The islanders of Chappaquiddick have a saying: “Some come here to hide; others come to heal.” Above a crumbling sea wall at the isolated northern tip of Chappaquiddick Island sits a weathered cottage that gives shelter to Mae Keaney, who returns to the island at the beginning of World War II determined to distance herself from a past filled with pain and regret. Fiercely independent, she defies both the societal conventions of the island and its unforgiving natural world until a catastrophic fire threatens her livelihood, the Boat House Café. After reluctantly accepting help from a Wampanoag tribal member, she forms an uneasy alliance that leads her to an understanding of the wisdom of the “People of the First Light” and restores her faith in herself.

The Boat House Cafe: Book One of First Light

Literature & Fiction

Cardillo, Linda

Genre Fiction

Bellastoria Press

What does Dr. Olivia Alvarado— full-time vet and part-time coroner for Port Serenity, Texas—do when she discovers that the man she loves is married? She doesn’t often give her heart away, and this time she did it in spades. Talk about being annoyed—big time! How dare the scoundrel sweep her off her feet when he already has a wife. Sheriff C.J. Baker has discovered the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished. Back when he was a narcotics cop, he married Selena to get her away from the clutches of a Columbian drug cartel. His relationship with Selena has always platonic, and now that he’s divorced he wants to make amends with Olivia, his fiery-tempered brunette beauty.To complicate—or perhaps facilitate—the situation, Olivia and C.J. are working together on a suspicious death case. And to make matters worse, Selena’s brother is trying to drag her back to South America. Sparks are flying between C.J. and Olivia, and life in Port Serenity is never dull, especially when mayhem and romance are involved.

Texas Born

Romance

DeFee, Ann

Contemporary

Innisfree—the wild and isolated land on Chappaquiddick Island where Josiah Monroe grew up—was the only place where he felt he belonged. When his parents make the painful decision to sell the land, the loss of Innisfree catapults the entire family into a spiral of disconnection. Josiah abandons the island in anger, seeking to redefine himself and reconcile his mixed Wampanoag and Irish heritage in a wider, more dangerous world marked by the turmoil of the Vietnam War and the cultural upheaval of the Sixties. His family struggles not only with Josiah’s alienation but also with the debilitating polio suffered by his sister, Izzy. At the same time, the new owner of Innisfree becomes a force driving them apart. Ultimately, it is the power and magic of the island itself and the bonds of family that call them back to one another.

The Uneven Road: Book Two of First Light

United States

“I had two husbands.” The discovery of long-hidden love letters leads New York caterer Cara Serafini on a journey to understanding her formidable grandmother, Giulia Fiorillo. Born in a mountain village in southern Italy, the spirited Giulia arrives at the age of sixteen in a rough New York immigrant neighborhood at the beginning of the twentieth century, forced from the comforts and constrictions of her family by the fierce drive of her mother. In America, Giulia faces not only an inhospitable culture but also violence in the family and in the streets, shattering loss and a love that shapes her whole life.

Dancing on Sunday Afternoons

“Innisfree binds us.” A new generation attempts to define where home is. When Lydia Hammond encourages her grieving granddaughter, Elizabeth Innocenti, to spend the summer at Innisfree, the family’s compound on Chappaquiddick Island, Elizabeth undertakes the journey from her home in Italy with her fourteen-year-old son, hoping to heal from the devastating loss of her husband after a long illness. Innisfree holds cherished memories of an idyllic childhood for Elizabeth. But when she arrives, she finds the place abandoned, derelict and as needy as she is. A reluctant steward, Elizabeth undertakes the task of making the cottage habitable until a hurricane forces her to take shelter with the Monroes, the Wampanoag family who once owned Innisfree. The fraught and tangled history between her grandmother and the Monroes pulls Elizabeth into a passionate search for Innisfree’s meaning for both families. At the same time, her challenging relationship with Caleb Monroe, the grandson of Mae and Tobias, forces her to confront her perception of who she is and what she wants. The final book in the award-winning First Light series.

Island Legacy: Book Three of First Light

Mood Indigo

The beautiful and pampered Lady Jane Lennox did not count on indenturing herself to Ethan Gordon. Nor did she count on being caught up in the revolutionists’ war against the Mother Country. And, least of all, she didn't count on being caught up in her master’s dangerous passion.

BONDS, PARRIS AFTON

One man dreams about what might have been and the other envisions what might still be. Morris Kahn and Mendel Greenbaum have been friends for more years than either cares to remember. United by shuffleboard, a house they share with the women they love, and an abiding affection masked by constant bickering, they embark on a spur-of-the-moment road trip triggered by a yearning to see the ocean. When they arrive at the beach, their openness to chance encounters leads them to Destiny-a woman, a place, and an opportunity to reimagine the rest of their lives. The two men, facing the realities of aging as they approach their eighties, nevertheless revel with both exuberance and curiosity in what life offers them-friendship, the natural world, and fried clams.

Destiny: A Novel

Sokol, Fred

Humor & Satire

Marry a Catholic stranger, or flee the only world she's ever known: Headstrong Bruna de Gansard must choose one or the other to protect her Cathar family from the inquisitors. Toulouse, 1229. The inquisitors have arrived to rid the city of Cathar heretics once and for all, and are putting all unmarried girls over the age of 12 to the question. After an incident in the town calls unwanted attention to 14-year-old Bruna, a young Catholic stranger who is sympathetic to the heretics warns her family about the looming danger, and volunteers to marry their daughter to save her from being questioned.But Bruna doesn't want to be forced into marriage, so she chooses flight-which lands her unexpectedly in the midst of a Catholic pilgrimage to Compostela, thrusting her into a life of deceit. When her beauty and her voice bring her to the attention of the powerful Baron de Belascon, who owes fealty to the king of France, Bruna earns the enmity of the baron's bitter and imperious mother and finds herself caught between her allegiance to her own people and the dangerous secret of her origins-a secret that can be revealed at any time after the arrival of a French knight who recognizes her. The Orphans of Tolosa Trilogy comes to a dramatic end in this gripping story of loyalty and betrayal, set amidst the violence and peril of the Albigensian Crusades.

Voices in the Mist (The Orphans of Tolosa)

Dunlap, Susanne

She only remembers dying.In 1971, a near-fatal automobile accident throws Izzy Monroe’s life into upheaval after she survives with a traumatic brain injury that leaves her with no short-term memory. Unable to continue her graduate studies, she retreats to her childhood home on Chappaquiddick Island, adrift and despairing.\nIzzy’s closest friend, Maria Belli, confronts her with a choice: sink deeper into a numbing grief or find the courage to redefine who she is. Supported by Maria, Izzy sets aside her fear and takes a job on a farm in Italy owned by Maria’s grandfather.\nShe begins to find purpose on the farm, but is consumed with hiding her impairment and unwilling to form a bond with anyone—until she encounters Daniel Richetelli, a troubled Jesuit priest who has returned to his grandfather’s farm seeking a respite from his own crisis.\nBattered by family expectations, guilt, betrayal, and self-doubt, Izzy and Daniel struggle to reconcile their immediate and compelling intimacy with their search for new and fulfilling lives.\nA story of longing, forgiveness, and the healing power of love.

A Place of Refuge: Book Four of First Light

Love That Moves the Sun: Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo Buonarroti

Literary

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