fiction

"Maud is a talented garden historian and devoted mother to daughters Ella and Louise. Motivated to reinvigorate her career and escape her troubled marriage, she accepts a summer job restoring the garden of a lush, nineteenth-century Hudson Valley estate. While waiting for her daughters to join her at the end of their school year, Maud meets coworker and archaelogist Gabriel Crews, whose passion for landscape history matches her own. When their immediate and intense friendship ignites, it sets in motion a seismic shock that will profoundly change Maud's life, as well as the lives of everyone she cares about"--Back cover.

The Alienist meets The Light of Luna Park in a fascinating historical novel based on the little-known story of America's first nursing school, as a young female grifter in 1880s New York evades the police by conning her way into Bellevue Hospital's training school for nurses... In the slums of 1880s New York, Una Kelly has grown up to be a rough-and-tumble grifter, able to filch a pocketbook in five seconds flat. But when another con-woman pins her for a murder she didn't commit, Una is forced to flee. Running from the police, Una lies her way into an unlikely refuge: the nursing school at Bellevue Hospital. Based on Florence Nightingale's nursing principles, Bellevue is the first school of its kind in the country. Where once nurses were assumed to be ignorant and unskilled, Bellevue prizes discipline, intellect, and moral character, and only young women of good breeding need apply. At first, Una balks at her prim classmates and the doctors' endless commands. Yet life on the streets has prepared her for the horrors of injury and disease found on the wards, and she slowly gains friendship and self-respect. Just as she finds her footing, Una's suspicions about a patient's death put her at risk of exposure, and will force her to choose between her instinct for self-preservation, and exposing her identity in order to save others. Amanda Skenandore brings her medical expertise to a page-turning story that explores the evolution of modern nursing-including the grisly realities of nineteenth-century medicine-as seen through the eyes of an intriguing and dynamic heroine.

Kit Biddle is a rising prep school senior who finds himself tangled in a web of spiritual quandaries and intellectual absurdities. Kit's angst is compounded by a unique psychological burden he is forced to carry: his intelligent but unstable Uncle Nat has committed an unspeakable act on what, according to the Uncle's deranged account, were direct orders from God.

"Old Town's midsummer festivities are getting a tasty addition this year. To coincide with a public performance of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Bobbie Sue Bodoin, the Queen of Cheesecake, has hired Sophie to organize a dinner with a dessert buffet on the waterfront. Bobbie Sue's homegrown company is thriving, and since her baking dish overfloweth, she wants to reward her employees. Bobbie Sue has only one menu demand: no cheesecake! But her specialty isn't the only thing missing from the evening-Tate, Bobbie Sue's husband, is too, much to her annoyance. Next morning, however, Tate's dead body is discovered. Bobbie Sue insists she didn't kick her spouse to the curb, and begs for Sophie's help finding the real killer. Digging in, Sophie discovers an assortment of Old Town locals who all had reason to want a piece of Tate. Can she gather together the crumbs the killer left behind in time to prevent a second helping of murder?"--.

When a deputy asks for help with a wedding proposal and a man connected to his future wife is found dead, Nora Pennington and her fellow readers investigate the connection to the woman's past and the secret she is hiding from everyone.

"Nola loves to draw wherever she goes. No one understands her magical markings, so she tries to "fix" her art. When she draws a blank and falls right into the black page, she finds other creators who are stuck too. Can they create a way out together?"--.

In the ancient South Pacific world of Oceania, Moana, a born navigator, sets sail in search of a fabled island. During her incredible journey, she teams up with her hero, the legendary demi-god Maui, to traverse the open ocean on an action-packed voyage. They encounter enormous sea creatures, breathtaking underworlds, and ancient folklore.

Young Explorers is the Timmi Tobbson "early reader" series for adventurers and sleuths aged 6-8. In this series' first title, a secret message in an ancient book sends Timmi and his friends - including a three-legged frog - on a wild ride to unravel a life-changing mystery and become the Young Explorers. In typical Timmi Tobbson fashion, each Young Explorers book offers solve-them-yourself picture mysteries, but that's not all. Accompanying the story is additional content aimed at sparking interest in technology, history and science in general.

A wave of jewelry thefts is committed in broad daylight and without any trace. When grandma's old and beloved family necklace vanishes, Timmi, Lilli and Marvin set out to catch the phantom known as the Invisible Thief.