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Where the Crawdads Sing

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Where the Crawdads Sing  by Delia Owens
Format:  Book, Audio, Ebook
Who it’s for:  Adults

 

This is Delia Owens’s debut novel.  It is the story of a young woman abandoned at age ten to survive alone in the coastal marsh of Barkley Cove, North Carolina.  Kya Clark is known as the “Marsh Girl” to residents of Barkley Cove.  Kya lives barefoot and wild.  She is friends with the gulls and very astute to nature and the environment in which she lives.  She has the skills to survive in the wild, but she is not prepared for the relationships of polite society.

In 1969, handsome Chase Andrews is found dead.  Local residents immediately suspect the Marsh Girl.  Rumor has it that Kya has been seen with Chase Andrews.  But could this wild girl be in a relationship with the wealthy Chase Andrews?  After all, Chase is a married man.

As the story unfolds, we learn about Kya’s childhood, her ability to survive on her own, her kindness and caring for nature, and her first encounters with friendship and love.  Could this wildly beautiful girl, who only ever attended one day of school be capable of violence?

Owens has written a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a mysterious tale of possible murder.  You will be mesmerized until the end.

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The Girl with No Name

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The Girl with No Name by Diney Costeloe
Format: CD Book
Who it’s for:  Adults and teens

Lisa is a thirteen year old Jewish girl escaping Nazi Germany after her family has been driven from their home.  She was sent to England with other children and eventually arrived in London, lonely, scared and unable to speak English.  A childless couple took her in and cared for her.  Lisa attended school with many other refugee children and she gradually learned English.  When the Nazis bombed London Lisa escaped to a bomb shelter but she was injured.  She lost her memory and couldn’t recall anything about her previous life.  She was transferred to a children’s home until it also became a target of the attacks.  Another evacuation forced her to find a new home in the country with a kind spinster woman.  If you are a fan of historical novels, listen to this captivating story by Diney Costeloe.  This is the first book in the series.  The next one is The Married Girls.

The narrator, Anna Bentinck, has a wonderful speaking voice and makes this story come to life.  She is a British actress and producer who has done hundreds of broadcasts on BBC, was the voice for an animation series and has narrated many audiobooks.  The author, Diney Costeloe, writes historical novels and also writes romantic novels under the name of Diney Delancey.

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Tradition

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Tradition by Brendan Kiely
Format: Book & Audiobook
Who it’s for: Teens & Adults

Jules Devereux is starting her senior year at Fullbrook Academy, an elite boarding school in New England, and is already counting the days to graduation so she can leave behind her ex-boyfriend, her ex-best friends, and everything she thinks is wrong with Fullbrook.
Always an outspoken advocate, Jules finds herself strangely silenced when she becomes the victim of sexual assault at the annual fall drinking party. Finding an administration unwilling to act, she and her new found friends launch a plan to get everyone’s attention and challenge what is accepted just because it’s always been that way.

I heard the author, Brendan Kiely, speak at a conference and his genuine concern for responsible and respectful behavior made me want to read this book.  It’s thought provoking and made me see how we often let things stay the same for no better reason than that’s how it’s always been. Brendan Kiely also co-authored the 2016 One Maryland One Book: All American Boys.
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Millie Fierce

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Millie Fierce by Jane Manning
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Kids

Millie is such a quiet, ordinary girl that no one listens to her or notices her, or gives her more than a tiny piece of cake at parties. She feels almost invisible, like the smudge left by the mean girls who walk through her chalk drawing on the sidewalk. One day Millie has had enough of being invisible. She gets mad- no, she gets Fierce! Now Millie Fierce stomps about and howls, throws food and leaves muddy handprints on the wall. She even pulls the buds off the neighbor’s peony bush! She is noisy and pushy –and now everyone notices her. But not in a good way. When her wild behavior hurts a friend, Millie begins to rethink her particular brand of fierceness, and finds there is room inside her for both Kind and Fierce.

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Prayers for Sale

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Prayers for Sale  by Sandra Dallas
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Adults

Prayers for Sale is one of Sandra Dallas’s most popular novels.  Eighty-six-year-old Hennie Comfort tells us the story of her last months in the mining community of Middle Swan, Colorado in 1936. She is a widow and her daughter wishes for her to move to Illinois before the snows come. Hennie forms a friendship with a young newlywed girl named Nit Spindle who has recently moved to the Rocky Mountain town.  Nit sees the sign outside of Hennie’s fence that states “Prayers for Sale.”  Hennie does not actually sell prayers but will invite a person in to hear the story of the sign.  Hennie also has a quilting group who meets at her house. She invites Nit to attend and we meet more women from the community. As the story progresses, Hennie tells Nit many stories about her life and the people in the town.  This is a story about these two women’s friendship, their relationships, plus the everyday life and drama that comes with being a mining town in 1936 in the aftermath of the Great Depression.

I had previously read another novel by Dallas and was not too impressed. I decided to try this one because it is the reason Sandra Dallas came on my radar and why her books are on my TBR (to-be-read) list.   I liked the narrator, 86-year-old Hennie Comfort, and the way she told stories. I also liked the historical aspects, the descriptions of mining and life in high-country Colorado 1936. Dallas did not bog down the novel with copious details but enough to get a very good idea of the way things worked in that era.  The other people in the town and their stories were also very interesting, not just filler.  This is a quick read that at times produced surprisingly strong emotions.  I like this book enough to try her other very popular novel, Tallgrass. I would recommended Prayers for Sale for people who like a slower paced novel with historical elements and is mainly focused on women’s relationships.

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Driving by Starlight

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Driving by Starlight by Anat Deracine

Publication Date: May 22, 2018

Who it’s for: Teens

Sixteen-year-olds Leena and Mishie are best friends. They delight in small rebellions against the Saudi cultural police—secret Western clothing, forbidden music, flirtations. But Leena wants college, independence—she wants a different life. Though her story is specific to her world (a world where it’s illegal for women to drive, where a ten-year-old boy is the natural choice as guardian of a fatherless woman), ultimately it’s a story about friendship, family, and freedom that transcends cultural differences.

This debut novel about friendship, being a woman, and having courage in a male dominant culture is full of unexpected twists and is sure to keep you turning the pages.

 

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