National Network for Equitable Library Service

With reality, humor, and a message about corporate greed, Ozeki weaves together the story of two women a world apart. The lives of Jane in America and Akiko in Japan intersect through beef, love, television, and fertility.

Nine stories draw us immediately into that special place known as Alice Munro territory--a place where an unexpected twist of events or a suddenly recaptured memory can illumine the arc of an entire life. Men and women are subtly revealed. Personal histories, both complex and simple, unfold in rich detail of circumstance and feeling.

Men and women, in the midst of contemporary quandaries and crises, recall the long-buried yearnings, dreams, and hard choices that have given shape to their lives.

When an intricate old map is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines, it at first seems no more than a curiosity. But the closer the villagers look, the stranger it becomes. Given to Armand Gamache as a gift the first day of his new job, the map eventually leads him to shattering secrets. To an old friend and older adversary. It leads the former Chief of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec to places even he is afraid to go. But must. And there he finds four young cadets in the Sûreté academy, and a dead professor. And, with the body, a copy of the old, odd map.

Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he'd only imagined possible. On warm summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small book, The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. "There is a balm in Gilead," his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, "to make the wounded whole." While Gamache doesn't talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home.

Cree bush pilot Will Bird lies comatose in a hospital, while his wayward niece Annie arrives to sit in silent vigil by his side. Slowly their stories reveal two people previously separated by great distances, beaten and broken, and searching for some sense of where they belong in the world.

The love of Wynn and Elizabeth Delaney has healed their adopted son Henry's painful memories and helped him grow into a man of character. But when his job as a Royal Canadian Mountie brings tragedy into his life once again, Henry is left frightened and vulnerable. Assigned to a new post some five years later, he rediscovers someone who, once and for all, may be able to help him put his past behind him. Henry's sister, Christine, also leaves home to explore life's possibilities. Moving to the city, she finds employment and loses her heart to the worldly son of her wealthy boss.

Rodeo cowboy Joe Willie Wolfchild, riding an explosive bull called See Four and moments away from becoming World Champion, suffers a devastating accident. His parents and grandparents use all their native wisdom to ease him out of his subsequent bitter depression, but without success. Meanwhile, in a distant city, a troubled young kid named Aiden plans a holdup that goes wrong and lands himself in jail. When he emerges, a sympathetic police officer arranges a job at a ranch, where his mother Claire will accompany him in an attempt to restore their relationship. It is the Wolfchild ranch.

Newlyweds Missie and Willie share a dream. However, it means that Missie must leave her parents, family and friends behind to join a wagon train and claim land in the West with her new husband. Overcoming incredible hardships on the journey, she grows into a mature wife and mother. Her faith in God and love for her husband give Missie the strength to make a new life and home in an unknown territory.

Through her dozens of novels, including The Bluebird and the Sparrow (RB# 94672) and Too Long a Stranger (RB# 94970), Janette Oke has become one of today's most beloved inspirational writers. In Julia's Last Hope, drawing on the Canadian landscapes she knows so well, Oke crafts the tale of a courageous woman faced with one of the most difficult times of her life. Julia Harrigan, her husband John, and their two daughters live in scenic Calder Springs, high in the Canadian Rockies. John manages a large lumber mill, and their home is the grandest in town.