fiction / general

"Three weeks before Christmas, on December 1, 1958, one of the most horrific fires in American history broke out at Our Lady of the Angels elementary school in Chicago, claiming the lives of ninety-two children and three nuns. Fire Angels is a fictional account of that fire. It's a story of arson; of bravery by parents, nuns, firefighters, and medical professionals; of a falsely accused janitor; of a cover-up within the Catholic Church; of a judge who, in having to determine the juvenile arsonist's fate, is torn between loyalty to his church and justice; of a tight-knit community changed forever; and of two survivors who fall in love. Fire itself is also a central character in this story, a cunning observer that comes to life whenever a flame is lit"--.

"From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall. In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure. Doerr's gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work"--.

The descendents of two penniless frenchmen travel across North America, Europe, China, and New Zealand and the brutal conditions they endure against rivals, accidents, pestilence, and cultural annihilation.

In the aftermath of the Civil War Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, an aging itinerant news reader, agrees to transport a recently rescued captive of the Kiowa back to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna's parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, and refuses to act "civilized." Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors begin to trust each other, forming a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this dangerous land. Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome as her aunt and uncle, whom she does not remember, regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become--in the eyes of the law--a kidnapper himself.

"From the bestselling author of Schindler's List and The Daughters of Mars, a new historical novel set on the remote island of Saint Helena about the remarkable friendship between a young woman and one of history's most intriguing figures, Napoleon Bonaparte, during the final years of his life in exile. In October 1815, after losing the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte was banished to the island of Saint Helena. There, in one of the most remote places on earth, he lived out the final six years of his life. On this lonely island with no chance of escape, he found an unexpected ally: a spirited British girl named Betsy Balcombe who lived on the island with her family. While Napoleon waited for his own accommodations to be built, the Balcombe family played host to the infamous exile, a decision that would have devastating consequences for them all. In Napoleon's Last Island, "master of character development and period detail" (Kirkus Reviews) Thomas Keneally recreates Betsy's powerful and complex friendship with the man dubbed The Great Ogre, her enmities and alliances with his remaining courtiers, and her dramatic coming-of-age. Bringing a shadowy period of history to life with a brilliant attention to detail, Keneally tells the untold story of one of Europe's most enigmatic, charismatic, and important figures, and the ordinary British family who dared to forge a connection with him"--.

"Living a life of luxury in seventeenth-century France, Lady Marguerite falls for a commoner and follows him to New France, embarking on a tumultuous journey across the ocean"--OCLC.

There were many valleys in the mountains of Afghanistan, and most were hard places where people died hard deaths. But there was only one Valley. Black didn't even know its proper name. But he knew about the Valley. It was the farthest, and the hardest, and the worst. It lay deeper and higher in the mountains than any other place Americans had ventured. You had to travel through a network of interlinked valleys, past all the other remote American outposts, just to get to its mouth. Everything about the Valley was myth and rumor. The strung-out platoon Black finds after traveling deep into the heart of the Valley, and the illumination of the dark secrets accumulated during month after month fighting and dying in defense of an indefensible piece of land, provide a shattering portrait of men at war. Written by a former army officer who served in Iraq.

"In Hopeless, Sky left no secret unearthed, no feeling unshared and no memory forgotten, but Holder's past remains a mystery. He is haunted by the little girl he let walk away from him and he has spent his entire life searching for her. He had hoped that he would finally gain closure and be able to rid himself of his guilt the moment they were reconnected. But he could not have anticipated that the exact opposite would occur and even more guilt and regret would be thrust upon him. Sometimes in life, if we wish to move forward we must first dig deep into our past and make amends with it. In Losing Hope, readers will learn what was going on inside Holder's head during all those moments that left him feeling hopeless and see whether he can perhaps gain the peace he desperately needs"--.

Badger Girl is delighted to find the biggest turnip she has ever seen growing in her vegetable garden, but when the time comes to harvest the giant root, she is unable to pull it up without help from family and friends.