Book club

4.3 stars

"Alice Metcalf was a devoted mother, loving wife, and accomplished scientist who studied grief among elephants. Yet it's been a decade since she disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind her small daughter, husband, and the animals to which she devoted her life. All signs point to abandonment . . . or worse. Still Jenna--now thirteen years old and truly orphaned by a father maddened by grief--steadfastly refuses to believe in her...

3.8 stars

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A sweeping story told in letters, spanning two continents and two world wars, Jessica Brockmole’s atmospheric debut novel captures the indelible ways that people fall in love, and celebrates the power of the written word to stir the heart.
 
March 1912: Twenty-four-year-old Elspeth Dunn, a published poet, has never seen the world beyond her home on Scotland’s...

4 stars

"Arriving at the University of Edinburgh for her first term, Pen knows her divorced parents back in Canada are hiding something from her. She believes she'll find the answer here in Scotland, where an old friend of her father's--now a famous writer known as Lord Lennox--lives. When she is invited to spend the weekend at Lord Lennox's centuries-old estate with his enveloping, fascinating family, Pen begins to unravel her parents' secret, just as she's...

3.9 stars

Abandoning her homeless existence to become a minister's wife, Lila reflects on her hardscrabble life on the run with a canny young drifter and her efforts to reconcile her painful past with her husband's gentle Christian worldview.

4.2 stars

"Marin had the perfect life. Married to her college sweetheart, she owns a chain of upscale hair salons, and Derek runs his own company. They're admired in their community and are a loving family--until their world falls apart the day their son Sebastian is taken. A year later, Marin is a shadow of herself. The FBI search has gone cold. The publicity has faded. She and her husband rarely speak. She hires a P.I. to pick up where the police left off,...

4.5 stars

Feeling lonely and out of place after her family moves to a new town, eleven-year-old Fiona Crane ventures to the local library, where she finds a gripping mystery novel about a small town, family secrets, and a tragic disappearance.

3.7 stars

Returning from Scottish exile in 1757, Lord John Grey pursues a traitor through London and across the seas, an endeavor that is complicated by a delicate family affair and his memories of the Jacobite Rising.

3 stars

Follows a shared encounter between an abandoned 7-year-old, a widowed shut-in and a nursing home escapee, who embark on a road trip across Western Australia to find the child's mother.

3.1 stars

"In 1937, twenty-eight-year-old Martha Gellhorn travels alone to Madrid to report on the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War and becomes drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught in the devastating conflict. It's the adventure she's been looking for and her chance to prove herself a worthy journalist in a field dominated by men. But she also finds herself unexpectedly--and uncontrollably--falling in love with Hemingway, a man on his way to becoming...