National Network for Equitable Library Service

Caminos tells the story of Mercedes González Conde and her daughter, granddaughter and great-grandson. Each of them live and love, cope with and compound their inner troubles as issues of abandonment, attachment, identity and rootlessness circle around and through them. The novel is set in the northwest Spanish province of Asturias and the eastern United States -- primarily West Virginia and Ohio -- with scenes in Mexico, Canada, Prague and Berlin.

The Shining Fragments is a family saga about the Irish in Canada that explores the ramifications of abandonment, obsession, love, memory, and visionary power. Spanning the years 1882-1904, it follows Joseph Conlon from his early childhood in Ulster to his experiences of youth and adulthood as an immigrant. Left behind as a small boy on a Toronto train-station platform like so much forgotten luggage, Joseph grows up in a city bleak with bigotry. He discovers that he has artistic talent and becomes a designer of stained-glass windows.

It's 1908, and 16-year-old Charlotte O'Dell is forced to move away from her great Aunt Ginny in Victoria, and live and work at the St. Alice Hotel in order to make enough money to finish school. Her unruly red hair instantly makes her a new friend in Lizzie, though her equally fiery temperament doesn't go over quite as well with her boss, Mrs. Bannerman. It does, however, give her the opportunity to get to know the rest of the staff, and the guests, at the St. Alice.

It's 1971. Hal Sachs runs a used bookstore. Business isn't so great, and the store is in a part of Toronto that's about to be paved over with a behemoth expressway. When Hal meets Lily Klein, an activist schoolteacher who'll do just about anything to stop the highway, it's love at first sight. Until it isn't. And then Hal vanishes. Half a century later, Hal's nephew, Aitch, waits for his baby to be born as he tries to piece together the facts and fictions of Hal's disappearance.

"We Hope for Better Things has it all: fabulous storytelling, an emotional impact that lingers long after you turn the last page, and a setting that immerses you. I haven't read such a powerful, moving story since I read To Kill a Mockingbird in high school. This book will change how you look at the world we live in. Highly recommended!"--Colleen Coble, USAToday bestselling author of the Rock Harbor series and The View From Rainshadow Bay "A timely exploration of race in America, We Hope for Better Things is an exercise of empathy that will shape many a soul.

15th century Oakham, in Somerset; a tiny village cut off by a big river with no bridge. When a man is swept away by the river in the early hours of Shrove Saturday, an explanation has to be found: accident, suicide or murder' The village priest, John Reve, is privy to many secrets in his role as confessor.

I killed a man the summer I turned thirteen ... Thus begins C. S. Harris's haunting, lyrically beautiful tale of coming of age in Civil War-torn Louisiana. Eleven-year-old Amrie St. Pierre is catching tadpoles with her friend Finn O'Reilly when the Federal fleet first steams up the Mississippi River in the spring of 1862. With the surrender of New Orleans, Amrie's sleepy little village of St. Francisville - strategically located between the last river outposts of Vicksburg and Port Hudson - is now frighteningly vulnerable.

A royal birth, a nobleman's death, and a scarlet woman's murder In March 1279 Edward I takes a break from hammering the Welsh and bearing down on England's Jews to vacation in Gloucestershire. The royal party breaks the journey at Woodstock Manor. There, one life begins as the queen gives birth to a daughter and one draws to an end as apoplexy fells Baron Adam Wynethorpe. Hastening to the baron's deathbed is his eldest son, Hugh, a veteran of Edward's Crusades who can't shake off the battle horrors he has witnessed.

An assassination plot that could end the Civil War, and a hidden enemy that could destroy a secret league of unsung heroes ... Daniel Cumberland, born free in Massachusetts, studied law with dreams of helping his people-dreams that died the night he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Daniel is rescued, but he's a changed man. When he's offered entry into the Loyal League, the covert organization of Black spies who helped free him, he seizes the opportunity for vengeance against the Confederacy and those who support it.

Gathered at their childhood home to mourn their father's death, Ally D'Apliese and her five adoptive sisters receive tantalizing clues to their distinct heritages. Ally soon finds herself in Norway where she begins to make sense of her elusive past in the second part of an epic new series by #1 internationally bestselling author Lucinda Riley. Olympic hopeful Ally is in the midst of preparations for one of the world's most challenging yacht races when news of her beloved father's death shocks the accomplished sailor.