Fiction
Hidden Voices
Pat Lowery Collins
While studying under Vivaldi, three girls in a Venice orphanage forge their own notions of love in a sensuous, engrossing novel told in three narrative voices.It is a longing and search for love that motivates three girls living in the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage renowned for its extraordinary musical program. But for Rosalba, Anetta, and Luisa, the love they seek is not where they expect to find it. Set in the early 1700s in the heart of Venice, this remarkable novel deftly weaves the history of Antonio Vivaldi’s early musical career into the lives of three young women who excel in voice and instrument. Under the composer’s tutelage and care, the orphans find expression, sustenance, and passion. But can the sheltered life of the orphanage prepare them for the unthinkable dangers outside its walls?
Book Details
Recommended Books
Skunk Girl
Sheba Karim
If Nina Khan were to rate herself on the unofficial Pakistani prestige point system – the one she's sure all the aunties and uncles use to determine the most attractive marriage prospects for their children – her scoring might go something like this: +2 points for getting excellent grades –3 points for failing to live up to expectations set by genius older sister +4 points for dutifully obeying parents and never, ever going to parties, no matter how antisocial that makes her seem to everyone at Deer Hook High –1 point for harboring secret jealousy of her best friends, who are allowed to date like normal teenagers +2 points for never drinking an alcoholic beverage –10 points for obsessing about Asher Richelli, who talks to Nina like she's not a freak at all, even though he knows that she has a disturbing line of hair running down her back In this wryly funny debut novel, the smart, sassy, and utterly lovable Nina Khan tackles friends, family, and love, and learns that it's possible to embrace two very different cultures – even if things can get a little bit, well, hairy.
Book Details
Recommended Books
The Penalty
Mal Peet
From the award-winning author of TAMAR, a time-shifting thriller about a vanishing soccer star, occult secrets, and the dark history of slavery.As the city of San Juan pulses to summer’s sluggish beat, its teenage soccer prodigy, El Brujito, the Little Magician, vanishes without a trace — right after he misses a penalty kick and loses a big game for his team. Paul Faustino, South America’s top sports reporter, is reluctantly drawn into the mystery of the athlete’s disappearance. As a story of corruption and murder unfolds, Faustino is forced to confront the bitter history of slavery and the power of the occult. A deftly woven mystery flush with soccer and suspense, this gripping novel is a thrilling read not to be missed.
Book Details
Recommended Books
Smoke
Mavis Jukes
When Colton’s mom tells him that they’re moving from Idaho Falls to northern California, Colt is sad, but he takes it like a man. At least he’ll have one friend to keep him company – Smoke, the twenty-pound black Maine coon cat that Colt’s dad gave him when he was little. With his dad gone most of the year riding bulls on the rodeo circuit, sometimes it feels like Smoke is their only connection. So when Smoke doesn’t come home after Colt lets him out in the middle of the night, nothing else in Colt’s world seems to matter anymore. But on the dark and stormy evening when Colt sets off alone to find his missing cat, he’s in for more danger than even the son of a fearless bull rider could have dreamed of. A captivating look at cowboys, courage, and community, this is a tender tale about family and friends pulling together, and what it really means to be a man.
Book Details
Recommended Books
Deep in the Heart of High School
Veronica Goldbach
Vanna Reynolds was popular and happy back in Plano, Texas, but now she lives with her mother in a tiny apartment in San Antonio. How can she start her freshman year as a complete nobody? Fatima Garcia does well in school and helps out with her family’s construction business, but is worried about her weight. So she’s thrilled when a junior starts paying attention to her – but is he really interested in Fatima? Olivia Silverstein tries to make life easier for her mother. Ever since her father died two years ago, she’s been the perfect daughter. When will she get to have her own life? When Vanna, Fatima, and Olivia meet at band practice in August, they quickly become best friends. Together, they are ready to tackle the matters of the heart that await them, deep in the heart of high school. Written with verve and touches of humor, the voices in this first novel ring with authenticity.
Book Details
Recommended Books
Camilla
Madeleine L'Engle
Fifteen-year-old Camilla Dickinson has led a sheltered life on the Upper East Side with her architect father and stunningly beautiful mother. But this winter the security she has always known has vanished, because her parents’ marriage is coming apart – and Camilla is caught in the middle. She finds a way to escape her troubles when she meets Frank, her best friend’s brother, who is someone she can really talk to about life, death, God, and her dream of becoming an astronomer. When Frank introduces her to the important people in his life, who are so different from anyone she has met before, he opens her eyes to worlds beyond her own, almost as if he were a telescope helping her to see the stars. This novel, one of the author’s earliest, is the story of a girl who, with the help of her first love, leaves childhood behind and enters adulthood with a newfound sense of self and inner strength.
Book Details
Recommended Books
The Devil's Queen
Jeanne Kalogridis
From Jeanne Kalogridis, the bestselling author of I, Mona Lisa and The Borgia Bride, comes a new novel that tells the passionate story of a queen who loved not wisely . . . but all too well.Confidante of Nostradamus, scheming mother-in-law to Mary, Queen of Scots, and architect of the bloody St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, Catherine de Medici is one of the most maligned monarchs in history. In her latest historical fiction, Jeanne Kalogridis tells Catherine’s story—that of a tender young girl, destined to be a pawn in Machiavellian games. Born into one of Florence’s most powerful families, Catherine was soon left a fabulously rich heiress by the early deaths of her parents. Violent conflict rent the city state and she found herself imprisoned and threatened by her family’s enemies before finally being released and married off to the handsome Prince Henry of France. Overshadowed by her husband’s mistress, the gorgeous, conniving Diane de Poitiers, and unable to bear children, Catherine resorted to the dark arts of sorcery to win Henry’s love and enhance her fertility—for which she would pay a price. Against the lavish and decadent backdrop of the French court, and Catherine’s blood-soaked visions of the future, Kalogridis reveals the great love and desire Catherine bore for her husband, Henry, and her stark determination to keep her sons on the throne.
Book Details
Recommended Books
Under Siege!
Andrea Warren
Meet Lucy McRae and two other young people, Willie Lord and Frederick Grant, all survivors of the Civil War's Battle for Vicksburg. In 1863, Union troops intend to silence the cannons guarding the Mississippi River at Vicksburg – even if they have to take the city by siege. To hasten surrender, they are shelling Vicksburg night and day. Terrified townspeople, including Lucy and Willie, take shelter in caves – enduring heat, snakes, and near suffocation. On the Union side, twelve-year-old Frederick Grant has come to visit his father, General Ulysses S. Grant, only to find himself in the midst of battle, experiencing firsthand the horrors of war. "Living in a cave under the ground for six weeks . . . I do not think a child could have passed through what I did and have forgotten it." – Lucy McRae, age 10, 1863 Period photographs, engravings, and maps extend this dramatic story as award-winning author Andrea Warren re-creates one of the most important Civil War battles through the eyes of ordinary townspeople, officers and enlisted men from both sides, and, above all, three brave children who were there.
Book Details
Recommended Books
Closed for the Season
Mary Downing Hahn
A contemporary thriller by the bestselling author of The Old Willis Place.Two 13-year-old boys, Arthur and Logan, set out to solve the mystery of a murder that took place some years ago in the old house Logan's family has just moved into. The boys' quest takes them to the highest and lowest levels of society in their small Maryland town, and eventually to a derelict amusement park that is supposedly closed for the season.
Book Details
Recommended Books
20 Boy Summer
Sarah Ockler
"Don't worry, Anna. I'll tell her, okay? Just let me think about the best way to do it.""Okay.""Promise me? Promise you won't say anything?""Don't worry." I laughed. "It's our secret, right?"According to her best friend Frankie, twenty days in Zanzibar Bay is the perfect opportunity to have a summer fling, and if they meet one boy ever day, there's a pretty good chance Anna will find her first summer romance. Anna lightheartedly agrees to the game, but there's something she hasn't told Frankie---she's already had that kind of romance, and it was with Frankie's older brother, Matt, just before his tragic death one year ago.Beautifully written and emotionally honest, this is a debut novel that explores what it truly means to love someone and what it means to grieve, and ultimately, how to make the most of every single moment this world has to offer.
Book Details
Recommended Books