Parkland Regional Library

Berlin, 1939: recent widow Amanda Sternberg is fleeing Nazi Germany with her two young daughters, heading towards unoccupied France. She arrives in Haute-Vienne with only one of her girls. Their freedom is short-lived and soon they are taken to a labour camp. New York City, 2015: Elise Duval, eighty years old, receives a phone call from a woman bearing messages - letters written to Elise from her mother, unravelling more than seven decades of secrets.

The mind-blowing new novel from a blazingly talented writer whose last book, MARTIN JOHN, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize. "My name is Bina and I'm a very busy woman. That's Bye-na, not Beena. I don't know who Beena is but I expect she's having a happy life. And I don't know who you are, or the state of your life. But if you've come this way to listen to me, your life will undoubtedly get worse. I'm here to warn you..." Bina, a bracingly plain-spoken older Irishwoman who, we gradually learn, is under police surveillance for a crime considered so unspeakable and incendiary that she cannot refer to it directly upon threat of immediate arrest.

When people under Arcadian control begin showing signs of violent instability, Jane Hawk and her growing band of supporters prepare for an ultimate battle to determine America's future.

Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love. In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take heryears to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves - and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest. Now eighty-nine years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamedall the time," she muses. "After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is." Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.

Grand in scope, spare in execution, and lush in language, 26 Knots is a fable-like tale of love, obsession, and everything in between. Araceli loves Adrien. Adrien loves Pénélope. Pénélope marries Gabriel, who is tormented by the search for the father he never knew. Set in Montreal, but spiralling out across Canada, Bindu Suresh's debut novel deftly reveals the devastating consequences of betrayal and commitment, of grief and hope.

"Originally published in 1995 under the title Soifs, the first novel in Marie-Claire Blais’ masterful series won the Governor General’s Award for French Fiction and was hailed by critics around the world as a tour de force, comparing Blais to such literary greats as Virginia Woolf, Dante, Sophocles, and Shakespeare. In this dazzling rendering, These Festive Nights, celebrated translator Sheila Fischman brings Blais’ novel to life for English-speaking readers. A sun-drenched paradise in the Gulf of Mexico surrounded by the glimmering blue sea; Renata is convalescing on this island poised between two worlds: between great wealth and extreme poverty, between the past and an uncertain future, between the beauty of the world and the horrors of history. During her time here, Renata becomes tormented by thirst — for justice, for pleasure, for intoxication — while all around her, festivities are going on in join celebration of the birth of baby Vincent and the end of the twentieth century. Over the course of three days and three nights a flock of characters assembles: wealthy, poor, writers, artists facing their own mortality, children immersed in innocent games, young men dying of AIDS, refugees, the Ku Klux Klan — an entire spectrum of humanity is depicted in the grip of doubt and suffering. In this swirling, baroque fresco, Marie-Claire Blais captures the essence of our apocalyptic age, rendering it in powerfully evocative prose.”--

In the wispy grasslands of Tanzania in the 1950s, a Maasai woman gives birth to a miracle. The other villagers see the baby as a curse. The baby-- a daughter, named Kibo-- has skin as white as bone, and from her first moments on earth, she is forced to claim her life in spite of the violence she incites. As she grows, Kibo sheds her identity to become Liloe, and then Po, continuously trying to adjust herself so that she can fit into the world around her. Further south, in Portuguese-controlled Mozambique, a young boy, Ezequiel, has been adopted by two missionaries. Zeca, too, struggles with a lack of acceptance. Not recognized by his Portuguese father's community, or by his Makonde mother's tribe, Zeca lives his life on the borders of both worlds. And when civil war erupts in Mozambique, Zeca must choose what-- and who-- he is willing to leave behind. An exploration of the costs of war, and a tender narrative of love and redemption, Children of the Moon is a startlingly truthful portrait of two outsiders, coming together in a time of momentous change.

Welcome to the most tumultuous summer of the twentieth century. It's 1969, and for the Levin family, the times they are a-changing. Every year the children have looked forward to spending the summer at their grandmother's historic home in downtown Nantucket. But like so much else in America, nothing is the same: Blair, the oldest sister, is marooned in Boston, pregnant with twins and unable to travel. Middle sister Kirby, caught up in the thrilling vortex of civil rights protests and determined to be independent, takes a summer job on Martha's Vineyard. Only-son Tiger is an infantry soldier, recently deployed to Vietnam. Thirteen-year-old Jessie suddenly feels like an only child, marooned in the house with her out-of-touch grandmother and her worried mother, each of them hiding a troubling secret. As the summer heats up, Ted Kennedy sinks a car in Chappaquiddick, man flies to the moon, and Jessie and her family experience their own dramatic upheavals along with the rest of the country.

FBI agent Emmy Dockery is absolutely relentless. She's young and driven, and her unique skill at seeing connections others miss has brought her an impressive string of arrests. But a shocking new case-unfolding across the country-has left her utterly baffled. The victims all appear to have died by accident, and have seemingly nothing in common. But this many deaths can't be coincidence. And the killer is somehow one step ahead of every move Dockery makes. How? To FBI special agent Harrison "Books" Bookman, everyone in the FBI is a suspect-particularly Emmy Dockery (the fact that she's his ex-fiancee doesn't make it easier).

Toby Fleishman thought he knew what to expect when he and his wife of almost fifteen years separated. He could not have predicted that one day, in the middle of his summer of sexual emancipation, Rachel would just drop their two children off at his place and simply not return. If Toby ever wants to truly understand what happened to Rachel and what happened to his marriage, he is going to have to consider that he might not have seen things all that clearly in the first place.

"A smart, thoughtful, and timely exploration of two sisters' lives from the 1950s to the present as they struggle to find their places--and be true to themselves--in a rapidly evolving world. Mrs. Everything is an ambitious, richly textured journey through history--and herstory--as these two sisters navigate a changing America over the course of their lives"-- Provided by publisher.

"Courtney Sullivan's Maine meets the works of Elin Hilderbrand in this delicious summer read involving three strangers, one island, and a season packed with unexpected romance, well-meaning lies, and damaging secrets."--Publisher's description.