National Network for Equitable Library Service

From the acclaimed author of Following the Summer and Affairs of Art come these stories that convey the betrayal that accompanies every love story, seek to dispel all illusion, and recommend malice as state of grace. In the end vengeance emerges -- hot, velvety, coursing with passion and blood, and, surprisingly, capable of forging the most lasting ties between people.

Elizabeth Barber is crossing the Atlantic by liner with her perfectly adequate boyfriend, Derek, who might be planning to propose. In fleeing the UK — temporarily — Elizabeth may also be in flight from her past and the charismatic Arthur, once her partner in what she came to see as a series of crimes. Together they acted as fake mediums, perfecting the arcane skills practiced by effective frauds. Elizabeth finally rejected what once seemed an intoxicating game. Arthur continued his search for the right way to do wrong.

In the late nineteenth century, after disease and circumstance have left her alone in the world, Mary Rourke believes she is predestined to spinsterhood in her small community in Newfoundland. When a series of dramatic events brings a strange man to her door, Mary emerges from the comfortable isolation that she knows to follow her dreams in Boston. Those desires do not come without sacrifice and hard choices. When her past comes back to haunt her, Mary must decide whether there is room for both her aspirations and her heart—or if she must surrender one to have the other.

A novel of crime and passion in nineteenth-century Newfoundland Alexander Pindikowsky, a Polish artist working in Heart’s Content, is arrested in 1880 for the crime of forgery. He is sentenced to fifteen months at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary in St. John’s. Governor John Hawley Glover, when made aware of Pindikowsky’s talent, arranges for the prisoner to serve part of his sentence in a most unusual way—designing and painting ceiling frescoes at Government House. Ellen Dormody, a parlour maid at Government House, witnesses first-hand the brilliance of Alexander’s artistry.

A Royal Newfoundland Regiment Love Story In the summer of 1914, Daniel Beresford’s innocent love affair with the merchant’s daughter is discovered, forcing him to make an impossible decision to save his family from financial ruin. When news of the First World War reaches Middle Tickle, Daniel, who is torn between his love for Emma Tavenor and his responsibility to his family, enlists in the Newfoundland Regiment and departs for training. When Emma learns her father is to blame for Daniel’s unexplained departure, she follows him to England, hoping they’ll be reunited.

Warning: Graphic Content and Mature Subject Matter Rosie O’Dell is a creature of beauty, brilliance . . . and unspeakable secrets. When she was young, terrible crimes had been committed against her. Tom Sharpe became Rosie O’Dell’s high school sweetheart, and in revenge for the transgressions against her, the two young lovers committed their own crime of passion together, which ultimately ripped them apart. Thirty years have now passed since Tom has seen his Rosie O’Dell, and the intervening years have been a source of endless torment for him.

Who says you can’t go home again? Sylvia can’t imagine why anyone would ever try. She had left rural Newfoundland as a scrawny, shy girl who was too smart for her own good. When she dragged herself home for her cousin’s wedding, she couldn’t believe how much had changed—or how much had stayed the same. Ten years older but no less fixated on an exit strategy, Sylvia returns to confront the person she left behind: her younger self. When she left, she was Miss Sylvia Pride, a fisherman’s daughter without an education, money, or any sophistication. Returning now, she is a different person.

Sixteen-year-old Flannery Malone has it bad. She’s been in love with Tyrone O’Rourke since the days she still believed in Santa Claus. But Tyrone has grown from a dorky kid into an outlaw graffiti artist, the rebel-with-a-cause of Flannery’s dreams, literally too cool for school.Which is a problem, since he and Flannery are partners for the entrepreneurship class that she needs to graduate. And Tyrone’s vanishing act may have darker causes than she realizes.Tyrone isn’t Flannery’s only problem.

Nominated for the Ottawa Book Award Stan is an intense sixteen-year-old loner who desperately wants to make the junior varsity basketball team. And it seems that he may be about to do so, until he’s blindsided by the unexpected attentions of Janine Igwash. Suddenly Stan is no longer thinking about jump shots. Instead he is obsessed with Janine’s spiky hair, her milky white shoulders and the mysterious little tattoo at the base of her neck, not to mention the heat of her breath, her dark eyes, wide hips and . . .

Alexandra's beloved grandfather was fond of saying, Life is full of surprises, and sometimes the good and the bad get all bunched up together. However, he could not have prepared her for the death of her father, a man she never knew, and his legacy -- a cabin on prairie land formerly owned by the LaFreniere family. Lonny LaFreniere's stepfather is the kindest man Lonny has ever known. But Lonny, tormented by guilty memories and visions he can't shake, rejects the land Pop always wanted to pass on to him.