Other books that might interest you

• 

  Shadows and Sorrows

  Michael D. Graves

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Pete Stone and Cocky Wright met on a baseball field, a pair of boys with skinned knees, lots of moxie, and a friendship that lasted long after time stole their youth.     
  Now, Cocky is dead, his widow and daughter are in danger, and shady characters are after something he was hiding. All Cocky left behind was a key and lots of questions. Was he dealing secrets to the German American Bund? Was he a threat to the safety of the country? Was his death an accident or murder? 
  When his pal’s ghost whispers, “You got moxie, kid,” Pete Stone knows he must find the answers. He must uncover the truth and save the wife and daughter Cocky left behind.   
   The award-winning Pete Stone Private Investigator series is set in 1930s Wichita, Kansas. Books 1 and 3 are Kansas Notable titles. All Hallows’ Shadows was the 2020 J. Donald Coffin Memorial Book Award winner and a Midwest Book Award Finalist. 
   

  Show book

• 

  The Guns of Bull Run

  Joseph A. Altsheler

  • 1
  • 0
  • 0

  The first volume in the Civil War series, following the adventures of Harry Kenton, who leaves his home in Kentucky. He travels through dangerous territory to South Carolina on a secret mission on the eve of the Civil War. (From Chapter 4) "They will not fire! They dare not!" cried Shepard in a tense, strained whisper. As the last word left his lips there was a heavy crash. A tongue of fire leaped from one of the batteries, followed by a gush of smoke, and a round shot whistled over the Star of the West. A tremendous shout came from the crowd, then it was silent, while that tongue of flame leaped a second time from the mouth of a cannon. Harry saw the water spring up, a spire of white foam, near the steamer, and a moment later a third shot clipped the water close by. He did not know whether the gunners were firing directly at the vessel or merely meant to warn her that she came nearer at her peril, but in any event, the effect was the same. South Carolina with her cannon was warning a foreign ship, the ship of an enemy, to keep away. The Star of the West slowed down and stopped. Then another shout, more tremendous than ever, a shout of triumph, came from the crowd, but Harry felt a chill strike to his heart. Young St. Clair, too, was silent and Harry saw a shadow on his face. He looked for Shepard, but he was gone and the boy had not heard him go. "It is all over," said St. Clair, with the certainty of prophecy. "The cannon have spoken and it is war. (Summary by Sarah Parshall, Michael Packard, and Author)

  Show book

• 

  Maggie Rose and Sass

  Eunice Boeve

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Maggie Rose and Sass explores the differences between two races and the culture of the times. The novel is set in 1888 in a fictional town based on Nicodemus, Kansas, a town settled ten years earlier by ex-slaves from Kentucky. Life in Georgia with an ugly-tempered, racist grandmother has not prepared the orphaned Maggie Rose for Solomon Town whose citizens are almost all black. Sass has lived all her life in Solomon Town, the daughter of an ex-slave mother and a free-born, educated, mixed-race father. Raised in such totally different cultures, the two girls are bound to clash.

  Show book

• 

  The Mercy Seat

  Elizabeth H. Winthrop

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The acclaimed novel by the author of The Why of Things tackles “the Deep South during the Gothic worst of Jim Crow times . . . truly a bravura performance” (Geoffrey Wolff).“One of the finest writers of her generation,” and author of three previously acclaimed novels, Elizabeth H. Winthrop delivers a brave new book that will launch her distinguished career anew (Brad Watson).On the eve of his execution, eighteen-year-old Willie Jones sits in his cell in New Iberia awaiting his end. Across the state, a truck driven by a convict and his keeper carries the executioner’s chair closer. On a nearby highway, Willie’s father Frank lugs a gravestone on the back of his fading, old mule. In his office the DA who prosecuted Willie reckons with his sentencing, while at their gas station at the crossroads outside of town, married couple Ora and Dale grapple with their grief and their secrets.As various members of the township consider and reflect on what Willie’s execution means, an intricately layered and complex portrait of a Jim Crow era Southern community emerges. Moving from voice to voice, Winthrop elegantly brings to stark light the story of a town, its people, and its injustices. The Mercy Seat is a brutally incisive and tender novel from one of our most acute literary observers. “Artful and succinctly poetic . . . A worthy novel that gathers great power as it rolls on propelled by its many voices.”—The New York Times Book Review “A miracle of a novel, with rapid-fire sentences that grab you and propel you to the next page . . . It’s a breakout. It’s a wonder.”—Dallas Morning News

  Show book

• 

  Destination Unknown

  Agatha Christie

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In Agatha Christie's gripping international thriller Destination Unknown, a woman at the end of her rope chooses a more exciting way to die when she embarks upon an almost certain suicide mission to find a missing scientist. 
  When a number of leading scientists disappear without a trace, concern grows within the international intelligence community. And the one woman who appears to hold the key to the mystery is dying from injuries sustained in a plane crash. 
  Meanwhile, in a Casablanca hotel room, Hilary Craven prepares to take her own life. But her suicide attempt is about to be interrupted by a man who will offer her an altogether more thrilling way to die. . . .

  Show book

• 

  The Exiles - A Novel

  Christina Baker Kline

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
  OPTIONED FOR TELEVISION BY BRUNA PAPANDREA, THE PRODUCER OF HBO'S BIG LITTLE LIES 
  “A tour de force of original thought, imagination and promise … Kline takes full advantage of fiction — its freedom to create compelling characters who fully illuminate monumental events to make history accessible and forever etched in our minds." — Houston Chronicle 
  The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel about three women whose lives are bound together in nineteenth-century Australia and the hardships they weather together as they fight for redemption and freedom in a new society.  
  Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land. 
    
  During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel—a skilled midwife and herbalist—is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.  
  Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.  
  In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.  

  Show book