in town to hear the last wishes of the father she never met. She was shocked to get a letter from lawyer Jackson Landry, and has few expectations—of this mysterious will, or of Landry’s skill . . . But fall always brings changes, and this year there will be enough to alter not just the lives of those who call Honey Creek home, but the future of Someday Valley itself . . .]]>
214 Jodi Thomas 1420155105 Dawn 0 to-read 3.39 2024 The Wild Lavender Bookshop (Someday Valley, #2)
author: Jodi Thomas
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Homewreckers 195790871
"Andrews ( The Newcomer ) sparkles in this fast-paced tale. Andrews’s fans will eat this up." � Publishers Weekly

"A fun story with twists and turns that will appeal to romantics and cold-case fans alike." � Kirkus

Hattie Kavanaugh went to work restoring homes for Kavanaugh & Son Restorations at eighteen, married the boss’s son at twenty, and became a widow at twenty-five. Now, she’s passionate about her work, but that’s the only passion in her life. “Never love something that can’t love you back,� is advice her father-in-law gives her, but Hattie doesn’t follow it and falls head-over-heels for a money pit of a house. She’s determined to make it work, but disaster after disaster occurs, and Hattie’s dream might cost Kavanaugh & Son their livelihood. Hattie needs money, and fast.

When a slick Hollywood producer shows up in her hometown of Savannah, Georgia, she gets a once-in-a-lifetime star in a beach house renovation reality show called The Homewreckers , cast against a male lead who may be a love interest, or may be the ultimate antagonist. Soon, there’s more at stake than bad pipes and dry during the demolition, evidence comes to light that points to the mysterious disappearance of a young wife and mother years before.

With a burned out detective investigating the case, an arsonist on the loose, two men playing with her emotions, and layers upon layers of vintage wallpaper causing havoc, it's a question of who will flip, who will flop, and if Hattie will ever get her happily-ever-after.]]>
512 Mary Kay Andrews 1250341825 Dawn 0 to-read 3.82 2022 The Homewreckers
author: Mary Kay Andrews
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Invisible Hour 199798000
One June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. The Scarlet Letter was written almost two hundred years earlier, but it seems to tell the story of Mia’s mother, Ivy, and their life inside the Community—an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts where contact with the outside world is forbidden. But how could this be? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have so perfectly captured the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her?

Through a journey of heartbreak, love, and time, Mia must abandon the rules she was raised with at the Community. As she does, she realizes that reading can transport you to other worlds or bring them to you, and that readers and writers affect one another in mysterious ways. She learns that time is more fluid than she can imagine, and that love is stronger than any chains that bind you.

As a girl Mia fell in love with a book. Now as a young woman she falls in love with a brilliant writer as she makes her way back in time. But what if Nathaniel Hawthorne never wrote The Scarlet Letter ? And what if Mia Jacob never found it on the day she planned to die?

From “the reigning queen of magical realism� (Kristin Hannah, New York Times bestselling author), this is the story of one woman’s dream. For a little while it came true.]]>
272 Alice Hoffman 1982175389 Dawn 0 to-read 3.60 2023 The Invisible Hour
author: Alice Hoffman
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Grace Notes: Poems about Families]]> 195853497
National Book Award Finalist and former Young People’s Poet Laureate Naomi Shihab Nye’s Grace Poems about Families celebrates family and community. This rich collection of one hundred never-before-published poems is also the poet’s most personal work to date. With poems about her own childhood and school years, her parents and grandparents, and the people who have touched and shaped her life in so many ways, this is an emotional and sparkling collection to savor, share, and read again and again.]]>
240 Naomi Shihab Nye 0062691872 Dawn 0 to-read 4.29 Grace Notes: Poems about Families
author: Naomi Shihab Nye
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Wind Knows My Name 207677111 NATIONAL BESTSELLER � “The lives of a Jewish boy escaping Nazi-occupied Europe and a mother and daughter fleeing twenty-first-century El Salvador intersect in this ambitious, intricate novel about war and immigration� (People), from the author of A Long Petal of the Sea and Violeta

“Timely, provocative . . . emotionally satisfying . . . [a story about] the kindness of strangers who become family.”�The New York Times Book Review

AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht—the night his family loses everything. As her child’s safety becomes ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on a Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.

Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Díaz and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination. Meanwhile, Selena Durán, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita’s mother.

Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming.]]>
304 Isabel Allende 0593598121 Dawn 0 to-read 3.94 2023 The Wind Knows My Name
author: Isabel Allende
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Strawberry Lane 181037593 288 Jodi Thomas 1420155083 Dawn 0 to-read 4.00 2023 Strawberry Lane
author: Jodi Thomas
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[An Unfinished Murder (Medlar Mystery, #5)]]> 209290324
Retired romance novelist Sara Medlar has been comfortably sharing her large home with her niece Kate and her “honorary grandson� Jack. It’s a convenient arrangement given the Medlar Three, as they’ve become known, are often working closely together to solve mysteries in their small town of Lachlan, Florida. But when real estate agent Kate announces she’s been given the listing for the town’s storied Lachlan House, it sets off alarm bells for Sara and Jack. The infamous house has a dark history, one that’s certain to haunt them all.

With little memory of her childhood, Kate doesn’t understand what the fuss is about—until the trio visits the house and makes a grim discovery. Flooded by memories of the past, Kate realizes she spent time there as a child. But stumbling upon a skeleton dressed in a rotting tuxedo—a murder victim with connections to her father—causes Kate to wonder if the childhood she can’t remember might be one she’d rather forget.

As Sara, Kate and Jack delve deeper into the dead man’s history, they learn he was last seen at a party held at Lachlan House in the late nineties—a swanky soiree attended by his many enemies. With more than one motive in play, every partygoer is a suspect, and Sara is determined to find the culprit, even if it means digging up past secrets she’s worked hard to keep buried.]]>
330 Jude Deveraux 0778305392 Dawn 0 to-read 3.55 2024 An Unfinished Murder (Medlar Mystery, #5)
author: Jude Deveraux
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Quiet as Mud 201310018 A sweet poem about being an introvert in a big loud world.

Inspired by a quote from the late, great children's book author Margaret Wise Brown, this poem honors and celebrates the beauty of being your authentic self. Soothing rhymes and soft illustrations convey the peace of being alone with your thoughts.

This is a gentle introduction to the concept of being an introvert, as well as an invitation for child and grown-up readers alike to observe and imagine their inner world and the world around them. What can you hear when you stay quiet as mud?]]>
32 Jane Yolen 1433841533 Dawn 0 to-read 3.96 2024 Quiet as Mud
author: Jane Yolen
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Studies at the School by the Sea (School by the Sea, #4)]]> 181110035 288 Jenny Colgan 006314185X Dawn 0 to-read 3.47 Studies at the School by the Sea (School by the Sea, #4)
author: Jenny Colgan
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.47
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
In and Out the Window 177188713
Our Kitchen
Smells of mornings,
blueberry muffins,
hot chocolate, tea.
It smells of bacon
and of eggs.
It smells of family.

For the first time, legendary author Jane Yolen gathers the largest single anthology of her poetry celebrating childhood. At home or at school, playing sports or practicing music, enjoying the holidays or delighting in each season, Jane Yolen’s masterful collection shows just how lively it is to be a kid. With whimsical artwork by Cathrin Peterslund, this collection of more than one hundred poems is a classic that children are sure to return to again and again.]]>
208 Jane Yolen 0593622510 Dawn 0 to-read 3.51 2024 In and Out the Window
author: Jane Yolen
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Counting Miracles 205126997 Amikor Tanner kíváncsiságtól hajtva az észak-karolinai kisvárosba utazik, még nem tudja, hogy az egész élete megváltozik. Az apja nyomát követve megismerkedik egy, a gyerekeit egyedül nevelő doktornővel és egy magányosan, elvonultan élő öregemberrel. Ha Tanner képes megnyitni a szívét a szeretet és a szerelem előtt, a csodálatos találkozások sora ezzel nem ér véget...]]> 368 Nicholas Sparks 0593449592 Dawn 0 to-read 4.05 2024 Counting Miracles
author: Nicholas Sparks
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Midnight Library 102189586 The #1 New York Times bestselling WORLDWIDE phenomenon

Winner of the ŷ Choice Award for Fiction A Good Morning America Book Club Pick Independent (London) Ten Best Books of the Year

The dazzling reader-favorite about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How To Stop Time and The Comfort Book.

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.]]>
304 Matt Haig 0525559493 Dawn 0 to-read 4.00 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Summers at the Saint 195790574 Welcome to the St. Cecelia, a landmark hotel on the coast of Georgia, where traditions run deep and scandals run even deeper. . . .

Everyone refers to the St. Cecelia as “the Saint.� If you grew up coming here, you were “a Saint.� If you came from the wrong side of the river, you were “an Ain’t.� Traci Eddings was one of those outsiders whose family wasn’t rich enough or connected enough to vacation here. But she could work here. One fateful summer she did, and married the boss’s son. Now, she’s the widowed owner of the hotel, determined to see it return to its glory days, even as staff shortages and financial troubles threaten to ruin it. Plus, her greedy and unscrupulous brother-in-law wants to make sure she fails. Enlisting a motley crew of recently hired summer help—including the daughter of her estranged best friend—Traci has one summer season to turn it around. But new information about a long-ago drowning at the hotel threatens to come to light, and the tragic death of one of their own brings Traci to the brink of despair.

Traci Eddings has her back against the pink-painted wall of this beloved institution. And it will take all the wits and guts she has to see wrongs put to right, to see guilty parties put in their place, and maybe even to find a new romance along the way. Told with Mary Kay Andrew’s warmth, humor, knack for twists, and eye for delicious detail about human nature, Summers at the Saint is a beach read with depth and heart.]]>
448 Mary Kay Andrews 1250278384 Dawn 0 to-read 4.01 2024 Summers at the Saint
author: Mary Kay Andrews
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Cemetery of Untold Stories]]> 195820829
Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories , doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and revisions, and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.

Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener as Alma’s characters unspool their secret tales. Among them: Bienvenida, the abandoned second wife of dictator Rafael Trujillo, consigned to oblivion by history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.

The characters defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories.

Readers of Isabel Allende’s Violeta and Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead will devour Alvarez’s extraordinary new novel about beauty and authenticity that reminds us the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.]]>
243 Julia Alvarez 1643753843 Dawn 0 to-read 3.64 2024 The Cemetery of Untold Stories
author: Julia Alvarez
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Dreamland 60279823 Dreamland is a love story about risking everything for a dream—and whether it’s possible to leave the past behind.

Colby Mills once felt destined for a musical career, until tragedy grounded his aspirations. Now the head of a small family farm in North Carolina, he spontaneously takes a gig playing at a bar in St. Pete’s Beach, Florida, seeking a rare break from his duties at home.

But when he meets Morgan Lee, his world is turned upside-down, making him wonder if the responsibilities he has shouldered need dictate his life forever. The daughter of affluent Chicago doctors, Morgan has graduated from a prestigious college music program with the ambition to move to Nashville and become a star. Romantically and musically, she and Colby complete each other in a way that neither has ever known.

While they are falling headlong in love, Beverly is on a heart-pounding journey of another kind. Fleeing an abusive husband with her six-year-old son, she is trying to piece together a life for them in a small town far off the beaten track. With money running out and danger seemingly around every corner, she makes a desperate decision that will rewrite everything she knows to be true.

In the course of a single unforgettable week, two young people will navigate the exhilarating heights and heartbreak of first love. Hundreds of miles away, Beverly will put her love for her young son to the test. And fate will draw all three people together in a web of life-altering connections . . . forcing each to wonder whether the dream of a better life can ever survive the weight of the past.]]>
367 Nicholas Sparks 059344955X Dawn 0 to-read 3.82 2022 Dreamland
author: Nicholas Sparks
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Stationery Shop 42201995
Then Mr. Fakhri, with a keen instinct for a budding romance, introduces Roya to his other favorite customer—handsome Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi’s poetry—and she loses her heart at once. Their romance blossoms, and the little stationery shop remains their favorite place in all of Tehran.

A few short months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square when violence erupts—a result of the coup d’etat that forever changes their country’s future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. For weeks, Roya tries desperately to contact him, but her efforts are fruitless. With a sorrowful heart, she moves on—to college in California, to another man, to a life in New England—until, more than sixty years later, an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did you leave? Where did you go? How is it that you were able to forget me?

A poignant, heartfelt new novel by the award-nominated author of Together Tea—extolled by the Wall Street Journal as a “moving tale of lost love� and by Shelf Awareness as “a powerful, heartbreaking story”—explores loss, reconciliation, and the quirks of fate.]]>
312 Marjan Kamali 1982107480 Dawn 5 One evening I was to where I had half of the book left and I set down to read and couldn’t put it away until I finished it that night !!! I highly recommend it !
]]>
4.22 2019 The Stationery Shop
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/08/28
shelves:
review:
An Absolutely Wonderful wonderful book !!!
One evening I was to where I had half of the book left and I set down to read and couldn’t put it away until I finished it that night !!! I highly recommend it !

]]>
Gallows Hill 125391095
Thomas is marked as an outcast the moment he steps off the ship from England. As a Quaker, he’s outnumbered and distrusted by Salem’s Puritans. And as an orphan without any useful skills, he has nowhere to live and no way to earn his keep. In a stroke of luck—perhaps good, perhaps not—he’s taken in by the aged widow Prudence Blevins, who’s rumored to be a witch.

Patience has tried all her life to be a good Puritan—obedient to God and to her elders—and all her life, she has come up short. But her orderly world is upended when her younger sister, Abigail, falls victim to a mysterious affliction. The same torments have stricken other Salem girls, who claim they’re being bewitched by servants of the Devil. Soon the girls, including Abigail, begin accusing neighbors of witchcraft.

As the community becomes consumed by suspicion and fear, Thomas and Patience search for the truth. To protect those they care about, they will have to question everything they think they their faiths, their loyalties, and their places in Salem.]]>
216 Lois Ruby 1728431026 Dawn 0 to-read 3.29 Gallows Hill
author: Lois Ruby
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.29
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Dreamland 150056709
We don’t always get to choose our paths in life; sometimes they choose us.

After fleeing an abusive husband with her six-year-old son, Tommie, Beverly is attempting to create a new life for them in a small town off the beaten track.Despite their newfound freedom, Beverly is constantly on she creates a fake backstory, wears a disguise around town, and buries herself in DIY projects to stave off anxiety. But her stress only rises when Tommie insists he’d been hearing someone walking on the roof and calling his name late at night. With money running out and danger seemingly around every corner, she makes a desperate decision that will rewrite everything she knows to be true. . . .

Meanwhile, Colby Mills is on a heart-pounding journey of another kind. A failed musician, he now heads a small family farm in North Carolina. Seeking a rare break from his duties at home, he spontaneously takes a gig playing in a bar in St. Pete Beach, Florida, where he meets Morgan Lee—and his whole life is turned upside-down.

The daughter of affluent Chicago doctors, Morgan has graduated from a prestigious college music program with the ambition to move to Nashville and become a star. Romantically and musically, she and Colby complete each other in a way that neither has ever known.

In the course of a single unforgettable week, two young people will navigate the exhilarating heights and heartbreak of first love. Hundreds of miles away, Beverly will put her love for her young son to the test. And fate will draw all three people together in a web of life-altering connections . . . forcing each to wonder whether the dream of a better life can ever survive the weight of the past.]]>
400 Nicholas Sparks 0593449576 Dawn 0 to-read 3.81 2022 Dreamland
author: Nicholas Sparks
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Women 127305853 From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women—at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie� McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]>
471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Dawn 0 to-read 4.59 2024 The Women
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Roman Stories 125077431
In “The Boundary,� one family vacations in the Roman countryside, though we see their lives through the eyes of the caretaker’s daughter, who nurses a wound from her family’s immigrant past. In “P’s Parties,� a Roman couple, now empty nesters, finds comfort and community with foreigners at their friend’s yearly birthday gathering—until the husband crosses a line. And in “The Steps,� on a public staircase that connects two neighborhoods and the residents who climb up and down it, we see Italy’s capital in all of its social and cultural variegations, filled with the tensions of a changing visibility and invisibility, random acts of aggression, the challenge of straddling worlds and cultures, and the meaning of home.

These are splendid, searching stories, written in Jhumpa Lahiri’s adopted language of Italian and seamlessly translated by the author and by Knopf editor Todd Portnowitz. Stories steeped in the moods of Italian master Alberto Moravia and guided, in the concluding tale, by the ineluctable ghost of Dante Alighieri, whose words lead the protagonist toward a new way of life.]]>
224 Jhumpa Lahiri Dawn 0 to-read 3.77 2023 Roman Stories
author: Jhumpa Lahiri
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
An Island Wedding 59124892
On the little Scottish island of Mure, halfway between Scotland and Norway, Flora MacKenzie and her fiancé Joel are planning the smallest of sweetheart weddings, a high summer celebration surrounded only by those very dearest to them.

Not everyone on the island is happy about being excluded, though. The temperature rises even further when beautiful Olivia MacDonald who left Mure ten years ago for bigger and brighter things returns with a wedding planner in tow. Her fiancé has oodles of family money, and Olivia is determined to throw the biggest, most extravagant, most Instagrammable wedding possible. And she wants to do it at Flora's hotel, the same weekend as Flora's carefully planned micro-wedding.

As the summer solstice approaches, can Flora handle everyone else's Happy Every Afters and still get her own?]]>
400 Jenny Colgan 0063141906 Dawn 0 to-read 4.20 2022 An Island Wedding
author: Jenny Colgan
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Bright Lights, Big Christmas 65214218 From Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of The Homewreckers and The Santa Suit, comes a novella celebrating love and the warm, glittering charm of the holiday season.

When fall rolls around, it’s time for Kerry Tolliver to leave her family’s Christmas tree farm in the mountains of North Carolina for the wilds of New York City to help her gruff older brother & his dog, Queenie, sell the trees at the family stand on a corner in Greenwich Village. Sharing a tiny vintage camper and experiencing Manhattan for the first time, Kerry’s ready to try to carve out a new corner for herself.

In the weeks leading into Christmas, Kerry quickly becomes close with the charming neighbors who live near their stand. When an elderly neighbor goes missing, Kerry will need to combine her country know-how with her newly acquired New York knowledge to protect the new friends she’s come to think of as family,

And complicating everything is Patrick, a single dad raising his adorable, dragon-loving son Austin on this quirky block. Kerry and Patrick’s chemistry is undeniable, but what chance does this holiday romance really have?

Filled with family ties, both rekindled and new, and sparkling with Christmas magic, Bright Lights, Big Christmas delivers everything Mary Kay Andrews fans adore, all tied up in a hilarious, romantic gem of a novel.]]>
288 Mary Kay Andrews 125028581X Dawn 0 to-read 3.74 2023 Bright Lights, Big Christmas
author: Mary Kay Andrews
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The One and Only Ruby (The One and Only #3)]]> 62310711 The One and Only Bob. Now living in a wildlife sanctuary, Ruby’s caretaker from the elephant orphanage in Africa where she grew up is visiting. Seeing him again brings back a flood of memories - both happy and sad - of her life before the circus, and she recounts the time she spent in the African savannah to Ivan and Bob.]]> 210 Katherine Applegate 0063080087 Dawn 0 to-read 4.24 2023 The One and Only Ruby (The One and Only #3)
author: Katherine Applegate
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Must Love Flowers 63249825 Two women at different stages of life find themselves on a journey of renewal after undergoing hardships in this uplifting novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber.

Joan Sample is not living the life she expected. Now a widow and an empty-nester, she has become by her own admission something of a recluse. But after another birthday spent alone, she is finally inclined to listen to her sister, who has been begging Joan to reengage with the world. With her support, Joan gathers the courage to take some long-awaited steps: hiring someone to tame her overgrown garden, joining a grief support group, and even renting out a room to a local college student. Before long Joan is starting to feel a little like herself again.

Across town, Maggie Herbert works mornings as a barista, tending to impatient customers before rushing to afternoon nursing classes. She's been living with her alcoholic father, ducking his temperamental outbursts and struggling to pay the household bills. But her circumstances brighten when she finds a room for rent in Joan's home. In the unexpected warmth of her new situation, Maggie finds a glimmer of hope for a better life. But will Maggie's budding attraction to one of her favorite customers ruin the harmony she's only recently found with Joan? Meanwhile, what is Joan to make of the mysterious landscaper who's been revitalizing her garden--a man who seems to harbor a past loss of his own?

As Maggie and Joan confront unfamiliar life choices, they find themselves leaning on each other in surprising ways--discovering in the process that "family" is often just another word for love in all its forms.]]>
336 Debbie Macomber 059360055X Dawn 0 to-read 3.99 2023 Must Love Flowers
author: Debbie Macomber
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
My Heart Will Find You 61155447
When the world is brought to a standstill in the early days of a global pandemic, Etta Wilmont finds herself suddenly stranded in Kansas City. Desperate to secure a roof over her head, Etta crosses paths with Henry Logan, a lonely older man in need of a caretaker. His invitation for Etta to stay with him seems to be the solution to both their problems—and maybe the spontaneous adventure Etta’s life has been missing.

As Etta and Henry settle into a companionable living arrangement, Etta indulges in Henry’s library. The compelling historical accounts of life in the Midwest soon inspire vivid dreams of Kansas City in the 1870s, dreams in which she’s a mail-order bride, married to a handsome but guarded rancher named Maxwell Lawton.

Haunted by the story unfolding in her mind, Etta realizes her dreams of the past and the familiar faces featured within are starting to have an impact on the present, altering her current reality. Perhaps these dreams are Etta’s chance to finally claim something for herself after so much time spent caring for others. More than anything, Etta wonders if the captivating man she’s falling for while she sleeps might be real, might be out there—true love waiting to be found and which would change both their lives forever.]]>
352 Jude Deveraux 0778333485 Dawn 0 to-read 3.82 2023 My Heart Will Find You
author: Jude Deveraux
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Wishtree 44322551
Trees can't tell jokes, but they can certainly tell stories. . . .

Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the neighborhood "wishtree"―people write their wishes on pieces of cloth and tie them to Red's branches. Along with a crow named Bongo and other animals who seek refuge in Red's hollows, this wishtree watches over the neighborhood.

You might say Red has seen it all.

Until a new family moves in. Not everyone is welcoming, and Red's experience as a wishtree is more important than ever.

Funny, deep, warm, and nuanced, this is Katherine Applegate at her very best―writing from the heart, and from a completely unexpected point of view.

This book has Common Core connections.]]>
240 Katherine Applegate 1250233895 Dawn 0 to-read 4.35 2017 Wishtree
author: Katherine Applegate
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Sunday at the Sunflower Inn (Honey Creek, #4)]]> 71457425
In New York Times bestselling author Jodi Thomas’s tender and heartfelt novel set in the charming small town of Honey Creek, Texas, spring is in the air—and love is blooming too, as paths cross and hearts meet between residents old and new . . .

Jessica Ann MacKenzie—“Jam� to everyone in Honey Creek—has fulfilled her dream of owning the best restaurant for miles around. Serving romantic candlelit dinners on Valentine’s Day is a reminder of another dream, one she’s just about given up on. Until, that very night, Sergeant Tucson Smith clambers out of the muddy river and onto her land, bringing the promise of something they’ve both been searching for.

When McCoy Mason crashes on Interstate 45, he doesn’t just bust up his Mustang, his leg, and his relationship. He also loses his prospects of a job and apartment in Houston. Honey Creek, home to his estranged grandfather, offers a temporary respite. After all, what permanent use could a town so picture-perfect have for a man like him?

At sixty-seven, Charles H. Winston III lives by order and routine. One of his cherished rituals is a regular lunch date with three lovely ladies at the Honey Creek Café, including the very proper Miss Lilly Lambert. But it’s not too late to surprise the whole town—or himself—by seizing a chance for a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. And there’s no better season than spring, a time of renewed hope and second chances . . .]]>
336 Jodi Thomas 142015138X Dawn 0 to-read 4.13 2022 Sunday at the Sunflower Inn (Honey Creek, #4)
author: Jodi Thomas
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Scarlet Circus 61951029 The Scarlet Circus, the fourth volume in Yolen’s award-winning short fiction series brings you passionate treasures and unexpected transformations. This bewitching assemblage, with an original introduction from Brandon Sanderson, is an ideal read for anyone who appreciates witty, compelling, and classic romantic fantasy.]]> 227 Jane Yolen 1616963867 Dawn 0 to-read 3.71 2023 The Scarlet Circus
author: Jane Yolen
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[A Bright New Day: Borrowed Dreams / The Trouble with Caasi]]> 61195301
Borrowed Dreams : Carly Grieves is made of strong stuff. Tough and adventurous, she journeys to the wilds of Alaska looking for a new beginning, but she finds more than she bargained for in Brand St. Clair, a rugged bush pilot. Something about him stirs a primal longing inside Carly, but he’s a man with wounds, a widower stuck in the past. Carly desires him deeply, yet how can she compete with a dead woman for a place in his heart? Despite his painful past, Brand is ready to make his own fresh start with Carly, until he discovers she too has walls that must come down. Now Brand won’t give up until he convinces Carly that the biggest risk of her life is actually the safest move she could loving him.

The Trouble with A driven workaholic, CEO Caasi Crane has sacrificed all semblance of a personal life to build a West Coast hotel empire. But everything she’s built comes into question when her top manager, Blake Sherrill, abruptly resigns. Caasi can’t figure out why it hurts so much to lose him, and why she so desperately misses his presence not only in the office but also in her heart. Once Blake decides to leave, he unexpectedly gets what he’s wanted all Caasi’s undivided attention. Blake is excellent at his job and he knows it. While Caasi begs him to come back to work, he delays his response and tries to convince Caasi there’s more to life than a career.Can Blake help her see the love that’s waiting for her? A love strong enough to last a lifetime.]]>
432 Debbie Macomber 0593359887 Dawn 0 to-read 3.87 A Bright New Day: Borrowed Dreams / The Trouble with Caasi
author: Debbie Macomber
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.87
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Violeta 62952147 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - This sweeping novel from the author of A Long Petal of the Sea tells the epic story of Violeta Del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century.

"An immersive saga about a passion-filled life."--People

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.

Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling.

She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics.

Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.]]>
368 Isabel Allende 0593496221 Dawn 0 to-read 3.89 2022 Violeta
author: Isabel Allende
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Invisible Hour 62919793
One June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. The Scarlet Letter was written almost two hundred years earlier, but it seems to tell the story of Mia’s mother, Ivy, and their life inside the Community—an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts where contact with the outside world is forbidden. But how could this be? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have so perfectly captured the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her?

Through a journey of heartbreak, love, and time, Mia must abandon the rules she was raised with at the Community. As she does, she realizes that reading can transport you to other worlds or bring them to you, and that readers and writers affect one another in mysterious ways. She learns that time is more fluid than she can imagine, and that love is stronger than any chains that bind you.

As a girl Mia fell in love with a book. Now as a young woman she falls in love with a brilliant writer as she makes her way back in time. But what if Nathaniel Hawthorne never wrote The Scarlet Letter ? And what if Mia Jacob never found it on the day she planned to die?

From “the reigning queen of magical realism� (Kristin Hannah, New York Times bestselling author), this is the story of one woman’s dream. For a little while it came true.]]>
272 Alice Hoffman 1982175370 Dawn 0 to-read 3.54 2023 The Invisible Hour
author: Alice Hoffman
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Good Night, Irene 63023640 In the tradition of The Nightingale and Transcription, an exhilarating World War II epic that chronicles an extraordinary young woman's heroic frontline service in the Red Cross

In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military buses called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle.

After D-Day, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Their time in Europe will see them embroiled in danger, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald. Through her friendship with Dorothy, and a love affair with a gallant American fighter pilot named Hans, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope, which becomes more precarious by the day, is for all three of them to survive the war intact.

Taking as inspiration his mother's own Red Cross service, Luis Alberto Urrea has delivered an overlooked story of women's heroism in World War II. With its affecting and uplifting portrait of friendship and valor in harrowing circumstances, Good Night, Irene powerfully demonstrates yet again that Urrea's "gifts as a storyteller are prodigious" (NPR).]]>
407 Luis Alberto Urrea 0316265853 Dawn 0 to-read 4.03 2023 Good Night, Irene
author: Luis Alberto Urrea
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Strawberry Lane (Someday Valley #1)]]> 72288211 288 Jodi Thomas 1420155075 Dawn 0 to-read 3.74 2023 Strawberry Lane (Someday Valley #1)
author: Jodi Thomas
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Wind Knows My Name 62583516 This powerful and moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea weaves together past and present, tracing the ripple effects of war and immigration on one child in Europe in 1938 and another in the United States in 2019.

Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler was six years old when his father disappeared during Kristallnacht—the night their family lost everything. Samuel’s mother secured a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to the United Kingdom, which he boarded alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.

Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz, a blind seven-year-old girl, and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. However, their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination she created with her sister back home.

Anita’s case is assigned to Selena Duran, a young social worker who enlists the help of a promising lawyer from one of San Francisco’s top law firms. Together they discover that Anita has another family member in the United States: Leticia Cordero, who is employed at the home of now eighty-six-year-old Samuel Adler, linking these two lives.

Spanning time and place, The Wind Knows My Name is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming.]]>
260 Isabel Allende 0593598105 Dawn 0 to-read 3.93 2023 The Wind Knows My Name
author: Isabel Allende
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Holy Bible: King James Version]]> 1923820 Kršćani Bibliju proučavaju kao svoju normativnu, za život smjerodavnu knjigu u kojoj oni nalaze poruku - riječ Božju. No, Biblija je uz to i spomenik historije čovječanstva, jedna od najstarijih knjiga, u kojoj je genij Hebreja na svoj način asimilirao i dalje obogatio razmišljanje i mudrost drevne Mezopotamije i Egipta, da je onda, obogaćenu grčkim genijem, po Novom zavjetu i daljnjem kršćanskom razmišljanju unese u tadašnji grčko-rimski svijet. Po postanku i jeziku, po sadržaju i stilu, po slikovitosti i metaforici, Biblija nije jedna knjiga, nego zbir knjiga koje su nastajale u razdoblju od 13. st. pr. Kr do 2. st. po Kr.
Biblija je za kršćane sveta, inspirirana i kanonska knjiga. Za svakog čovjeka Biblija je istovremeno zbirka povijesnih isprava i književno djelo izvorne i neprolazne umjetničke snage. Ona pripada zajedničkoj kulturi čovječanstva.
Stari zavjet u Bibliji Stvarnosti plod je mnogostruko udruženog rada hrvatskih bibličara i književnika. Kao polazišni tekst izabran je prijevod Antuna Sovića, s tim da je Petoknjižje preveo Silvije Grubišić, Psalme Filibert Gass, a Pjesmu nad pjesmama Nikola Miličević. Novi zavjet preveo je Ljudevit Rupčić.]]>
1590 Anonymous Dawn 5 4.44 1611 The Holy Bible: King James Version
author: Anonymous
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1611
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/31
date added: 2022/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Dinner on Primrose Hill (Honey Creek, #3)]]> 57197702 The delightful and touching new novel from the bestselling author of dozens of treasured romances. Return to the picturesque Texas town of Honey Creek—a place where friendship and warm welcomes can be relied on, and love always finds a way�

Benjamin Monroe is pretty sure how his life will play out. He’ll continue teaching chemistry in his small college, and spend his free time biking through the valley. Eventually, he’ll retire to putter around in his garden and greenhouse.

His colleague, Virginia Clark, is not one for routines. She’s chatty, spontaneous, and bubbly, and before Benjamin realizes what happened, she’s talked him into collaborating on a research project—studying the mating habits of college students. Virginia knows her desire to work with Benjamin is motivated by more than the potential prize money . . . and hopes he might not be quite as indifferent as he seems to be.

Ketch Kincaid, one of Benjamin’s star students, returned to college after serving in the army. He needs something to get his mind off his recent breakup and collecting research data might do it. And there’s another distraction on the horizon—a woman who looks like she, too, knows about heartache.

Soon enough, their project, “The Chemistry of Mating,� is gaining notoriety. Friends, neighbors . . . the whole town has become involved. But no matter what the data determines, one conclusion seems inescapable: love follows its own rules . . .]]>
223 Jodi Thomas 1420151363 Dawn 0 to-read 4.46 2021 Dinner on Primrose Hill (Honey Creek, #3)
author: Jodi Thomas
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Four Winds 53138081 Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance.

In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes an epic novel of love and heroism and hope, set against the backdrop of one of America’s most defining eras—the Great Depression.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250178602]]>
464 Kristin Hannah 1250178606 Dawn 5 4.27 2021 The Four Winds
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/04
date added: 2022/12/04
shelves:
review:
This book makes you feel like you are right there learning about the dust bowl and the people who went through it ! So moving and heartbreaking and wonderful all at the same time ! Thank you so much Kristin for teaching me about the Great Dust Bowl ! You did such an Awesome job writing it !!!
]]>
<![CDATA[Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves and Other Female Villains]]> 14992898
In BAD GIRLS, readers meet twenty-six of history’s most notorious women, each with a rotten reputation. But authors Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple remind us that there are two sides to every story. Was Delilah a harlot or hero? Was Catherine the Great a great ruler, or just plain ruthless? At the end of each chapter, Yolen and Stemple appear as themselves in comic panels as they debate each girl’s badness—Heidi as the prosecution, Jane for context.

This unique and sassy examination of famed, female historical figures will engage readers with its unusual presentation of the subject matter. Heidi and Jane’s strong arguments for the innocence and guilt of each bad girl promotes the practice of critical thinking as well as the idea that history is subjective. Rebecca Guay’s detailed illustrations provide a rich, stylized portrait of each woman, while the inclusion of comic panels will resonate with fans of graphic novels.]]>
172 Jane Yolen 1580891853 Dawn 5 3.37 2013 Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves and Other Female Villains
author: Jane Yolen
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2022/11/29
date added: 2022/11/29
shelves:
review:
I thought it was very interesting !
]]>
<![CDATA[The Book Woman's Daughter (The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, #2)]]> 58803339 New York Times and USA Today Bestseller

Bestselling historical fiction author Kim Michele Richardson is back with the perfect book club read following Honey Mary Angeline Lovett, the daughter of the beloved Troublesome book woman, who must fight for her own independence with the help of the women who guide her and the books that set her free.

In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned, Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good.

Picking up her mother’s old packhorse library route, Honey begins to deliver books to the remote hollers of Appalachia. Honey is looking to prove that she doesn’t need anyone telling her how to survive, but the route can be treacherous, and some folks aren’t as keen to let a woman pave her own way. If Honey wants to bring the freedom that books provide to the families who need it most, she’s going to have to fight for her place, and along the way, learn that the extraordinary women who run the hills and hollers can make all the difference in the world.]]>
336 Kim Michele Richardson 1728242592 Dawn 0 to-read 4.16 2022 The Book Woman's Daughter (The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, #2)
author: Kim Michele Richardson
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Crane Husband 60784308 Award-winning author Kelly Barnhill brings her singular talents to The Crane Husband, a raw, powerful story of love, sacrifice, and family.

“Mothers fly away like migrating birds. This is why farmers have daughters.

A fifteen-year-old teenager is the backbone of her small Midwestern family, budgeting the household finances and raising her younger brother while her mom, a talented artist, weaves beautiful tapestries. For six years, it’s been just the three of them—her mom has brought home guests at times, but none have ever stayed.

Yet when her mom brings home a six-foot tall crane with a menacing air, the girl is powerless to prevent her mom letting the intruder into her heart, and her children’s lives. Utterly enchanted and numb to his sharp edges, her mom abandons the world around her to weave the masterpiece the crane demands.

In this stunning contemporary retelling of “The Crane Wife� by the Newbery Medal-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon, one fiercely pragmatic teen forced to grow up faster than was fair will do whatever it takes to protect her family—and change the story.]]>
118 Kelly Barnhill 1250850975 Dawn 0 to-read 3.87 2023 The Crane Husband
author: Kelly Barnhill
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Steppenwolf 61089494 Steppenwolf is a poetical self-portrait of a man who felt himself to be half-human and half-wolf. This Faust-like and magical story is evidence of Hesse's searching philosophy and extraordinary sense of humanity as he tells of the humanization of a middle-aged misanthrope. Yet this novel can also be seen as a plea for rigorous self-examination and an indictment of the intellectual hypocrisy of the period. As Hesse himself remarked, "Of all my books Steppenwolf is the one that was more often and more violently misunderstood than any other".]]> 227 Hermann Hesse 1324036818 Dawn 0 to-read 4.14 1927 The Steppenwolf
author: Hermann Hesse
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1927
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Anam Cara [Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition]: A Book of Celtic Wisdom]]> 60323160 Anam Cara is a rare synthesis of philosophy, poetry, and spirituality. This work will have a powerful and life-transforming experience for those who read it. --Deepak Chopra

A twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the classic work of Celtic spirituality and mysticism, updated with new material, including an Introduction, Afterword and P.S. section.

In this revered classic, the late poet, philosopher, and scholar John O'Donohue helps us discover the divine within us as he guides us on a journey to the sacred space where the eternal meets the soul. Anam Cara, Gaelic for soul friend, is a timeless collection of ancient Celtic wisdom, poetry, stories, and blessings that offer profound insights on the universal themes of friendship, solitude, love, and death as:

Light is generousThe human heart is never completely bornLove as ancient recognitionThe body is the angel of the soulSolitude is luminousBeauty likes neglected placesThe passionate heart never agesTo be natural is to be holySilence is the sister of the divineDeath as an invitation to freedomAllowing us to experience the grace of Celtic benediction, Anam Cara nourishes the heart and elevates the spirit.]]>
256 John O'Donohue 0063270587 Dawn 0 to-read 4.54 1996 Anam Cara [Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition]: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
author: John O'Donohue
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.54
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Christmas Spirit 60279827 Two lifelong friends decide to trade places the week before Christmas and end up finding love along the way in this delightful novel from the queen of holiday stories, #1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber.

Peter Armstrong and Hank Colfax are best friends, but their lives couldn't be more different. Peter, the local pastor who is dedicated to his community, spending time visiting the flock, attending meetings, and, with the holiday season approaching, preparing for the Christmas service and live nativity. As a bartender, Hank serves a much different customer base at his family-owned tavern, including a handful of lonely regulars and the local biker gang.

When Peter scoffs that Hank has it easy compared to him, the two decide to switch jobs until Christmas Eve. To their surprise, the responsibilities of a bartender and a pastor are similar, but taking on the other's work is more difficult than either Peter or Hank expected. As the two begin to see each other in a new light--and each discovers a new love to cherish--their lives are forever changed.

In The Christmas Spirit, Debbie Macomber celebrates the true meaning of the holidays and the inclusive community spirit that binds us all.]]>
240 Debbie Macomber 0593500105 Dawn 0 to-read 3.83 2022 The Christmas Spirit
author: Debbie Macomber
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Mother Road (Route 66, #1) 1362444 412 Dorothy Garlock 0446611689 Dawn 0 Enjoyed it very much ! 3.99 2003 Mother Road (Route 66, #1)
author: Dorothy Garlock
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/29
date added: 2022/09/30
shelves:
review:
Enjoyed it very much !
]]>
Write Naked 2325070 256 Peter Gould 0374384835 Dawn 0 I took forever reading it not because of it lacking ,just busy with multi things.
I recommend it all the way!]]>
3.50 2008 Write Naked
author: Peter Gould
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/26
date added: 2022/09/26
shelves:
review:
It’s an absolutely wonderful book !!! I loved it !!!
I took forever reading it not because of it lacking ,just busy with multi things.
I recommend it all the way!
]]>
<![CDATA[Moonstruck and Murderous: A Ned McNeil Mystery]]> 50008513 A cold wind can send shivers down your spine! The month is March—a strange month, noted for its fickle weather—but this March has an added strangeness in the form of two full moons. Could they be the reason for murder to strike the small town of Ednalee, Oklahoma? Some think so. In the quiet little town, who could be to blame? But there is more than one suspect, and before the month ends, the murderer strikes again and yet again.Could the slayings involve the Carver Mansion? Mystery surrounds the estate. Does the ancient house attract evil?Perhaps the bloodthirsty predator who stalks these historic grounds is affected by the blue moon? Amateur sleuth Ned McNeil must find out before even more people die. Is the killer moonstruck or murderous—or both?What readers are saying about the Ned McNeil books:“A unique story”“Lovable characters”“Faith, friends, and tension”“The story pulls the reader in”“Engrossing, suspenseful, a pleasure to read”“Skillfully plotted, likable heroine”“Delightful”]]> 213 Blanche Day Manos 1683132009 Dawn 0 Blanche writes wonderful entertaining stories and I look forward to more in the future !]]> 4.00 Moonstruck and Murderous: A Ned McNeil Mystery
author: Blanche Day Manos
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/17
date added: 2022/08/12
shelves:
review:
Sad to get to the end of the� Moonlight � series! They were VERY good !!!
Blanche writes wonderful entertaining stories and I look forward to more in the future !
]]>
<![CDATA[Search for Treasure (The Islanders, #2)]]> 59365190 The sequel to New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe’s The Islanders, a beautiful story of friendship, loss, and the healing power of nature.

Jake Potter is back on Dewees Island for another summer with his beloved grandmother, Honey. This time, Jake is excited that his dad will be there as he continues to recover from his injuries sustained in Afghanistan. But Jake also knows they both need get used to a new normal, which isn’t easy.

Jake also discovers that his two best friends, Macon and Lovie, are struggling as well. Macon is adjusting to being a big brother, while Lovie is navigating a new relationship with her dad, who has long been absent in her life. To cheer everyone up, Jake decides that the trio needs a new mission, just like they had the previous summer in saving the turtles. He discovers that his dad loved spending time in an old tree fort on the island, and there is a special treasure box hidden somewhere nearby. Jake just knows if he can find it, maybe his dad will be happy again—and he knows Macon and Lovie are the perfect fellow treasure hunters!

Their search leads them to discover there might be actual buried treasure somewhere on Dewees, all while they battle some unwelcome guests on the island, of both the two- and four-legged kind! On the three friends� biggest quest yet, they realize that the treasures they really want in life were with them all along.]]>
272 Mary Alice Monroe 1534427309 Dawn 0 to-read 4.36 Search for Treasure (The Islanders, #2)
author: Mary Alice Monroe
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.36
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Best Is Yet to Come 59911514 When a woman alone in the world bravely chooses to open her heart, two lost souls have a new chance at belonging, in this intimate novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber.

A new beginning in charming Oceanside, Washington, is exactly what Hope Godwin needs after the death of her twin brother. There are plenty of distractions, like her cozy cottage with the slightly nosy landlords next door, and a brewing drama among her students at the local high school.

Despite having settled quickly into the community, something is still missing for Hope. That is, until her landlord convinces her to volunteer at his animal shelter. There she meets Shadow, a rescue dog that everyone has given up on. But true to her name, Hope believes he’s worth saving.

Like Shadow, shelter volunteer Cade Lincoln Jr., is suffering with injuries most can’t see. A wounded ex-marine, Cade identifies with Shadow, assuming they are both beyond help. Hope senses that what they each need is someone to believe in them, and she has a lot of love to give. As she gains Shadow’s trust, Hope notices Cade begins to open up as well. Finding the courage to be vulnerable again, Cade and Hope take steps toward a relationship, and Hope finally begins to feel at peace in her new home.

But Hope’s new happiness is put to the test when Cade’s past conflicts resurface, and Hope becomes embroiled in the escalating situation at the high school. Love and compassion are supposed to heal all wounds. But are they enough to help Hope and Cade overcome the pain of their past and the obstacles in the way of a better future?]]>
304 Debbie Macomber 1984818848 Dawn 0 to-read 3.94 2022 The Best Is Yet to Come
author: Debbie Macomber
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
America for Beginners 36461785
Pival Sengupta has done something she never expected: She has booked a trip with the First Class India USA Destination Vacation Tour Company. But unlike other upper-class Indians on a foreign holiday, the recently widowed Pival is not interested in sightseeing. She is traveling thousands of miles from Kolkota to New York on a cross-country journey to California, where she hopes to uncover the truth about her beloved son, Rahi. A year ago Rahi devastated his very traditional parents when he told them he was gay. Then Pival's husband, Ram, told her that their son had died suddenly - heartbreaking news she still refuses to accept. Now, with Ram gone, she is going to America to find Rahi, alive and whole or dead and gone, and come to terms with her own life.

Arriving in New York, the tour proves to be more complicated than anticipated. Planned by the company's indefatigable owner, Ronnie Munshi - a hardworking immigrant and entrepreneur hungry for his own taste of the American dream - it is a work of haphazard improvisation. Pavil's guide is the company's new hire, the guileless and wonderfully resourceful Satya, who has been in America for one year - and has never actually left the five boroughs. For modesty's sake, Pival and Satya will be accompanied by Rebecca Elliot, an aspiring young actress. Eager for a paying gig she's along for the ride, because how hard can a two-week "working" vacation traveling across America be?

Slowly making her way from coast to coast with her unlikely companions, Pival finds that her understanding of her son - and her hopes of a reunion with him - are challenged by her growing knowledge of his adoptive country. As the bonds between this odd trio deepens, Pival, Satya, and Rebecca learn to see America - and themselves - in different and profound new ways.

A bittersweet and bighearted tale of forgiveness, hope, and acceptance, 'AMERICA FOR BEGINNERS' illuminates the unexpected enchantments life can hold and reminds us that our most precious connections aren't always the ones we seek.

RUNNING TIME � 10hrs. and 49mins.

©2018 Leah Franqui (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers]]>
320 Leah Franqui 0062668757 Dawn 0 to-read 3.82 2018 America for Beginners
author: Leah Franqui
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Under the Egg 18060008 From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler meets Chasing Vermeer in this clever middle-grade debut.

When Theodora Tenpenny spills a bottle of rubbing alcohol on her late grandfather’s painting, she discovers what seems to be an old Renaissance masterpiece underneath. That’s great news for Theo, who’s struggling to hang onto her family’s two-hundred-year-old townhouse and support her unstable mother on her grandfather’s legacy of $463. There’s just one problem: Theo’s grandfather was a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and she worries the painting may be stolen.

With the help of some unusual new friends, Theo’s search for answers takes her all around Manhattan, and introduces her to a side of the city—and her grandfather—that she never knew. To solve the mystery, she’ll have to abandon her hard-won self-reliance and build a community, one serendipitous friendship at a time.
]]>
247 Laura Marx Fitzgerald 0803740018 Dawn 0 It was good and intriguing ! 4.00 2014 Under the Egg
author: Laura Marx Fitzgerald
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2022/04/19
shelves:
review:
It was good and intriguing !
]]>
A Book of Nonsense 868668 Book of Nonsense, first published in 1846, stands alone as the ultimate and most loved expression in English of freewheeling, benign, and unconstricted merriment.]]> 288 Edward Lear 0679417982 Dawn 0 3.69 1846 A Book of Nonsense
author: Edward Lear
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1846
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/28
date added: 2022/03/28
shelves:
review:
Quite the book ! Very intrigued by all the accomplishments Edward Lear made in his life !
]]>
The Sound of Wings 54810312
Jocelyn Anderson is a struggling writer who finds escape from her custody battle in the journal of her late mother-in-law. As she gets pulled through the pages of time, Jocelyn discovers her own husband has a hidden history she knows nothing about. Is this secret now Jocelyn's to keep?

Krystal Axelrod is living a life she never dreamed she could have. And yet the demons of a dysfunctional childhood and mean girl culture from her cheerleading days cast their shadow over her ability to feel whole, capable, and worthy. Does Goldie hold the key to Krystal's path to freedom?

A masterfully crafted tale of love, friendship, betrayal, and the risks we take in the pursuit of justice.]]>
296 Suzanne Simonetti 164742044X Dawn 0 to-read 3.80 2021 The Sound of Wings
author: Suzanne Simonetti
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Vigil Harbor 58834839
A decade in the future, in the historic town of Vigil Harbor, there’s been a rash of divorces among the yacht-club set; a marine biologist despairs at the state of the world; a spurned wife is bent on revenge; and the renowned architect Austin Kepner pursues a passion for building homes to withstand the escalating fury of coastal storms. Brecht, Austin’s stepson, has dropped out of college and retreated home from New York after narrowly escaping one of the domestic terrorist acts that, like hurricanes, are becoming all too common.

When two outsiders come to town—one a woman determined to solve the disappearance of a long-lost lover who links her to Austin, the other a man with subversive charms—the fates of Vigil Harbor’s residents become intertwined on one remarkable day and a long-held secret involving a selkie comes to light.

In a Time of Tempests reveals Julia Glass in all of her virtuosity, braiding together multiple voices and several dazzling strands of plot in a story that mingles mortal longings and fears with immortal mysteries of the deep as well as the heart.]]>
416 Julia Glass 1101870389 Dawn 0 to-read 3.58 2022 Vigil Harbor
author: Julia Glass
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Sarah's Valley 18721993 263 Sharon Mierke 0987956817 Dawn 0 to-read 4.33 2012 Sarah's Valley
author: Sharon Mierke
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[When the Yellow Mocker Calls (Two Feather's Legacy Book 1)]]> 29808207 457 Lila M Beckham Dawn 0 to-read 4.24 When the Yellow Mocker Calls (Two Feather's Legacy Book 1)
author: Lila M Beckham
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Widow's Walk 29340311 256 Sharon Mierke Dawn 0 to-read 4.42 The Widow's Walk
author: Sharon Mierke
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.42
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Canyon House 30071252

For nine-year-old tomboy Poppy, moving to the wilderness of the canyon and the ramshackle house was a dream come true. Nature was her playground—she could let her imagination run wild. Poppy thought starting a new school in the fall would be the worst thing to ever happen.


But as the temperature dropped and the dark clouds rolled over the canyon walls, she couldn't have foreseen the secrets that should have been shared or the life-and-death events that would unfold—and how they would dramatically change her life forever.


Will Poppy be strong enough to endure The Canyon House?]]>
Janice Gilbertson 1683130499 Dawn 0 to-read 3.67 2016 The Canyon House
author: Janice Gilbertson
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Curiosity Killed the Witch (English Enchantment, #1)]]> 58942112
Her work as a reporter for the town’s newspaper rarely involves covering a big story, so when she is sent to take notes at a local meeting about proposed building work she thinks it will be just like any other. All she has to do is keep her head down and avoid eye-contact with her ex � the town police sergeant.

A wild group of protesters outside the town hall are shouting so loudly that Liz can barely hear what anyone is saying, some are angrier than others, and when they burst through the doors everyone scatters. Embarrassingly, her parents are among the mob.

In the days that follow, everything Liz thinks she knows about her town proves false. Black Bridge isn’t quite so sleepy after all.

Tripping over a dead body is sure to shake anyone to the core, but strange events keep following her and Liz is beginning to think that some old legends might be based on truth. Could this place really be an old hideout for witches on the run? Surely not�

Curiosity Killed the Witch is the first book in An English Enchantment Witch Mystery series.]]>
160 Mara Webb Dawn 0 to-read 4.44 Curiosity Killed the Witch (English Enchantment, #1)
author: Mara Webb
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.44
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[By the Fright of the Silvery Moon: A Ned McNeil Mystery]]> 35794455 Is it Moonlight or is it Murder?Ned McNeil is haunted by a nightmare that wakes her in the middle of the night, leaving her gasping for breath. A dog—or is it a wolf?—howling in her yard under the brilliant autumn moon sends chills down her spine. Is the moonlight and the fact that she is alone in Granger Mansion causing her imagination to work overtime? Hidden by a dense fog, an unknown driver pursues Ned to the edge of a cliff, an innocent-appearing luncheon ends in violence, a neighbor drops dead for no apparent reason, and a hidden shooter waylays her in a deserted cemetery. Surely, these are not coincidences. Every old house has a history and Ned thought she knew everything about Granger Mansion, but the house holds some deep secrets of its own. Those secrets very nearly cost Ned McNeil her life. By the Fright of the Silvery Moon is a page turner; a cozy mystery with an extra shiver that just may keep you up at night, even when the moon isn't full!If you like Amateur Sleuth stories, Cozy Mystery tales, or stories with Women Sleuths, you'll love this one!Praise for By the Fright of the Silvery Moon"Ned McNeil has gone back to the 'home place' and the great old house her uncle left her. While she settles into the community, renews old friendships, meets new people, and one loving guardian, she begins to realize that there are some members of the community that are not so welcoming. Blanche Manos weaves a suspenseful story with characters good and evil, which will keep you turning the pages. Her clear, fast-paced writing is a delight to read, and just when you think you know it all, a twist may change your mind!" � Janice Gilbertson, Author of Summer of �58 and The Canyon House “By the Fright of the Silvery Moon is a delightful read. You will feel right at home in Granger Mansion, along with ‘Ned� McNeil, her cat, Penny, and a dog named Ulysses. The fireplace is lit and the coffee is on. This is a mystery that will keep you in suspense until the very end.� � Sharon Mierke, author of The Widow's Walk and the Mabel Wickles cozy mysteries]]> 185 Blanche Day Manos 1683131002 Dawn 0 About to start the 3rd Ned McNeil series book. Great interesting mysteries I highly recommend them to all !
]]>
4.50 By the Fright of the Silvery Moon: A Ned McNeil Mystery
author: Blanche Day Manos
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/09
date added: 2022/03/09
shelves:
review:
Another wonderful book by Blanche Day Manos ! I’m enjoying all of her books so very much !
About to start the 3rd Ned McNeil series book. Great interesting mysteries I highly recommend them to all !

]]>
The Only (Endling, #3) 58275709 The thrilling conclusion to the epic middle grade fantasy trilogy from Katherine Applegate, the New York Times bestselling and Newbery Award-winning author of The One and Only Ivan (now a major motion picture!), The One and Only Bob, Wishtree, and Crenshaw!

In the beginning, Byx's original quest was to discover if there were more of her kind, or if she was destined to become an endling--the last dairne alive. She did indeed find more dairnes, and along the way she also created allies among other creatures in her world, including humans, felivets, raptidons, and wobbyks.

But Byx and her new friends soon learned that it wasn't just dairnes in jeopardy of extinction, but that everyone was at risk. With the world in unprecedented danger, Byx must rally creatures of all kinds to lead a revolution.

Katherine Applegate's Endling series has so far earned a collective five starred reviews, and each of the prior books has debuted on the New York Times bestseller list. She once again delivers an action-packed middle grade fantasy with a unique setting, enthralling characters, and gripping adventure that is perfect for fans of Rick Riordan, Brian Jacques, and Tui T. Sutherland.]]>
320 Katherine Applegate 0062335618 Dawn 0 to-read 4.44 2021 The Only (Endling, #3)
author: Katherine Applegate
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
When Women Were Dragons 58783802 A rollicking feminist tale set in 1950s America where thousands of women have spontaneously transformed into dragons, exploding notions of a woman’s place in the world and expanding minds about accepting others for who they really are.

The first adult novel by the Newbery award-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon.

Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours, except for its most seminal event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales, and talons; left a trail of fiery destruction in their path; and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex’s beloved aunt Marla transform but her mother did not? Alex doesn’t know. It’s taboo to speak of.

Forced into silence, Alex nevertheless must face the consequences of this astonishing event: a mother more protective than ever; an absentee father; the upsetting insistence that her aunt never even existed; and watching her beloved cousin Bea become dangerously obsessed with the forbidden.

In this timely and timeless speculative novel, award-winning author Kelly Barnhill boldly explores rage, memory, and the tyranny of forced limitations. When Women Were Dragons exposes a world that wants to keep women small—their lives and their prospects—and examines what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve.]]>
367 Kelly Barnhill 0385548222 Dawn 0 to-read 3.79 2022 When Women Were Dragons
author: Kelly Barnhill
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Sunday at the Sunflower Inn (Honey Creek, #4)]]> 59218694
When McCoy Mason crashes on Interstate 45, he doesn’t just bust up his Mustang, his leg, and his relationship. He also loses his prospects of a job and apartment in Houston. Honey Creek, home to his estranged grandfather, offers a temporary respite, a place to recover before moving on again. After all, what permanent use could a town so picture-perfect have for a man like him?

At sixty-seven, Charles H. Winston III lives by order and routine. One of his most cherished rituals is a regular lunch date with three lovely ladies at the Honey Creek Café, including the very proper Miss Lilly Lambert. But it’s not too late to surprise the whole town—or himself—by seizing a chance for a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. And there’s no better season than spring, when the warm breeze blowing in from the Brazos River brings fresh hope and second chances to those who need them most . . .]]>
320 Jodi Thomas 1420151371 Dawn 0 to-read 3.99 2022 Sunday at the Sunflower Inn (Honey Creek, #4)
author: Jodi Thomas
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[A Relative Murder (Medlar Mystery, #4)]]> 57873331 Even the closest families have secrets hidden away.

Bestselling novelist Sara Medlar is skilled at sharing stories about other people, but she hoped the truth about her own family would never surface. Her home in Lachlan, Florida, is her refuge and she loves having her niece Kate and dear friend Jack Wyatt together under her roof. The Medlar Three, as they are known around town, have sworn off getting involved in any more murder investigations.

When the sheriff unexpectedly leaves on vacation, Jack is surprised to find himself appointed as deputy. So when Kate stumbles upon a dead body while visiting a friend, the Medlar Three are back in the sleuthing game. Kate also has a charming new real estate client with a mysterious past. He seems to be followed by trouble and that makes Sara and Jack uneasy.

It doesn't take long to discover that the murder and the new man in town are somehow related--the question is how. When the stranger's true identity is revealed, Sara realizes her carefully crafted story is about to unravel and she fears she'll lose Kate and Jack forever. But she desperately hopes that love and honesty will win out over years of lies and deceit. And besides, family is family--even if you sometimes want to kill them.

A Medlar Mystery

Book 1: A Willing Murder
Book 2: A Justified Murder
Book 3: A Forgotten Murder
Book 4: A Relative Murder
]]>
330 Jude Deveraux 077831183X Dawn 0 to-read 3.68 2022 A Relative Murder (Medlar Mystery, #4)
author: Jude Deveraux
name: Dawn
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Moonlight can be Murder (Ned McNeil Mystery #1)]]> 27399724 Nettie "Ned" McNeil cannot imagine why her Uncle Javin feels that he is in danger, but she loads her suitcases into her car, leaves Atlanta and her late husband, and makes the long trek to Ednalee, Oklahoma, to help out. When she arrives, Uncle Javin's white Victorian house is strangely dark and silent. Inside she finds him lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

So begin her first moments back in her old home town, where the mystery of Uncle Javin's violent death pulls at Ned. But his mysterious murderer seems to always be just a few steps ahead of her search. How can she protect her own life as she pursues a killer who will stop at nothing to guard a deadly secret?]]>
191 Blanche Day Manos 194242857X Dawn 0 4.37 Moonlight can be Murder (Ned McNeil Mystery #1)
author: Blanche Day Manos
name: Dawn
average rating: 4.37
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/24
date added: 2022/02/24
shelves:
review:
Another wonderful mystery by Blanche !
]]>