A century-old diary points to the truth behind a notorious murder, if only its writer's granddaughter can unlock its riddles Lonely, ignored by her husband, a stranger in a strange land, Asta Westerby turns to her diary for comfort shortly after moving from Denmark to East London. Starting in 1905, she records the details of her new life and the development of her newborn daughter, Swanny. In the end, her journal spans five decades and becomes a literary sensation, offering an intimate view of an Edwardian life. But though the diaries are well known, few are acquainted with the dark tale hidden in their deleted passages. Asta's Book is at once a crime novel, a historical romance, and a psychological portrait told through the diary itself and through the voice of Ann, the granddaughter bent on unlocking the diary's excised mystery. Views: 11
Katani's favorite magazine, T-Biz!, is running a contest for young entrepreneurs, and she can't wait to surprise her family and the BSG with a prize-winning entry. With the deadline just a week away, major school projects due, and a promise to knit twenty(!) scarves for a Think Pink! fund-raiser, Katani is running out of time. It doesn't make things easier that Maeve has signed up for Betsy Fitzgerald's tutoring service. Betsy is Katani's competition! Katani wants to win the contest on her own, but she needs help -- and who can she turn to if not the BSG? Views: 11
Ali and her family are spending the weekend at a fancy spa. That is until Ali wishes for a more exciting vacation and they find themselves at a Wild West ranch! But this is the first time her family has been part of one of her wishes and things could go really wrong. And, there's a mystery at the ranch that Ali's got to solve. Good thing her loyal pardner, Little Genie, has some giddyup in her magic!From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 11
Until the dot.com bubble burst, George Bailey never gave much thought to why his grandfather seemed so happy.But then George’s wealth vanished, rocking his self-confidence, threatening his family’s security and making his adolescent son’s difficult life even more painful. Returning to the little Central Illinois farm town of Abbeville, where his grandfather had prospered and then fallen into ruin, flattened during the Depression, George seeks out the details of this remarkable man’s rise, fall, and spiritual rebirth, hoping he might find a way to recover himself.Abbeville sweeps through the history of late-19th through early-21st century America—among loggers stripping the North Woods bare, at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, with French soldiers at the Battle of Verdun, into the abyss of the Depression, and finally toward the new millennium’s own nightmares. At the same time it examines life at its most intimate. How can one hold onto meaning amidst the brutally indifferent cycles of war and peace, flood and drought, boom and bust, life and death?In clean, evocative prose that reveals the complexity of people’s moral and spiritual lives, Fuller tells the simple story of a man riding the crests and chasms of the 20th century, struggling through personal grief, war, and material failure to find a place where the spirit may repose. An American story about rediscovering where we’ve been and how we’ve come to be who we are today, Abbeville tells the tale of the world in small, of one man’s pilgrimage to come to terms with himself while learning to embrace the world around him.From Publishers WeeklyPulitzer Prize–winning editorial writer Fuller (Fragments) delivers a resonant, intricate saga of the multigenerational Bailey/Schumpeter family of Abbeville, a farming community in central Illinois. Karl Schumpeter goes to work as a clerk at his uncle's logging outfit before moving at the end of the 19th century to cosmopolitan Chicago to deal in grain futures. Once married, young Karl returns to Abbeville and prospers as an entrepreneur and banker. Almost 40 at the outbreak of WWI, Karl oddly travels to France to serve in the ambulance corps (showing shades of Hemingway, another Illinoisan). Later, after Black Tuesday, Karl's illegal loans to friends and family land him in prison. Impoverished and humiliated, Karl eventually returns home to Abbeville and the shell of his former life. Years later, Karl's grandson, George Bailey, loses his livelihood in the dot-com bust and searches for meaning and strength by examining Karl's earlier travails. However, the dot-com bust pales when juxtaposed to the 1929 crash. The tales of the past generations feel more compelling and immediate. Fuller's a talented writer, and his gifts are on full display when chronicling Karl's life and times. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistFuller, author of The Best of Jackson Payne (2000), a superb jazz novel, now turns to a more conventional, multigenerational tale of life in Middle America. Although the story of a grandfather and his grandson, both entrepreneurs who fall on hard times, is less complex structurally and thematically than the saga of saxophone phenom Payne, it, too, finds the deep core of humanity in its characters. George, the grandson, a Chicago financier whose career crashes when the dot-com bubble bursts, turns for guidance to the life of his grandfather, Karl, a Central Illinois businessman, whose fortune was lost in the Depression. Jumping between George and Karl, Fuller moves from logging in Michigan’s North Woods, through commodities trading in early-twentieth-century Chicago, to farming in small-town Abbeville, Illinois, following Karl’s attempts to build a legacy and then to reconstruct a life after the legacy crumbles. Each segment of the story pulses with the emotion of felt life, but it is the cumulative effect, the building realization of what family interconnectedness can mean to the individual, that gives this old-fashioned novel its contemporary power. --Bill Ott Views: 11
Pressures of the celebrity lifestyle weigh heavily on Dayne and Katy Matthews as they take on separate movie projects. Tabloid rumors talk of trouble and unfaithfulness between the two, but finally something drastic catches Dayne's attention and makes him realize the destruction they're playing with. But will it be too late? The Flanigan family recognizes the deep loss of the Christian Kids Theater program, and they lead a final effort to keep the theater from being torn down. Meanwhile, John Baxter takes the next step in his growing relationship with Elaine, giving him a season to contemplate selling the Baxter house and, along with it, losing a lifetime of memories made there. As the rest of the family considers the future and what may lie ahead, they must pull together like never before. Only their undying love for each other can help the Baxters get past the trials of today for a life they know is possible . . . someday. Views: 11
The holidays lie heavy on young Leonard Boameh. His schoolfriends live far away from his home town of Accra, his nana is no fun, and his dad - who's great - is away working most of the time. So Leonard decides to run away for a few hours, and when Nana isn't looking he takes the tro-tro bus to Elmina, a historic European fort built to imprison West African slaves shipped off to America. There are lots of rough kids begging there, and before Leonard knows what's happening, he is kidnapped by the meanest gang of all, who plan to use his angel-face to fleece the tourists. Leonard is now a slave, trying to escape from a living nightmare. Bernard Ashley's thought-provoking Ghanaian story, set in the sinister, poverty-driven underworld of gangland, leads to a taut, thrilling climax. Views: 11
Adam thinks today is going to be like any other. When his fingers start to ache, he thinks he's been playing the computer too long. He's wrong. When he grows claws, fur, and a tail, he realizes he's turning into a werewolf! And he soon realizes his parents aren't animal lovers! Views: 11
More information to be announced soon on this forthcoming title from Penguin USA Views: 11
Shanika Ann Jenkins is the pride of her African-American family; smart, beautiful, and born with blue eyes and blonde hair. Though her grandmother and father are happy because she represents years of passing down light skin and marrying well, Shanika's mother insists on her name reflecting her African-American heritage so that she will always be proud of who she is. When Shanika gets the opportunity to work for a PR firm in New York, she finds that everyone assumes she is white; she also notices that being white has it advantages, from getting respect at work to getting picked up by a cab when other African-Americans are passed by. When she starts dating a successful white colleague, she continues with the lie, despite the guilt she feels at disappointing her mother and her heritage. When she falls for a handsome African-American business man, she must finally face who she is and what she's done, even if it means losing everything and everyone she loves. Views: 11
