National Network for Equitable Library Service

A year ago in 1815, Laura Gardeyne lost her dashing husband, Hal, in a riding accident. Now she must raise her young son at the Gardeyne estate, since he is heir to its fortune. But after Hal's brother fathers a male child, Laura realizes that he might do anything, even murder, to position his offspring as heir.

Randolph Aldridge travels to a snake-infested Cypress mill in Louisiana to find his brother Byron, a troubled veteran of World War I. Once there, Randolph finds that By is a shell of his former self--and that the murderous cartel controlling the mill's casino won't give them any peace.

In war-torn Asia and stricken Europe, men and women, still young but veterans of harsh experience, must reinvent their lives and expectations, and learn, from their past, to dream again. Some will fulfill their destinies, others will falter. At the center of the story, a brave and brilliant soldier find that survival and worldly achievement are not enough. His counterpart, a young girl living in occupied Japan and tending her dying brother, falls in love, and in the process discovers herself.

Baltimore in 1966 is a quiet, blue-collar town. But all that is about to change for one group of young men. Bobby drops out of law school during his final year. Neil heads for the war in Vietnam, but goes AWOL and comes home as an antiwar protester. Ben marries the Cadillac dealer's daughter and half-heartedly begins his new life as son-in-law to the boss. Turko and Eggy discover the decadence of the '60s, but struggle to adapt.

Edmund, a 17-year-old counterfeiter's apprentice, leaves the criminal job to join Sir Nigel on the Crusade, only to find out it is not as adventurous and heroic as he thought it to be.

When the new highway being constructed avoids Wanderer Springs, the town is left to wither in the dust. Will Callaghan, back for a funeral, remembers the town's sometimes funny, sometimes paintul past, including the time he cost his high school the football championship. Through Will's remembrances the past comes back to life, and Wanderer Springs regains its identity.

Nathan Bedford Forrest was the most reviled and celebrated, loathed and legendary, of Civil War generals. We see Forrest off the battlefield, in the more hidden but no less telling moments of his life: wooing the woman who would become his wife; battling an addiction to gambling; overcoming his abhorrence of the bureaucracy of the army to rise to its highest ranks. We see him taking part in the business of slave trading, but treating his own slaves humanely.

In 1970 the shabby members of a California commune pull up stakes and move to the harsh interior of Alaska. They establish Drop City, a back-to-the-land town, on a foundation of peace and free love. But their idealism cannot prevent tension from rippling through the group.

Once innocent, Con Somerford has returned from war, weary and worldly, to assume the role of Earl of Wyvern. To his surprise and distress, Susan Kerslake, Con's first love, is now his new housekeeper. Time has changed the two soulmates from who they were during childhood. Memories of their love and friendship still linger, but so do dangerous questions.

When a young Korean girl known as Regret leaves her homeland for a better life in Hawaii, as a "picture bride," she expects to find prosperity and a chance at education. But the rich husband she is promised turns out to be a poor plantation worker with drinking and gambling problems, and the girl now known as Jin is forced to seek her own path. Joining with her fellow picture brides to start a business, Jin must shed her naieveté and overcome prejudice to succeed in this foreign land.