Showing results for "Grace" in Literary Fiction

Award-winning author William Kent Krueger has gained an immense fan base for his Cork O’Connor series. In Ordinary Grace, Krueger looks back to 1961 to tell the story of Frank Drum, a boy on the cusp of manhood. A typical 13-year-old with a strong, loving family, Frank is devastated when a tragedy forces him to face the unthinkable - and to take on a maturity beyond his years.

Early one October morning, Grace’s mother snatches her from sleep and brutally cuts off her hair, declaring, 'You are the strong one now.' With winter close at hand and Ireland already suffering, Grace is no longer safe at home. And so her mother outfits her in men’s clothing and casts her out. When her younger brother Colly follows after her, the two set off on a remarkable odyssey in the looming shadow of their country’s darkest hour.

1876. In the glittering world of Manhattan's upper crust, women are valued by their pedigree, dowry, and, most importantly, connections. They have few rights and even less independence - what they do have is society. The more celebrated the hostess, the more powerful the woman. And none is more powerful than Caroline Astor - the Mrs. Astor.

Don't imagine for one moment that I'm not watching you.... The Metropole Hotel, Brighton. After a heady New Year's Eve ball, a woman is brutally raped as she returns to her room. A week later, another woman is attacked. Both victims' shoes are taken by the offender.... Detective Superintendent Roy Grace soon realises that these new cases bear remarkable similarities to an unsolved series of crimes in the city back in 1997.

Female fiend? Femme fatale? Or weak and unwilling victim? Around the true story of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the 1840s, Margaret Atwood has created an extraordinarily potent tale of sexuality, cruelty and mystery. Sixteen years have passed since teenaged Grace was locked up for the cold-blooded murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his lover, Nancy Montgomery. Saved from the gallows where her alleged accomplice was hanged, Grace claims to have no memory of the events which changed her life forever.

Growing up in Alaska, young David Winkler is crippled by his dreams. At nine he dreams a man is decapitated by a passing truck on the path outside his family's home. The next day, unable to prevent it, he witnesses an exact replay of his dream in real life. The premonitions keep coming, unstoppably. He sleepwalks during them, bringing catastrophe into his reach. Then, as unstoppable as a vision, he falls in love at the supermarket (exactly as he already dreamed) with Sandy.

For a runaway slave in the 1840s South, life on the run can be just as dangerous as life under a sadistic master. That's what 15-year-old Naomi learns after she escapes the brutal confines of life on an Alabama plantation. Striking out on her own, she leaves behind her beloved Momma and sister, Hazel, and takes refuge in a Georgia brothel run by a freewheeling, gun-toting Jewish madam named Cynthia.

Judith and her father don't have much - their house is full of dusty relics, reminders of the mother she's never known. But Judith sees the world with the clear eyes of faith, and where others might see rubbish, Judith sees possibility. Bullied at school, she finds solace in making a model of the Promised Land - using pipe cleaners and other supplies to make little people, a sliver of moon, luminous stars, and a mirror sea - a world of wonder that Judith calls The Land of Decoration.

"J'ai essayé d'approcher au plus près ce miracle qui fait surgir la lumière au plus profond de la noirceur." Il y a quatre ans, j'ai sombré dans une vertigineuse dépression. Je ne trouvais plus aucun sens à l'existence. Jusqu'à cette nuit, dans la chapelle d'un monastère, où j'ai été touché par la grâce. Par la sensation inouïe d'un contact charnel avec Dieu. Pour moi qui ai toujours été athée, cette révélation relevait de l'incompréhensible. Quel en était le sens ? Qu'avais-je éprouvé réellement ?

One of Edith Wharton's most acclaimed works, The Custom of the Country is a blistering indictment of materialism, power, and misplaced values. Its heroine, Undine Spragg, is one of the most ruthless characters in all of literature, as selfishly unscrupulous as she is fiercely beautiful. As she climbs the class ladder through a series of marriages and affairs, she shows little concern for who she has to step on.

It is September 8, 1943, and 14-year-old Claudette Blum and her father are among the thousands of Jewish refugees scrambling over the Alps toward Italy, where they hope to find safety now that the Italians have broken from Germany and made a separate peace with the Allies. The Blums will soon discover that Italy is anything but peaceful, as it quickly becomes an open battleground for the Nazis, the Allies, Resistance fighters, Jews in hiding, and ordinary Italian civilians trying to survive.

As Britain is pulled towards war, the secrets within two families threaten to tear them apart, in the new novel from Juliet West, The Faithful.... July 1935. In the village of Aldwick on the Sussex coast, 16-year-old Hazel faces a long, dull summer with just her self-centred mother, Francine, for company. But then Francine decamps to London with her lover, Charles; Oswald Mosley's blackshirts arrive in Aldwick; and Hazel's summer suddenly becomes more interesting.

It is the story of Zubaida and her search for herself. It is a story she tells for Elijah, the love of her life. It tells the story of Anwar, the link in Zubaida's broken chain. Woven within these tales are the stories of a whale and a ship, a piano and a lost boy. This is the story of love itself.

Gifted pianist Valentine Windham, youngest son of the duke of Moreland, has little interest in his father's obsession to see his sons married, and instead pours passion into his music. But when Val loses his music, he flees to the country, alone and tormented by what has been robbed from him. Grieving Ellen Markham has hidden herself away, looking for safety in solitude. Her curious new neighbor offers a kindred lonely soul whose desperation is matched only by his desire, but Ellen's devastating secret could be the one thing that destroys them both.

Célian Laurent. Manhattan royalty. Notorious playboy. Heir to a media empire...and my new boss. I could have impressed him, if not for last month's unforgettable one-night stand. I left it with more than orgasms and a pleasant memory - namely, his wallet. Now he's staring me down like I'm the dirt under his Italian loafers, and I'm supposed to take it. But the thing about being Judith "Jude" Humphry is I have nothing to lose. Brooklyn girl. Infamously quirky. Heir to a stack of medical bills and a tattered couch.

John visits his ageing mother, Mary, in her nursing home by the sea, and mourns the slow fading of her mind. Hoping to shore up her receding memory, he prompts her with songs, photographs, and questions from their shared past, taking her back to the 1940s, when she was a young woman and he a child in a small Cumbrian town. But as he rekindles her memories, it is her own mother she longs for - and John finds himself delving further back, into the secrets and silences of Mary's fractured childhood, and the unsung sorrows of her thwarted yet spirited mother, Grace.

The Metropole Hotel, Brighton. After a heady New Year’s Eve ball, a woman is brutally raped as she returns to her room. A week later, another woman is attacked. Both victims’ shoes are taken by the offender.. Detective Superintendent Roy Grace soon realises that these new cases bear remarkable similarities to an unsolved series of crimes in the city back in 1997.

A man hit Ava with his car, a few miles from her bungalow. He brings her flowers in hospital and offers to do her laundry. He also brings her the letter she dropped that night on the road. In New York, Ava's brother Michael receives the same letter. He thinks about it as he steps out of the shower into his curtainless bedroom. A naked woman stares at him from the apartment across. They both laugh and cover up with their arms. Brother and sister cannot avoid the letter: their estranged father is dying and wants to meet.

Nora is just 12 when the war breaks out and she joins trainloads of evacuees leaving London's East End for the safety of rural Kent. Her surrogate family,the Rivers,are unline anyone she has ever met and she soon comes to lover her new life with them,in particular with their daughter Grace. The two become as close as sisters,although, to Nora's confusion,even this is not quite as close as she would like. What happens next is a secret that wil eat away at Nora for the rest of her life.

Mary is one of the most revered women in history, but she was an ordinary woman striving to please God in the same way that women still do today. Listeners are sure to gain a new appreciation of the familiar story through Francine's signature style. A study on the biblical text is included for personal or group study.