National Network for Equitable Library Service

This family saga that travels through time-from modern Toronto to Depression-era Kentucky-and explores how the ghosts of the past shape our history. Every family has its stories: joys and losses, hopes and regrets. For the family that populates these three novels, the secrets forgotten with the passing of years become suddenly accessible, as journeys through time unite loved ones across the decades. Shadow of Ashland: Leo Nolan's mother shows him a rose just before she dies-and claims it was given to her by her brother, who disappeared fifty years earlier. Leo is sure it's the delirium talking, the rambling of a sick and elderly woman. But after her death, letters from the same long-lost brother begin to arrive at the family home, postmarked 1934-plunging Leo into a journey that will take him all the way from Canada to Ashland, Kentucky, where he will walk through a window that leads to another time and world. A Witness to Life: This prequel focusing on Leo's maternal grandfather, Martin Radey, and the chronology of his life "is an emotionally charged experience that will not be soon forgotten" (Dallas Morning News). St. Patrick's Bed: In the final chapter to the Ashland Trilogy, a son of the next generation asks questions about his biological father and sets off along with Leo on a quest for his heritage and history. A highly acclaimed epic from "a special writer," The Ashland Trilogy blends the fantastical and the real in a tale that will resonate with anyone who has yearned to know more about the generations who came before (The Globe and Mail).