A wild west tale of old Texas after the Civil War where an orphaned white teenage boy and his mulatto half sister must survive near starvation trying to keep a family farm going after a rogue panther kills Samantha's mother and their father dies. Told in an accurate voice for the time, the story is told through the written testimony of Benjamin to a judge in hopes of convicting a sadistic man who has plagued them. You empathize with Sam the most in her relentless quest to kill the panther that scarred her and killed her mother. They are composed of a strange band of travelers - an outlaw, a preacher, tracking dog, Sam and her brother Ben as they are pursued by the murderous Hanlin. Brutal but honest it gives a true accounting of how hard life was in the Texas frontier filled with violence and racial hatred.
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A family is unmoored by the loss of a newborn so they decide to move to the big city and help an Uncle with his mortuary business. Living above the mortuary sounds grisly but they quickly adjust just in time for the deadly Spanish Flu pandemic. With war on the horizon the family and neighbors lose more loved ones in Europe and to the flu at home. Soon loss seems like a part of daily life just as they must all pitch in to help run the overcrowded mortuary. Emotional heart-gripping story of a family dealing with grief by helping others deal with it gently. You will easily bond with these courageous women and the lives they touch.
It takes a rare writer to find the beauty in brutality whether it is from nature or the people living there but this is exactly what Paul Howarth does when he tells the story of two teenage brothers in the 1880's Australian outback. After they come home to find their family savagely murdered and their younger sister near death, they take her to the neighboring wealthy landowner. The brothers are invited to join the vigilante group who are going out to hunt down the men responsible and anyone else who gets in their way. The landowner and the Inspector who is leading the witchhunt seem certain that the crime was committed by the boy's old Aborigine stockman. They are more than happy to find guilt in any indigenous Aborigine they find and eliminate them from the landscape as well. Tommy and Billy have not had an easy time trying to ranch in this unpredictable harsh land which has pushed them to grow up early. Nothing could have prepared them for this group of violent hard men and the hatred, racism and violence they would be invited to participate in as they search for justice. The beauty and savage landscape of the Australian outback blends seamlessly with the violence and hatred of the settlers against the native Aborigines to portray one absolutely stunning western saga.
Get the tissues handy because there won't be a dry eye in the room after they read Kristin Hannah's new heartbreaking saga of a teenage girl's fight to keep her family together and safe in the wild terrain of Alaska. Leni knows her parents love each other and that her dad loves her and her mom but the POW survivor hasn't been the same man since he returned. This family of wanderers have a unique opportunity to start over in the vast beauty of rugged Alaska. While the land is unyielding and unforgiving to the rookie, the people of the little town open their hearts to Leni and her parents. Leni finds a best friend in Matthew but her dad's hatred and jealousy of Matthew's dad casts a cloud over their secret relationship. She must keep herself and her mom safe from his abuse while fighting for her life and her convictions. A touching story that combines the rugged spirit of Alaskan pioneers with the natural beauty of the "great alone".
Rule number one - never fall in love. This seems like an understatement when you have the condition that Tom and others in the Albatross Society. They don't live forever but they do age so slowly compared to all those around them that they might as well live forever. This makes relationships difficult and as Tom finds out through his dealings with the Albatross Society - dangerous. Tom is forced to recruit or dispose of new members in hopes that the society will locate his daughter. Through plague, famine, war and adventure these few live many lives but all of them lonely. Reminiscent of "The Time Traveler's Wife" and the "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" this is emotional time travel - how to cope with the pain and loss of near immortality.
How do you deal with a horrific tragedy when you are only 6 years old? This is the basic premise behind the book, "Only Child". Zach is the victim of a school shooting - one where his brother has been killed and he has survived, sending he and his family into a never-ending sea of grief. Where the adults and those in charge seem to lose control and lash out in grief and anger, Zach is capable of looking for grace and forgiveness. Raw grief and a family in the throes of crisis, this is a fresh perspective from a young victim/survivor's viewpoint. The only one who seems to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The only thing worse than the rape itself must be being accused of lying yet that is exactly what happened and may still happen when a woman reports being raped. These Pulitzer Prize winning journalists honed in on one case of a young woman in the Seattle area in 2008 and then a string of rapes in Colorado that continued until his capture in 2011. You will shake your head in disbelief at the number of times the police could have ended this serial rapist if they had only followed up and not prejudged the victim to be giving a false report. The authors do a great job of calling out the mistakes but also highlighting where departments did do the right thing and connected the dots between the states. Miller and Armstrong got into the head of the rapist and the victims making it painfully clear that many of the women felt like they had been victimized twice - by the rapist and by law enforcement, friends and family who did not believe them.
Robert just wants to be a rescue sigilist like his famous mother but there is just one setback - they are always women. As he is not a woman he goes where no man has gone before - to Radcliffe College. His hovering is impressive though so soon he is able to convince the women around him that he might be the right person for the job. In a world where empirical philosophy uses magic and science to control the elements and heal the wounded this imaginative look is a combination of search and rescue pilots/divers, magical paramedics and wartime medics all wrapped up in a fast paced alternative historical fantasy. Witty and fun - it throws back all the things that kept women out of traditionally male jobs in men's faces.
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