Best Books From 2015

Book Summary

The Nightingale tells the story of French sisters Vianne and Isabelle, who have always been at odds. Vianne is a rule follower, and Isabelle is more rebellious and willing to speak her mind. With WWII escalating, Isabelle intends to fight for France, while Vianne simply wants to survive the war with her family intact – even if it means allowing a German officer to live in her home. 

Isabelle, who refuses to live passively under German authority, joins the French resistance and guides Allied airmen out of France after their planes are shot down—work for which she adopts the codename Nightingale. As the war wages on, both sisters learn who they are and what they can do.

Book Summary

Helen is recovering from two unfortunately common losses that so many women deal with in their 30s – miscarriage, followed by divorce. Her younger brother wants to help her heal, so he convinces her to attend a wilderness survival course in the Absaroka Mountains of Wyoming (pronounced “Ab-soar-kas”). She’s ready to take the time out to pull herself together, but then she finds out that her brother’s annoying best friend will also be on the trip.

Over the course of three weeks, she will have to face both fears and annoyances, but through those experiences, she will also learn more about herself and how to be brave.

Book Summary

Each day, Rachel rides the same commuter train in London. As she travels past the back gardens of the houses on the route, she sees the same couple again and again, and begins to feel like she knows them. She even names them, Jess and Jason. From Rachel’s point of view, their life looks idyllic. She wishes she could be as happy as they are.

But one day, she sees something shocking. The train continues on, but now everything has changed. Told from three points of view, this one will keep you guessing!

Book Summary

This adventure tale transports you to Southeast Alaska and into the life of Keb Wisting. He’s part Norwegian, part Tlingit native, and the last living canoe carver in his village. Grandson James is close to a career in the NBA when a logging accident ruins his prospects as a basketball player. So instead, a depressed James helps his grandpa finish his last canoe.

With the canoe finished, Keb, James, a few friends, and a crazy dog named Steve set off on the canoe journey of a lifetime. Paddling deep into wild Alaska, their story blends adventure, love, and reconciliation. You’ll also enjoy meeting the endearing small-town characters they encounter along the way.

Book Summary

It’s October, the temperatures are dropping, and the leaves are changing in North Carolina. Claire Waverley has started a successful new venture, Waverley’s Candies. She loves the way her specialty products heal others, but along the way, she’s losing herself.

Sydney Waverley has also lost balance in her life as she’s become singularly focused on having a baby. When a mysterious stranger shows up and challenges the very heart of the Waverly family, each of them must make choices they have never confronted before. Along the way, romance is in the air.

Book Summary

Fereiba, a schoolteacher, lives a good middle-class life in Kabul with her husband, Mahmoud, and their children. Unfortunately, everything changed when the Taliban rose to power.

After Fereiba’s family is targeted by the new regime, she’s forced to flee with her children in the hope of seeking refuge with her sister in London. The journey is harrowing and slowly transforms Fereiba from an educated, respected woman to a desperate, undocumented refugee. When her teenage son is separated from the family, she must decide if she should move forward with her daughter and baby without him.

Book Summary

When American Rebecca (Bex) Porter moves to the UK to attend Oxford University, she’s shocked to discover that she’s living down the hall from Prince Nicholas, the future king of England. Living in close quarters allows Bex to get to know the real Nick – the person behind the title. 

When their friendship develops into more, Bex is thrust into a ritzy world of society events, exclusive ski trips, and dinners at Kensington Palace. But the glamour comes with loads of baggage – from intrusive tabloids and ex-girlfriends to long-held royal family secrets.

How much is Bex willing to sacrifice for Nick? Will the pressures of the Crown ultimately come between them?

Book Summary

In May of 1915, the Lusitania, a luxury ocean liner, sailed out of New York bound for Liverpool, England. The ship had the feel of a well-appointed English country house. On this crossing, it was carrying a record number of children and infants traveling with their parents.

As the ship set sail, the passengers were anxious because German U-boats had been terrorizing the waters of the North Atlantic. Still, the Captain and others were confident that the centuries-old unwritten rules of warfare would keep a civilian ship safe from attack. Additionally, the Lusitania’s speed made it likely that it could outrun any threat. Unfortunately, Germany decided to change the rules of the game.

This narrative non-fiction places you aboard the ship with a cast of real-life characters and tells a story of glamour, mystery, suspense, and, ultimately, tragedy.

Book Summary

In 1991, 10-year-old Ana had no idea that Yugoslavia was about to erupt into chaos, eventually leading her home region of Croatia to become its own country. 

Ana’s daily life goes from carefree days playing in the streets to learning about snipers and child soldiers. This new and enduring conflict transforms her coming-of-age period. Eventually, she makes a daring escape to America. 

After a while, Ana hides her tragic past from others and even from herself. However, while in college, she decides to return alone to Croatia to rediscover her homeland.

Book Summary

This hugely popular and highly rated YA novel is a charming and witty coming-of-age story. The main character, Simon, is gay, but not openly. After an email that would out him to the school falls into the wrong hands, he’s blackmailed into playing wingman for classmate Martin. But worse than that, he wouldn’t only be outing himself by refusing. The boy he’s been emailing, nicknamed Blue, would be outed too. 

The emails with Blue have been more and more flirtatious, and Simon has to find a way to break out of his comfort zone before he’s forced out. But he doesn’t want to upset his friends or lose his chance for happiness with Blue along the way.

Book Summary

Few names are as synonymous with chic glamour as Coco Chanel. However, all your opinions of the woman who created the classic little black dress could change after reading this historical fiction account of her entire life.

From her humble beginnings as an orphan to her determination to keep her atelier afloat during WW2, this book details the decisions that led to her lasting name recognition. 

Book Summary

Fifty-something Tannie Maria loves to cook and write – which is why she’s the perfect person to write a recipe column for her local paper, the Klein Karoo Gazette. But when the powers that be insist that the paper must also feature an advice section – Tannie’s column has to meet the requirement by becoming a joint advice and recipe column. 

When her column receives a letter from a woman whose husband beats her, Tannie’s best advice appears not to be good enough when a woman matching that description turns up dead. She and her Gazette colleagues decide to help the police find the murderer. But things are not so simple, and soon there’s another murder – a suspected poisoning – as well as a kidnapping or two. 

This is the first book in a murder mystery series that’s packed with humor (ranging from slapstick to understated). 

Book Summary

Eleven-year-old Donal lives deep in the Montana Rockies with his grandmother. However, when she needs surgery, she decides to send Donal to her sister in Wisconsin. Sadly, Aunt Kate is a tough woman to live with, unlike Gram. And it’s not just Donal that finds her difficult. Aunt Kate’s husband, Herman the German, is also getting tired of her tyrannical nature. 

When Kate sends Donal back to Montana on the bus, Herman the German decides to travel with him. Along the way, they meet an interesting cast of characters and find themselves in all kinds of misadventures.

Book Summary

In 1919 Dublin, an 11-year-old orphan named Shanley lives with his abusive uncle and earns money by performing vaudeville acts in local pubs. When his uncle decides to take him to America, Shanley envisions a better life and hopes to find his father, but things don’t turn out as planned.

In 1937 San Francisco, the young daughter of an Alcatraz prison guard goes missing. She is one of the youngest civilians living on the island and only a convicted bank robber knows the truth about her whereabouts.

Book Summary

Seven-year-old Elsa and her 77-year-old grandmother are both a bit different. But, Elsa is safe and happy when she’s able to retreat into her grandmother’s stories where the characters don’t have to be “normal.”

When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

Book Summary

For years, Mr. Shaw’s Home for Watercress and Flower Girls in London has watched over London’s flower girls, as they are known. These orphaned and disabled children survive on the streets by selling violets and watercress. In 1912, twenty-year-old Tilly Harper left her native Lake District and moved to London to become an assistant housemother at the home.

Tilly discovers the diary of a young woman named Florrie with dried flowers pressed between the pages and a heartbreaking tale of her separation from her sister, Rosie. Drawn into their story from the 1870s, Tilly hopes to discover what happened to Rosie.

Book Summary

This book comes with a unique narrator – Music. Music tells the story of an extraordinarily gifted musician, Frankie Pesto. Starting at Frankie’s funeral, you’ll look back at his Forrest Gump-like life as he navigates the music world. From 1950s jazz to the Grand Ole Opry, Elvis, and even Woodstock, Frankie both finds and loses fame. And all along the way, he’s searching for his childhood love.

When Frankie loses his ability to play the guitar, he disappears for decades, returning just in time for a mysterious final farewell.

Book Summary

Danny Barker is a young soldier from the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. When he heads into battle in war-torn France during WW1, he has no idea what the future holds for him. In the French countryside, he finds the love of his life and then loses his leg in the Battle of the Somme.

Danny and Audrey return to his home in Halifax, but Danny cannot leave the conflict behind. As the young couple struggles to put together a new life, they must face not only their own internal demons, but also a catastrophe that will soon rip apart everything they think they know about themselves and each other.

Book Summary

The Sympathizer tells the story of a captain in the Vietnamese army. Raised by a poor Vietnamese mother and an absent French father, he was educated in America before returning to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause.

In 1975, with Saigon in chaos, the captain sits with his general and helps to draw up a list of those who will be allowed seats on the last flights out of Vietnam. As the general and his compatriots embark on new lives in Los Angeles, they are unaware that the captain is secretly spying on them and reporting back to the Viet Cong.

Part gripping spy drama and part love story, this novel is the story of a man straddling two worlds while examining the legacy of the Vietnam War.

Book Summary

Anna and her cousin Sophie come from an upper-class family. Orphaned in their childhoods, the cousins – one white and one mixed race – were raised by their elderly aunt. Both are graduates of the Woman’s Medical School. Anna is a surgeon, and Sophie is an obstetrician and a pediatrician. Their work introduces them to patients who are among the city’s most vulnerable.

The cousins begin to see the disparities between the upper crust and the working poor, as well as the hypocrisies of the Gilded Age. Then, they become embroiled in a controversy that may put everything they’ve strived for in jeopardy.

Book Summary

Outcast Theodore is preoccupied with death and the ways he could end his life. But each time he gets serious about a plan, something good happens to stop him.

Cheerleader Violet is counting down the days until she can escape her Indiana town, which is filled with survivor’s remorse after the recent death of her sister.

When Finch and Violet meet at the edge of the bell tower, it’s unclear who saved whom. Now, they’re paired up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of Indiana, forcing the unlikely duo to find beauty in unexpected places.

Book Summary

This unique novel follows approximately 30 years in the life of Eva Thorvald and covers her journey to become the star chef behind a legendary and secretive pop-up supper club. Rather than seeing Eva’s life through her own eyes, however, everything we know about Eva is told to us through the filter of another character. 

In a series of eight short stories that will ultimately become intertwined, we see Eva evolve. The stories are told by a wide variety of people, from her father to her first boyfriend, and even a jealous rival, who each introduce their own perspectives and prejudice to Eva’s life story. 

Additionally, each of the stories also revolves around a single dish of food, making Kitchens of the Great Midwest a great book that spans a lifetime, but also an excellent foodie novel!

Book Summary

Fourteen-year-old Joan spends her childhood on the family farm in Pennslyvania, and her mother encourages her education. However, after her mother’s death, her father insists she earn her keep and work on the farm instead. And perhaps even worse – he burned her books.

Instead of breaking under her father’s harsh rule, Joan finds a job as a parlor maid in a Baltimore, Maryland society household. Now, she earns six dollars a week and can dream of a better future. But this is tricky as she must learn how to fit in with the Jewish family and their older maid.