National Network for Equitable Library Service

In the spirit of The Known World and The Underground Railroad comes a story about the unlikely bond between two freedmen who are brothers and the Georgia farmer whose alliance will alter their lives, and his, forever. In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief.

Libraries are being ransacked. France is torn apart by war. A French librarian is determined to resist. Told through smuggled letters to an author, an ordinary librarian describes the brutal Nazi occupation of her small coastal village and the extraordinary measures she takes to fight back. Saint-Malo, France: August 1939 . Jocelyn and Antoine are childhood sweethearts, but just after they marry, Antoine is drafted to fight against Germany. As World War II rages, Jocelyn uses her position as a librarian in her town of Saint-Malo to comfort and encourage her community with books.

It is 1876, and San Francisco, the freewheeling "Paris of the West," is in the fierce grip of a record-breaking heat wave and a smallpox epidemic. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman called Jenny Bonnet is shot dead. The survivor, her friend Blanche Beunon, is a French burlesque dancer. Over the next three days, Blanche will risk everything to bring Jenny's murderer to justice'if he doesn't track her down first.

Born to rough cloth in working-class London in 1748, Mary Saunders hungers for velvet and lace'a desire that leads her to a life of prostitution, where she encounters a freedom unknown to virtuous young women. In the end, it is clothes, their splendour and their deception, that bring Mary to the brink of disaster. Slammerkin is both a brilliant evocation of another era and a timeless tale of the rage of adolescence.

Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman's only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows. By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains.

Based on the details of a scandalous divorce case that gripped England in 1864, The Sealed Letter is a provocative historical drama that is strangely relevant to modern issues surrounding women, marriage, rights and roles.

The Honourable Mrs. Damer is a young widow of eccentric tastes, the only female sculptor of her time. The Earl of Derby, inventor of the horse race that bears his name, is the richest man in the House of Lords-- and the ugliest. Miss Eliza Farren, born a nobody, now reigns as the Queen of Comedy at Drury Lane Theatre. In a time of looming war and terrorism, of glittering spectacle and financial disasters, the wealthy liberals of the Whig Party work to topple a tyrannical prime minister and a lunatic king.

'That night Stasia took an oath, swearing to learn the recipe by heart and destroy the paper. And when she was lying in her bed again, recalling the taste with all her senses, she was sure that this secret recipe could heal wounds, avert catastrophes, and bring people happiness. But she was wrong.' At the start of the twentieth century, on the edge of the Russian Empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution.

Set in the Eastern Caribbean at the beginning of the 20th century, No Pain Like This Body describes the perilous existence of a poor rice-growing family during the August rainy season. Their struggles to cope with illness, a drunken and unpredictable father and the violence of the elements end in unbearable loss. Through vivid, vertiginous prose and with brilliant economy and originality, Ladoo creates a fearful world of violation and grief, in the face of which even the most despairing efforts to endure stand out as acts of courage.

Love is in the air on the sun kissed sands of the Cornish coast, where the sea sparkles and romance sizzles on golden beaches. This stunning new novel by Holly Martin, bestselling author of Ice Creams at Emerald Cove, is guaranteed to steal your heart this summer. Lyra Thomas has dreamed of living on Jewel Island ever since she first visited its breathtaking shores. And now her dream has come true - she has her own little cottage and a brand new job. But when Lyra sets out for a bike ride to explore her new home, a mishap has her crash-landing at the feet of the very handsome Nix Sanchez.