National Network for Equitable Library Service

A couple brimming with the hope of a new pregnancy. A woman coming to terms with the truth behind her adoption. A husband trying to save his marriage from the despair of infertility. These are just a few of the stories in All the Acorns on the Forest Floor, a book about the lengths we'll go to for the love of our children, our spouses, our mothers, our daughters. All the Acorns on the Forest Floor is a book of connections between people, connections lost and found, across time and space.

When opera singer Dawn Woodward has an onstage flameout, all she wants is to be left alone. She's soon faced with other complications the day her husband announces her estranged brother-in-law, Tariq, is undergoing cancer treatment and moving in, his temperamental parrot in tow. To make matters worse, though she can't whistle herself, she has been tasked with teaching arias to an outspoken group of devoted siffleurs who call themselves the Warblers. Eventually, Tariq and his bird join the class, and Dawn forms unexpected friendships with her new companions.

Free Wind Home carries the reader full circle through a childhood rooted in a sleepy Newfoundland outport with nineteenth century traditions, existing in a twentieth century world of war and uncertain politics. It is a visceral tale full of the tangible wonders of discovery and play, the fulfilling simplicity of nature, and the sometimes frightening shifts and changes life holds in store.

Prissy Montgomery goes to great lengths to avoid having sex with her husband, Howie. So when he confesses to having an affair, and requests a divorce, she shouldn’t be all that surprised. With her fourteen-year-old son in tow she leaves the comfort of her Toronto home and heads back to Paradise Bay, her childhood home in Newfoundland. But Prissy’s mother, in an effort to spare her daughter humiliation, takes out an obituary to announce Howie’s untimely demise. Prissy is horrified by the deception, especially when her childhood friend becomes widowed for real.

The Mean Time is a work of literary fiction set in Corner Brook about how people allow their pasts to shape and define them – in holding on to dread, regret, and pain. The death of Will Johnston shakes the community to its foundations, and Frank Doyle’s marriage is frayed by his involvement in the death. Torn by guilt and unable to let go, Frank descends into alcoholism until his wife eventually leaves with their child in the hopes that he will come to terms with the past. Bobby Johnston spent most of his adulthood running from life and bad decisions.

When a devastating fire sweeps through St. John's, Newfoundland, in the summer of 1892, nineteen-year-old Lily Hunt hopes it's the beginning of a new life that will transform her from a dutiful daughter to a crusader, a suffragist, and a woman in love. Twenty years later, Lily's daughter Grace is deeply immersed in campaigning for women to have the vote. When Grace learns of her mother's involvement in the suffrage cause, the Lily she discovers bears little resemblance to the mother who raised her. Grace sets out on a quest to discover what changed Lily, and why she wants to hide her past.

In The End of Music, Jamie Fitzpatrick’s two mesmerizing, interwoven narratives circle the lives of Joyce, a modern young woman navigating the fraught social mores of a small town in its post-war heyday, and her son, Carter, more than fifty years later, whose days as an aspiring rock star are over. As Joyce’s memories of the past begin to escape her, her son’s past returns to haunt him. Brilliantly and unflinchingly revealing the inner lives of his characters, Fitzpatrick offers an extraordinary novel, with two startling twists, about women, men, and reckoning with the past.

At times irreverent and darkly humorous, Mercy of St. Jude is a story of profound loss, and the unforeseen effects that secrets can have on those we love. When Mercedes Hann dies, her great-niece, Annie Byrne, returns to Newfoundland for the funeral. With the family gathered to say goodbye, Annie searches for the truth by trying to unravel the secrets that shaped Mercedes’ life, and, ultimately, her own. But can Annie trust the truth? And, in the end, whose truth is it?

"Eighty-four years is time enough for one life," Keziah Donovan muses as she waits for death to re-unite her with her "own sweet man". Stricken down by a paralytic stroke, Keziah's body is immobile but her mind is on a journey through a life that spans two centuries.

These are Emily's last five days in Lightning Cove, a community on the northeast coast of Newfoundland where she struggles to free herself from an oppressive husband. Her life, she senses, is only half-occupied. All of which explains the three plane tickets hidden beneath a loose floorboard in the basement - one for herself and one each for her two youngsters. But a lot can happen in five days. With the town on the verge of a massive collapse because of layoffs and the workers facing a possible plant closure, the air is already tense.