It is 1913, shortly before the start of the First World War, and Annalaura is alone again. Her gambling, womanizing husband has left the plot they sharecrop in rural Tennessee â why or for how long she does not know. Without food or money and with her future tied to the fate of the seasonâs tobacco crop, Annalaura struggles to raise her four children. When help comes in the form of an amorous landowner, who is she to turn it â and him â away? In this remarkable first novel, as bracingly original as it is exquisitely rendered, Francine Howard tells a moving story of American desire and ambition and the tragic, slippery boundaries of race under Jim Crow. âBased on a true family story, this haunting first novel admirably revisits a painful time in history. Too often historical novels about women indulge in anachronistic explorations of feminism, but this novel admirably avoids that trap and instead portrays realistic characters dealing with their difficult lot in life.â â Booklist

Page from a Tennessee Journal

Literature & Fiction

Francine Thomas Howard

United States

Lake Union Publishing

A mother’s near-obsessive devotion to her missing daughter threatens to destroy more than one family. 
Megan is the harried but happy stay-at-home mother of three little girls living in a small town. Her life implodes when her youngest daughter, Emma, disappears on her third birthday. 
Two years later, Megan is preparing to commemorate Emma’s birthday and the anniversary of her kidnapping, compelled to keep her name alive in the minds of her community and her family. Her commitment to Emma, however, borderlines on obsession as she follows the families of little girls who look like the daughter she lost. 
Her obsession with finding Emma has distanced Megan from both friends and family. Her two older daughters are resentful of her relentless and fruitless search for their sister, and her husband pleads with her to accept that Emma is gone so that the family can move on with their lives. 
Meanwhile, in the same small town, Jack is beginning to question his wife’s secrecy about their adored granddaughter, Emmie. As Dottie slips into dementia and becomes increasingly protective over Emmie, he can’t help but wonder if there could be a dark secret that Dottie is keeping from him. 
Jack and Megan’s worlds finally intersect at the town carnival, when Megan snaps a photograph of a little girl on her grandfather’s shoulders.

Finding Emma: A Novel

Holmes, Steena

Contemporary

For two years, Megan, Peter, and their two older daughters, Alexis and Hannah, dream of nothing but being reunited with the family’s youngest child, Emma, who was kidnapped just before her third birthday. When Emma is miraculously found living with an elderly couple just miles from the family’s home, they are hopeful that her return will heal the wounds her disappearance created. 
But Emma is vastly different from the sunny toddler they remember. She barely remembers her parents or her older sisters. She is quiet and withdrawn, and, worst of all, longs for the very people who kidnapped her. 
Megan is consumed with bitterness, while Peter works later and later nights in the company of his gorgeous business partner. And in the middle of everything, Megan’s best friend has become suddenly distant and secretive. 
Then a chance encounter in town leads to a secret that changes everything again for Emma. And Peter must decide between the happiness of his youngest daughter and the trust of his family.

Emma's Secret: A Novel (Finding Emma, 2)

Genre Fiction

Hidden

Review “[A] delicate, honest exploration of secrets, family, and the varied meanings of true love...” ―Booklist“By giving the perspective, in alternating chapters, of each of the three main characters… this novel builds suspense as the reader wonders what really happened. McKenzie’s fourth novel is sure to please her many fans and appeal to readers who enjoy women’s fiction with an element of suspense.” ―Library Journal“A good pace, simple plotting and likable characters…Hidden is going to be, like Spin, Forgotten and Arranged before it, an international bestseller.” ―Montreal Gazette“McKenzie has written a compulsively readable novel about grief and infidelity with great insight and great heart. A truly engaging read.” ―Heidi Durrow, author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky“Catherine McKenzie’s latest book may be her finest. Hidden explores the intersecting lives of a man, his wife, and a woman who may or may not be his mistress. Imaginatively constructed, filled with nail-biting tension and gracefully written, Hidden is a winner.” ―Sarah Pekkanen, author of These Girls and Skipping a Beat“What I love about this deft, intimate novel is that here are no angels or demons here, just adults―husbands, wives, mothers, fathers―leading complex, messy, very human lives. They all struggle to weigh desire against obligation, what they want against what is right. I found myself in the impossible, wonderful position of rooting for all of them―and of missing them when the book was over.” ―Marisa de los Santos, author of Belong to Me and Love Walked In“Using distinct narrative voices, Catherine McKenzie has crafted a compelling novel that kept me turning pages at a breakneck speed. Heartbreakingly honest and real, Hidden is a wonderfully relatable tale.” ―Tracey Garvis Graves, author of On the Island“Gripping, smart, beautifully written, Catherine McKenzie’s books are always a must read. Hidden should be at the top of your list.” ―Allie Larkin, author of Stay and Why Can’t I Be You“Catherine McKenzie breaks your heart in this story of two grief-stricken women mourning the same man. Hidden’s complex grace and page-turning sympathy left me satisfied through very the last page.” ―Randy Susan Meyers, author of The Murderer’s Daughters and The Comfort of Lies Product Description When a married man suffers a sudden fatal accident, two women are shattered―his wife and his mistress―and past secrets, desires, and regrets are brought to light.While walking home from work one evening, Jeff Manning is struck by a car and killed. Two women fall to pieces at the news: his wife, Claire, and his co-worker Tish. Reeling from her loss, Claire must comfort her grieving son as well as contend with funeral arrangements, well-meaning family members, and the arrival of Jeff’s estranged brother, who was her ex-boyfriend. Tish volunteers to attend the funeral on her company’s behalf, but only she knows the true risk of inserting herself into the wreckage of Jeff’s life.Told through the three voices of Jeff, Tish, and Claire, Hidden explores the complexity of relationships, the repercussions of our personal choices, and the responsibilities we have to the ones we love. About the Author CATHERINE McKENZIE is a graduate of McGill University and McGill Law School, and practices law in Montreal. Her previous novels, Forgotten, Spin, and Arranged, were published by HarperCollins and are international bestsellers.

McKenzie, Catherine

Chasing the Sun: A Novel

Chasing the Sun

Andres suspects his wife has left him—again. Then he learns that the unthinkable has happened: she’s been kidnapped. Too much time and too many secrets have come between Andres and Marabela, but now that she’s gone, he’ll do anything to get her back. Or will he?As Marabela slips farther away, Andres must decide whether they still have something worth fighting for, and exactly what he’ll give up to bring her home. And unfortunately, the decision isn’t entirely up to him, or up to the private mediator who moves into the family home to negotiate with the terrorists holding Marabela. Andres struggles to maintain the illusion of control while simultaneously scrambling to collect his wife’s ransom, tending to the needs of his two young children, and reconnecting with an old friend who may hold the key to his past and his wife’s future.Set in Lima, Peru, in a time of civil and political unrest, this evocative page-turner is a perfect marriage of domestic drama and suspense.

SYLVESTER, Natalia

At the height of World War II, three women must come together to fight for freedom, for the men they love—and for each other.
When Hazel is given the chance to parachute into Nazi-occupied France, she seizes the opportunity to do more for the British war effort than file paperwork. Alongside her childhood friend, French-born Rose, she quickly rises up the ranks of the freedom fighters. For Rose, the Resistance is a link to her late husband, and a way to move forward without him. What starts out as helping downed airmen becomes a bigger cause when they meet Sophia, a German escapee and fierce critic of Hitler who is wanted by the Gestapo. Together the three women form a bond that will last a lifetime.
But amid the turmoil and tragedy of warfare, all three risk losing everything—and everyone—they hold dear. Will their united front be strong enough to see them through?

Hearts of Resistance

Lane, Soraya M.

They want to move on—but one terrible truth could shatter it all.
As a widowed mother of three, new love seems impossible for Freya—until she meets Duncan, and suddenly she feels alive again. But there are secrets afflicting Freya’s family, some more sinister than others, that could destroy their relationship before it has a chance to flourish.
While Freya’s older children are less than welcoming, six-year-old Sophie helps Duncan find his place in the family—but even Sophie harbours fears that threaten to overshadow any chance of a new start. The past is hard to leave behind when pictures of Freya’s idolised late husband hang in every room, and the more Duncan tries to find the source of Sophie’s anxiety, the more he is convinced that Reuben was not the perfect husband and father Freya remembers.
Tormented by concern and his own insecurity, Duncan begins an obsessive investigation into the dead man’s past. But when his good intentions lead him in too deep, he risks destroying everything he has built with Freya—and the whole family’s second chance at happiness.

Lark Song

Bailey, Jane

As war engulfs Europe, 1,500 passengers risk everything to find a brighter future.
Cousins Masha and Rachel Morgenstern board the luxury liner the SS Manhattan bound for New York, desperate to escape the concentration camps that claimed the rest of their family. America offers a safe haven, but to reach it they must survive a hazardous Atlantic crossing.
Among their fellow passengers fleeing the war, each with their own conflicts, secrets and surprises, are the composer Igor Stravinsky, making a new start after a decade of tragedy, and Rose Kennedy, determined to keep her four children from harm. Particularly worrying to Rose is her daughter Rosemary, a vivacious but troubled woman whose love for a Californian musician may derail her family’s political ambitions. And then there’s young Thomas, a Nazi with a secret…
But, under the waves, the Manhattan is being stalked by a German U-boat. Will any of those aboard the ocean liner ever achieve their dream of a new life in America?

The Ocean Liner

GABRIEL, Marius

The Lines We Leave Behind

“The Lines We Leave Behind is mesmerizing; a deeply affecting story of treachery, deception, sacrifice, and loss. Beautifully written and completely absorbing…” —Karen Dionne, author of the internationally bestselling The Marsh King’s Daughter
England, 1947: A young woman finds herself under close observation in an insane asylum, charged with a violent crime she has no memory of committing. As she tries to make sense of her recent past, she recalls very little.
But she still remembers wartime in Yugoslavia. There she and her lover risked everything to carry out dangerous work resisting the Germans—a heroic campaign in which many brave comrades were lost. After that, the trail disappears into confusion. How did she come to be trapped in a living nightmare?
As she struggles to piece together the missing years of her life, she will have to confront the harrowing experiences of her special-operations work and peacetime marriage. Only then can she hope to regain the vital memories that will uncover the truth: is she really a violent criminal…or was she betrayed?

Graham, Eliza

Literary

2014 winner Colorado Book Award - Historical Fiction 
 Each morning in the hour before dawn, a silent boat launches on the Bosphorous, moving swiftly into the deepest part of the waters halfway between Europe and Asia, where a man will die…
The Drowning Guard is the tale of the Ottoman princess, Esma Sultan—one of the most powerful women in Ottoman history and unlike any other woman in the Islamic world. In a gender reversal of Scheherazade in 1001 Arabian Nights, Esma seduces a different Christian lover each night, only to have him drowned in the morning. The Sultaness's true passion burns only for the Christian-born soldier charged with carrying out the brutal nightly death sentence: her drowning guard, Ivan Postivich.
The Drowning Guard explores the riddle of Esma—who is at once a murderer and a champion and liberator of women—and the man who loves her in spite of her horrifying crimes. This textured historical novel, set in the opulence and squalor of Istanbul in 1826, is woven with the complexity and consequences of love.

The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire

Lafferty, Linda

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