National Network for Equitable Library Service

The Hedge, set in early New England, is the story of an intelligent young governor’s wife who is repressed by the severe attitudes of the Puritans, to the point where she withdraws from society, and is considered to have lost her mind. Anne Yale Hopkins comes to Hartford, Connecticut in 1638, delighted to have escaped the household of her stepfather Theophilus Eaton, a rigorous Puritan, by marrying Edward, who becomes governor of Hartford. She is a voracious reader, and has written several books. She can hardly wait to make a fresh start in a new land.

Only by Blood is a novel of search for roots, mother-daughter love and family reconciliation. A Polish woman receives puzzling news from her mother just before she dies. She wants to fulfill her mother's last wishes, but has little idea of where to start. Never does she suspect that her search will take her across Poland, back in time and over the ocean. Spanning over sixty years, this story tells about the lengths to which mothers will go in order to save their daughters and the secrets they will keep to protect them from pain.

As a young man in the midst of World War II, Jacob fell in love with an older woman and began a rapturous affair, until she seemingly vanished. As strange things start to happen around him, a familiar young woman appears at Jacob's house with a mysterious notebook. The past doesn't stay buried and the mystery of Maddy Heisler is reveled. With secrets and lies, lovers and spies, Jacob will never be the same again.

It's 1854 at the start of Now We Are Brody. The mill is boarded up as the townsfolk attempt to bury a dark shame from their past, but the arrival of a young woman with the deed to the mill threatens to unearth its secret. In The Huron Bride it is 1834 and Hazel Sheehan has braved the perilous journey across the Atlantic to work as a hired hand at her cousin's sawmill. When her cousin James asks her to marry him, Hazel is overjoyed, but will the ghost of James's ex-wife spoil their wedding plans?

When Elsa and her family move from Iceland to Scotland, she is filled with uncontrollable joy over the new adventure she is about to begin. With her infectious energy and love for the dramatic, Elsa stands out both in her community and within her classroom, but this exuberance also targets her as an outcast. Only through the faith of a new friend and the strength of her imagination does Elsa find the courage to look inside herself and find pride in who she is and where she came from.

Kate possesses the makings of a gifted mathematician with an enthusiasm for exploring the mysteries of space and time. But this is the 1950s and women are routinely laughed out of scientific circles. Besides, every family has its star, and Kate's brother already holds that distinction. Hindered by prejudices against women, Kate is confined to a life of unfulfilling jobs, leading her to become bitter and unhappy. The Little Years confronts the impact of chauvinism and explores the nature of fame, the value of art, and the passing of time.

Marjorie Chan's gripping narrative intertwines the past and the present, transporting the reader between Irene and a small group of unlikely heroes caught in the invasion. Scrambling to create a refuge from the horror, the band's struggle to survive binds them in a promise that will span the ages of time, while Irene struggles to reveal the truth despite her publisher's conservative worries. a nanking winter brings the horror and endurance of a nation's history into stark focus with breathtaking clarity and brutal honesty.

A young Canadian homesteader travelling far from home finds himself accused of murder in the state of Kansas in 1871. With only his wits to defend himself, he turns the law of the land—and the men hell-bent on enforcing it—upside down. This authentic western is a unique take on the days when guns were the law.

Ambitious, emotionally resonant stories about the lives of women and girls in Vietnam over the past thousand years. In The Swallows Uncaged, Elizabeth McLean paints a sweeping yet intimate panorama of Vietnam in the style of a Vietnamese eight-panel screen: eight narratives that each capture a moment in time and yet speak to one another. Interweaving historical and fictional characters over ten centuries, the stories portray the passions and turmoils of successive generations of the Nguyen clan’s wives and daughters, and of their men.

In the fertile artistic milieu of 1927 Toronto ... After winning the commission to paint a war memorial mural for Christ Church Grange Park, Nora Britton is found dead on the church floor. An accidental fall from the scaffold she was working on? So it seems, until police detective Paul Shenstone discovers that she has been the subject of parishioners’ death threats. Shenstone’s sleuthing takes him from slum to mansion, from speakeasy to laboratory to artist’s studio. The dead Nora becomes his obsession.