2024 Reading Challenge Crossover Books

Book Summary

Twelve-year-old Clover Blue isn’t sure of his birthday, who is parents are, or what his name used to be. He does know that he’s happy living among the Saffron Freedom Community – the commune into which he was adopted. On the commune, everyone is family, but when Clover (urged on by his funny best friend, Harmony) begins to ask questions, his search for identity will bring upheaval to the community.

This novel will introduce you to a unique group of characters who paint a portrait of the decade. They include the commune’s guru, a Grateful Dead groupie, a Vietnam deserter, a surfer, and even a midwife, just to name a few.

Book Summary

Naoko is a seventeen-year-old girl in 1957 Japan whose family has prearranged a marriage for her that will secure their family’s status. But Naoko wants to marry for love, and she’s fallen for an American sailor. When her family finds out that she is pregnant with the sailor’s child, she is cast out in disgrace and forced to make an unimaginable choice.

In present-day America, Tori finds a letter that contains a shocking revelation. In her quest to learn the truth, she travels to a remote seaside village in Japan.

Drawing upon the experiences of the author’s father, this historical fiction is based on the true stories of a little-known era in Japanese and American history. Although this is a dual-timeline novel, the historical story takes center stage.

Book Summary

Kimi is a high school student who aspires to attend art school. Her mother is a well-known painter who wants Kimi to follow in her fine art footsteps, but Kimi has become much more drawn to fashion design – a field that her mother strongly disapproves of.

After an explosive fight with her mom, Kimi receives a letter from her estranged Japanese grandparents inviting her to visit them in Kyoto for spring break. Even though she’s never met them, she sees it as the perfect opportunity to escape her troubles at home.

When she arrives in Japan, the cultural customs and language and completely familiar to her – as are her grandparents. Soon she discovers that inspiration is everywhere – from Kyoto’s outdoor markets, art installations, and the cherry blossom festival. She meets a young man named Akira – an aspiring med student – who helps to show her even more of the city.

As the week goes on, Kimi gets to know her grandparents and learns so much more about both her mother back in America, herself, and her art.

Book Summary

Korea’s Jeju Island has a fascinating real-life history of female deep-sea free divers called Haenyeo, who collect seaweed, clams, and abalone. Inspired by this history, this novel tells the story of Mi-ja and Young-sook – two best friends from very different backgrounds despite both growing up on Jeju island. As soon as they are old enough, they take their place as “baby divers” in the village’s all-female diving operation, led by Young-sook’s mom. This is the beginning of a life of excitement and responsibility for the two friends but also a life filled with danger.

The Island of Sea Women takes place over many decades, beginning in the 1930s, throughout WWII and the Korean War, and all the way up to the era of cell phones.

Over the years, the residents of Jeju are caught between warring empires, which often makes it difficult for Mi-ja and Young-soon to ignore their differences – especially when Mi-ja’s father becomes a Japanese collaborator. As the years go on, forces beyond their control will drive their friendship to a breaking point.

Book Summary

Do you enjoy offbeat travel memoirs and dry British wit? Stans by me will take you along author Ged Gillmore’s trip through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

He documents the landscapes and ancient traditions he encounters at each stop along the way. You’ll feel like you’ve visited Central Asia by the time you’re done reading, and may even add one or more of his destinations to your bucket list.

His travel companions from his bus tour are fascinating characters on their own and add another level to his stories.

Book Summary

When Tang Yitian’s mother calls him frantically saying that his father has disappeared, he returns to his family’s rural China village for the first time in ten years. The family has been estranged during his decade in America, making it difficult for Yitian to understand what has happened. 

The search is complicated by his mother’s evasiveness and China’s impenetrable bureaucracy. His only hope is to reconnect with a childhood friend, Tian Hanwen. The friends dreamt of attending university together, but while Yitian ended up a professor in America, Hanwen was left behind and resigned to live as a midlevel bureaucrat’s wealthy housewife.

Now adults, the duo must figure out who Yitian’s father really was. Their search spans rural provinces and big cities, providing an up-close look at much of 20th-century China.

Book Summary

Born with ocular albinism, Sam Hill is a young boy whose rare red eyes cause problems from the moment his mother enrolls him at the Our Lady of Mercy school. 

Labeled “Hell Boy,” he is bullied not only by his classmates but also given a hard time by the nun who is the principal at his elementary school. Eventually, Sam finds the new best friend he desperately needs in Ernie Cantwell, the only African American boy in his class, and years later in a fiercely individual girl named Mickie.

As an adult, Sam is a respected ophthalmologist moving through life with Ernie and Mickie still by his side. His world is about to be upturned when he’s unexpectedly reunited with the biggest schoolyard bully from his past.

Book Summary

Young Kya, who was left to fend for herself in the North Carolina marsh in the 1950s, will steal your heart from the beginning.

Locals know Kya as the “Marsh Girl.” She lives away from other humans and has only attended one day of school, but finds companions in nature all around her. While traditional school was not a good fit, she is always eager to learn. Eventually, she finds a friend who agrees to help her read.

The book has a split timeline between Kya’s formative years in the 1950s and an incident in 1969. A handsome boy from town is found dead, and the locals immediately suspect Kya.

Book Summary

This suspenseful saga is set both during the war and in present-day Việt Nam. Trang and Quỳnh are sisters from a rural village, and like many in the region, their parents are struggling to survive. In 1969, the daughters take the desperate step of becoming “bar girls” in Sài Gòn, drinking, flirting (and more) with American GIs in return for money.

Trang becomes involved with a charming helicopter pilot named Dan. Decades later, we’ll see Dan return to Việt Nam with his wife in an attempt to heal from his PTSD and reckon with secrets from his past.

Also, in the present day, we’ll meet Phong as he tries to find his parents, a Black American soldier, and a Vietnamese woman. He was abandoned at an orphanage as a baby, and grew up being called names because he was a “child of the enemy”. He dreams of finding a way to America in hopes of a better life for his family.

Book Summary

Kerala, on India’s southern coast, is a slender, coastal state with almost 373 miles of Arabian Sea coast and beaches. Being surrounded by water makes this a popular tourist destination. But for the family at the heart of this novel, being surrounded by water has plagued three generations. In every generation, at least one person dies by drowning.

This new literary fiction epic is a tale of love, faith, and medicine in which the family is seeking answers to this strange secret. The family is part of a Christian community that traces itself to the time of the apostles, but times are shifting, and the matriarch of this family, known as Big Ammachi—literally “Big Mother”—will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life.

Book Summary

In this family saga, Shahryar is on a work visa in the United States. Soon, he will be forced to return to Bangladesh without his young American daughter. As he tries to cherish his final weeks with her, he also ponders his family history and how it intertwines with his home country. 

A large cast of major and minor characters are woven together in this novel to cover the history of Bangladesh, from WW2 Burma to the present day. The storylines include the Partition of India in 1947, the 1970 Bhola Cyclone and Bangladesh becoming an independent country in 1972. 

While these stories covers history, you’ll also his Shahryar’s struggles as a modern-day immigrant in Washington DC.

Book Summary

Frances “Frankie” McGrath is a 21-year-old nursing student who has been raised by her conservative parents to always do “the right thing.” But when her brother ships out for Vietnam in 1965, she begins to change her views of right and wrong. Frankie impulsively joins the Army Nurses Corps and follows her brother to Vietnam. As she tends to the green and inexperienced young men who have been sent to fight the war, she is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction. Returning home to a changed America doesn’t prove to be any easier.

While The Women is the story of Frankie going to war, it also shines a light on the story of all women who risk everything to help others. The publisher describes this book as “a novel of searing insight and lyrical beauty” that is “profoundly emotional” and “richly drawn.”

Through the story of Frankie’s family, we see the devastation of those who lost their sons, brothers, and other loved ones in Vietnam. But we also get a glimpse of what it was like on the ground in a war that was very complicated and blurred lines. We see how the country treated these soldiers and nurses differently, even though they were doing their sworn duty for the country, just like those before them.

Book Summary

This coming-of-age story is about three different 18-year-old men growing up in 3 different time periods. 

William was 18 in 1967 when he went to Vietnam as a Marine. Vincent is 18 in 1979 when he meets William, working on a construction crew, and hears William’s stories of his war-time experience. 

The third young man is Vincent’s son, Beau, who has had an easier life than the first two men. He was 18 in 2015 when Vincent received William’s old Vietnam journal in the mail as a thank you for listening to his stories years ago. It was written while he was a Marine and facing things that no one, much less a teenager, should have to encounter. 

The three stories are woven together in a beautiful way that many are calling a must-read for everyone, despite the grim nature of William’s combat experiences. 

Book Summary

As kids, Prany and his sister Noi, along with their friend Alisak, were three of the hundreds of thousands impacted by the nine years of bombing in Laos as The CIA, with the Royal Lao Government, fought the Communist Pathet Lao. When the kids take shelter in a bombed out field hospital, they meet Vang, a doctor dedicated to helping the wounded at all costs.

They begin working as motorcycle couriers, navigating both unexploded bombs that litter the land and the endless barrage from the sky until Vang secures their evacuation on the last helicopters leaving the country.

This evacuation sets them on disparate and treacherous paths across the world. The novel follows the trios for decades, giving us a glimpse into the long-lasting effects of growing up in 1960s Laos.

Book Summary

Ah Boon is growing up in the last days of British rule in Singapore. He lives in a small fishing village but would rather play with the girl next door, Siok Mei, than go fishing. Despite his disinterest in fishing, he discovers that he has an uncanny ability to locate uncharted islands, which are rich with fish. 

By the time Ah Boon and Siok Mei are teenagers, the Japanese army has arrived and occupied Singapore as part of WW2. This coming-of-age story is set against the backdrop of Singapore’s legacy of British colonialism, the World War II Japanese occupation, and the pursuit of modernity. Readers say the beautiful writing transports you to a different time and place and includes a hint of magical realism to emphasize the human-land connection.

Book Summary

In this memoir, Chick Donohue, a Vietnam vet, recounts the craziest of his many adventures. It all began on a night in 1967 when 26-year-old Chick was at a bar in NYC with his buddies. Each of them had lost loved ones in Vietnam, and they were disheartened to see anti-war protesters turning on the troops.

One of the guys came up with a crazy idea – someone should sneak into Vietnam and track down their buddies still serving there to bring them messages of support, and – of course – a beer. It would be the Greatest Beer Run Ever.

It’s likely none of them meant for the idea to be taken seriously, but nonetheless, Chick volunteered. A day later he was on a cargo ship headed back to Vietnam during the height of combat with a backpack full of alcohol. 

What would follow was his own personal Odyssey – a serviceman turned civilian searching for his childhood friends in Vietnam. Chick’s story is filled with lots of hilarious escapades and harrowing close calls – including the Tet Offensive. 

This memoir has been described as a “hilarious quest laced with sorrow, but never dull.”

Book Summary

Seven-year-old Raami lived in a carefully guarded world of royal privilege until her father brought home news about the civil war raging in the streets of the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. 

Over the next four years, Raami endures starvation, forced labor, and survives the genocide that killed more than ¼ of the population of the country, including many of her family members. Throughout it all, she finds comfort only in the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father.

Book Summary

In the 1920s, Lakshmi enjoyed a carefree childhood among the coconut and mango trees of Ceylon (which later became a part of Sri Lanka). But at the age of 14, she was sent across the ocean to Malaysia and forced into a marriage with a much older man. Lakshmi was promised a life of riches and luxury, but instead, they struggle to get by as Lakshmi gives birth to six children by the age of 19. 

Throughout her life, Lakshmi endures incredible hardship and suffering, but draws upon her incredible strength to face each new challenge. This includes finding a way to keep her daughters safe during the Japanese occupation of WWII.

Rich with traditional folklore, Eastern magic, Indian celebrations, and Malaysian cuisine – this long novel spans 85 years and four generations as it tells one family’s saga. Although Lakshmi (the “Rice Mother”) is the main character of this story, each chapter is narrated by a different member of the family. This provides readers with different perspectives on various events, creating even greater depth and layering to the story, while maintaining a consistent plot from beginning to end.

Book Summary

Evelyn Hugo lived a glamorous and scandalous life, but doesn’t like to talk about it and has become reclusive after leaving her career. When the movie icon is finally ready to talk about her time in show business, she picks an unknown reporter to log her personal history, but why?

You’ll slowly unwrap Evelyn’s life from the 1950s – 1980s as she chronicles her past life and relationships, including the seven husbands she had along the way. As the book covers so much of her life, it moves quickly and will keep you engaged and entertained for hours.

Book Summary

Five female office colleagues are reluctantly on a corporate retreat that is supposed to encourage teamwork and resilience. They all head out on the muddy track through the rugged Giralang Ranges together, but only four come out on the other side of the trail.

Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk arrives to investigate the disappearance of Alice, who knew secrets about her company and co-workers. As he learns more about the days spent in the remote Australian bushland, he discovers stories of fear, violence, and fractured trust.

Book Summary

This Canadian novel opens in 1950s Quebec, where tensions run high between the French and English. When 15-year-old Maggie’s parents find out that she’s pregnant and the father is a poor French boy, they force her to give her baby girl, Elodie, up for adoption.

As the years go by, we follow the lives of both the mother and daughter. Elodie is a bright and determined young girl growing up in Quebec’s impoverished orphanage system. But when a law is enacted that provides more funding to psychiatric hospitals than to orphanages, Elodie and thousands of other orphans are declared mentally ill. Elodie withstands terrible treatment until she is finally able to gain her freedom at age seventeen.

Maggie marries and is eager to start a family, but she never forgets the daughter that she was forced to give up. Through the years, the lives of the mother and daughter continue to circle around one another, never quite intersecting. Until finally, Maggie decides to go in search of her long-lost daughter.

Book Summary

In 1808, Rose loves working with her naturalist father on his groundbreaking study of the platypus. When he is unable to travel to present his findings to the Royal Society in England, Rose goes in his place. What she discovers will change generations.

In 1908, Tamsin needs to travel to the Hunter Valley to get an old sketchbook donated to the public library. When she arrives, she discovers that there is more to the sketchbook than she expected. Shaw, a young bookseller and lawyer, has his own ideas about the book, and Tasmin partners with him to try and uncover the book’s true provenance.

Book Summary

This novel tells the story of four different women who meet at the Bonegilla Migrant Camp in 1954.

Hungarian Elizabeta has just arrived from with her family after escaping post-war Germany. At the migrant camp, she befriends Vasiliki from Greece and Iliana from Italy, as well as Frances, the adventurous daughter of the camp’s director.

Together, the “Bonegilla Girls” envision a brighter future in Australia. But when a ghost from Elizabeta’s past threatens to her path forward, her friends are willing to do anything to keep her safe.

Book Summary

On Christmas Eve sixty years ago, a delivery man makes a gruesome discovery that forever changes the small town of Tambilla. In the present day, Jess is a journalist in London when she gets a call to return home to Australia to help with her grandmother, Nora. Nora was more like a mother to Jess, after Jess’s mother, Polly, left her with Nora and moved to Brisbane when Jess was only 10. 

Nora fell in her attic while searching for something, and now she is mumbling about an event in her past in a way that is difficult to understand. As Jess tries to piece things together, she learns that Nora was agitated and restless even before the fall. She knows something is going on, and is determined to figure it out. As she searches the house for clues, she finds a true crime book about the Turner Family Tragedy of Christmas Eve. But what does this cold case have to do with her family?

Book Summary

Cyril Avery was born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community before being adopted by a well-off couple from Dublin. His adoptive parents tell him that he’ll never be a real Avery, but if that’s true, than who is he?

As a boy, he becomes friends with Julian, but this is complicated when Cyril realizes he loves Julian as more than a friend. Keeping this secret comes with great costs.

Over the course of 70 years, Cyril struggles to discover an identity, a home, a country, and much more. Through his eyes, readers also see the history of Ireland and LGBTQ rights from the 1940s to the 2010s.

Book Summary

When you think of maritime disasters, the Titanic is probably the first that comes to mind. But the deadliest disaster at sea occurred in 1945 when a Soviet submarine sunk the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German cruise liner, in the Baltic Sea.

As WWII drew to a close and the Red Army advanced on Germany, a massive evacuation effort began to ferry civilians, soldiers, and equipment to safety. The Wilhelm Gustloff, which had a capacity of 1,800, was packed with more than 10,500 passengers. More than 9,000 people lost their lives when the ship sank, including 5,000 infants and children.

This historical fiction YA novel, tells the stories of four passengers – 21-year-old Joana, who is fleeing her native country of Lithuania; Florian, an artist from East Prussia; 15-year-old Emilia from Poland, who is pregnant; and Alfred, a pompous 17-year-old German soldier.

When tragedy strikes, each of them – regardless of country, culture, or status – must fight for their survival.

Book Summary

Lilac Girls crosses three continents and follows three women whose lives are on a collision course. 

Caroline is a New York socialite working at the French consulate, Kasia is a Polish teenager and a courier for the underground resistance movement, and Herta is an ambitious young German doctor who finds herself trapped in a male-dominated world of Nazi secrets and power.

The book alternates between the three stories, each providing thought-provoking insights into uniquely difficult situations as the war progressed.

Book Summary

Inspired by the author’s own family history, this novel is a tragic love story. Alina and Tomasz were best friends who planned to marry. But when their village falls to the Nazis, Alina doesn’t know if Tomasz is alive or dead. 

Decades later, Alice is struggling to support her son, who was born with an autism spectrum disorder. When her grandmother is hospitalized, she begs Alice to return to Poland to see what became of those she loved. Alice travels to Poland and begins to uncover her grandmother’s story.

Book Summary

This dual-timeline historical fiction novel is told from alternating points of two female spies.

Ingrid Bauer lost her entire family in World War II. A decade later, she agrees to a hasty marriage to a Soviet embassy worker and moves with him to Moscow in the 1950s. Despite his gentle demeanor, Ingrid comes to suspect that her new husband, in fact, works for the KGB. After her daughter is born, Ingrid risks everything when she begins passing along intelligence to Britain, her mother’s home country.

In 1980, Anya Kadinova is set to return to Moscow after finishing her degree at Georgetown University. Despite being raised by loyal Soviet parents, Anya has gained much respect for the US after taking part in the Foreign Studies Initiative. Upon returning home at the height of the Cold War, she witnesses the increasingly oppressive Soviet regime. After the KGB murders her best friend, Anya contacts the CIA and begins passing along intelligence that she gains from working in a military research lab.

As the novel progresses, Ingrid’s storyline catches up to Anya’s where an unprecedented act of treachery will threaten all undercover agents in the Soviet Union.

Book Summary

Wealthy aristocrat Eva is engaged to a doctor and spending her last single summer at her family’s estate in Sopron. However, she meets a Romani fiddler and artist, Aleandrao, and they quickly fall in love despite the differences in class that make them look incompatible to outsiders.

The outbreak of war separates Eva and Aleandro, but their chance meeting that summer leads to decisions that change their individual futures.

Book Summary

In Warsaw, Zofia depends on books and her best friend, Janina, to endure the horrors of the Nazi occupation of Poland. However, as bombing increases, even books are endangered. Zofia begins hiding books away, and even starts an underground book club. When Janina is forced into a newly established ghetto, she still doesn’t give up her love of reading.

However, as the war continues, Zofia and Janina’s activities put them at risk. Can they save both Janina and the literature that has brought them so much comfort?

Book Summary

In 1941, Romania was newly allied with the German army, and the Jewish population was in grave danger of persecution. One freezing night, a young Jewish girl’s parents are forced to leave her behind, and she is found on the steps of an apartment building in Bucharest.

The girl is placed in an orphanage and eventually adopted by a wealthy couple that renames her Natalia. She comes of age in Romania under Soviet occupation, where life behind the Iron Curtain feels bleak and hopeless.

When Natalia is in her early twenties and working at a warehouse packing fruit, she is reunited with Victor, who she had a secret crush on in her younger years. He is now an important official in the Communist regime, and the two are fatefully drawn into a passionate affair despite the obstacles swirling around them and Victor’s dark secrets. When Natalia is suddenly offered a one-time chance at freedom, Victor is determined to help her escape, even if it means losing her. She must make an agonizing decision: remain in Bucharest with her beloved adoptive parents and the man she has come to love, or seize the chance to live life on her own terms.

Book Summary

This historical fiction novel is based on the true story of Lyudmila (Mila) Pavlichenko, a Ukrainian sniper who fought against the Nazis during WWII. The novel follows Mila’s journey from a young woman studying history in Kyiv to a decorated war hero known as “Lady Death.”

In the late 1930s, Mila is a 24-year-old student and library worker living in Kyiv. She is intelligent, independent, and fiercely patriotic. When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, she joined the Red Army. Mila quickly proves to be a natural sniper.

This novel is told in two timelines – the first being Mila’s time on the battlefield. The second timeline follows Mila’s press tour in Washington DC.

When news of her 300th kill makes her a national hero, she is sent to the United States on a 1942 goodwill tour. In the US, she pleads for the US to send weapons and troops to Europe to help stop the Germans. She also forms an unexpected friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Throughout the novel, in addition to Mila’s perspective, we also see short notes from Eleanor Roosevelt and chapters from the point of view of an unnamed marksman who has been tasked with assassinating Franklin Roosevelt and framing Mila for the murder.

Book Summary

Sisters Meredith and Nina have little in common other than their love for their dear father. They’ve spent most of their life feeling like they didn’t really know their mother, but when their father falls ill, his final wish is for his daughters to get to know their mother better. In their younger years, Anya sometimes tells the girls a Russian fairy tale, and their father makes her promise that she will tell the story one last time – all the way to the end.

The story alternates between past and present as Meredith and Nina hear the fairy tale and learn the harrowing story of the mother’s life five decades earlier in war-torn Leningrad, Russia. They will ultimately learn something so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.

Why Our Readers Love This Book…
This tugged at my mama heart strings. You do the best you can, but inevitably make mistakes along the way. The characters were so real. I’m not a huge mystery fan, but this felt like a mystery in disguise, and I loved trying to figure it out as I read. -Kristin R.

This memorable and well-told story evokes strong emotions and reminds readers that the pain of war is a burden suffered by people on both sides; there truly are no winners.

I was drawn in by reading about the life experiences of a survivor as a means to understand her present-day life. We, as outsiders, can never judge a person by who he/she is today without understanding the past. – Tammy W.

It seemed to be a very human story, a story that explains some of why we do what we do. I read it years ago when the split narrative wasn’t quite so popular, and I enjoyed being presented with the present day and a time long ago. -Nancy F.

Notable Awards for Winter Garden:
2010 Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Fiction

Book Summary

In 1944, Ukrainians faced invaders on multiple fronts as Hilter and Stalin had both pushed into their country. The Last Green Valley tells the story of one family with a common dilemma in their region. The Martel’s had a strong German heritage, but their families had been farming in Ukraine for more than a century.

Like many others, they had a choice. Do they trust that their German blood will protect them and go with the German troops despite not agreeing with the Third Reich agenda? Or stay and risk being sent to Siberian work camps by Russia?

Book Summary

When the author was ten years old, his homeland of Poland was invaded, and his family was forced to move to a Krakow ghetto. Daily life required perseverance for survival in unbelievably cruel conditions. Eventually, his life was saved by the incredibly generous and brave actions of Oskar Shindler.

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

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 the Nightingale. As the war wages on, both sisters learn who they are and what they can do.

Book Summary

When Scottish teen Ella gets a chance to spend the summer of 1937 on the French Île de Ré, it changes the trajectory of her life. She meets the charming Christophe and they spend their days exploring the many beaches of the island. For the first time, Ella feels truly free.

However, with the start of WW2, Ella must return to Scotland. She jumps into volunteering for the war effort, but feels herself drifting further away from the person she was on the Île de Ré. Will she ever be able to recapture that magic in her life?

Book Summary

Three women’s stories intertwine in the Florida Keys as a powerful hurricane approaches over the Labor Day weekend of 1935.

Key West native Helen Berner yearns to escape her abusive husband. Elizabeth Preston has traveled down from New York in search of a veteran of the Great War. Mirta Perez’s family suffered great losses in the Cuban Revolution of 1933, and now they have arranged her marriage to a man in a dangerous business, followed by a honeymoon in Key West.

The approaching storm is not the only danger that these women face as their paths unexpectedly cross.

Book Summary

As WW2 began, Jewish families in Poland were trying to flee to safer countries outside of Hilter’s reach. In this story, Esther’s father has gone ahead of the family to Cuba, and Esther is the first family member to join him. She’s devastated to be separated from her sister, so she documents her new life in Cuba to share her experiences in writing until her sister can join her. 

Her writings include both the kindness of the Cuban people and the unfortunate reality that Nazism has reached Cuba. 

Book Summary

When diamonds were discovered in Marange, Zimbabwe in 2006, the region changed, often not for the better. In this novel, fifteen-year-old Patson has a normal teenage life, running track for his high school and experience having his first girlfriend. Then, at his stepmother’s prompting, the family moves as part of The Great Marange Diamond Rush. His family goes to work hoping to find their “girazi,” a priceless stone that could change the future. 

However, the governor’s soldiers soon arrive at the diamond field. Their action will help you understand the term “blood diamonds,” and Patson will soon be on a new adventure as he first succumbs to greed and then finds himself on a transformative journey to find his sister in South Africa.

Book Summary

This multi-generation epic follows the divergent paths of two half-sisters born in 18th century Ghana and their descendants over 300 years. Effia marries a wealthy Englishman and lives in a castle, but she doesn’t know Esi is imprisoned in the dungeon below. Esi is sold in the slave trade and shipped to America, where she, her children, and her grandchildren are raised in slavery. 

The book continues to follow each generation of both Effia and Esi all the way to the present day and includes a range of historical time periods, including the American Civil War and the Jazz Age.

Book Summary

Nelson Mandela is one of the great leaders of the 20th century whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him not only the Nobel Peace Prize, but also the presidency of his country. This autobiography is very broad in its scope, covering his upbringing in the traditional tribal culture of his ancestors, his early years as a poor student and a law clerk, his political awakening, his time spent in jail, and finally, his inauguration as South Africa’s first black president. 

In addition to providing an in-depth and personal look at the life of this incredible man – Long Walk to Freedom also provides a riveting account of South Africa’s history and change from Apartheid to a Democratic state.

Book Summary

Alice disappeared in the wake of an accident, and ten years later, her daughter, Jenna, still refuses to believe that her mother abandoned her. Jenna still regularly searches for clues, both online and within Alice’s journals.

Alice was a scientist who studied grief among elephants in Botswana. While the journal entries are mostly about the elephants, Jenna hopes that she’ll find a clue within the writing. As part of her investigation, she also works with a psychic and detective, and we’ll see the story from their points of view as well.

Book Summary

Ursula Todd was born on a cold and snowy night in 1910, but she died before she could take her first breath. That same night, Ursula Todd was born with a wail and went on to lead a very unusual life. Life after life, for a seemingly infinite number of lives, Ursula grows and dies repeatedly and in a variety of ways. All the while, the world continues on a path toward a second World War… unless Ursula has the power to change the world’s destiny.

Book Summary

Spanning much of the 18th & 19th centuries, this book tells the story of the fictional Whittaker family. The patriarch, Henry, begins life as a poor Englishman before making his fortune in South America. He rises to be the wealthiest man in Philadelphia.

His daughter, Alma, gets his money and his great mind. She becomes a botanist who studies the mysteries of evolution while falling in love with a man obsessed with the spiritual realm. She is scientific while he’s an artist. Follow this unlikely couple as their story soars around the globe.

Book Summary

Grace Monroe doesn’t fit the picture of a London socialite in the 1950s, and her new marriage is already falling apart. When she receives an inheritance from a woman she’s never heard of before – Madame Eva d’Orsey – Grace is compelled to travel to France. She seeks to uncover the mystery of who this woman was and why she left her money to Grace.

The story weaves through both pre- and post-WWII, from New York to Monte Carlo and London to Paris. Grace learns about the extraordinary woman who was the muse of one of the greatest perfumers in Paris. Madame Eva d’Orsay is immortalized in three evocative perfumes. Discovering this history changes Grace’s life, and forces her to choose whether to stay confirmed to expectations or live the life she truly desires.

Book Summary

Twin sisters Peggy and Maude work in Oxford’s university press book bindery. While Maude is very content spending her days folding the pages of books with her fellow bindery girls, Peggy dreams of more. As Peggy works, she wishes she was instead across Walton Street at Oxford’s Somerville College, where female students have a huge library at their fingertips.

When Oxford is filled with Belgian war refugees, the sister’s lives are impacted in surprising ways. Peggy becomes more determined to find a career that uses her intellect instead of her hands. But, the responsibility that comes with falling in love with a Belgian soldier may hold her back.

Book Summary

Oxford student Jillian Leigh is called on to travel to the English seaside village of Rothewell to collect the belongings of her late uncle, Toby. A renowned ghost hunter, Toby died after falling of a cliff. It was deemed an accident, but Jillian will come to question if perhaps something more sinister happened to her uncle.

Almost immediately after arriving in Rothewell, Jillian begins to experience odd events that quickly escalate from unsettling to terrifying. When a handsome Scottish Yard inspector named Drew arrives, Jillian is left with more questions than answers. To complicate matters further, there’s a mutual attraction between Jillian and Drew. Will she be able to uncover the secrets that someone seems determined to keep buried?

Book Summary

In 1918, Ireland was ravaged by both war and disease. Julia is a nurse working in an understaffed hospital caring for pregnant women who have been quarantined after contracting a terrible new flu that would come to be known as the Spanish Flu.

Two newcomers to the hospital ward will change everything over the course of three days. One is Doctor Katleen Lynn, who is rumored to be a Rebel on the run from the police. The other is Bridie, a young volunteer.

Book Summary

Mitza Maric was the only female studying physics at a prestigious university in Zurich, Switzerland when she met her classmate and future husband – Albert Einstein.

The Other Einstein is a fictionalized story of their tumultuous relationship and places Mitza as the originator of some works credited to him. While not a biography, the book still highlights accurate depictions of life in Western Europe at the time, including rampant classism and sexism.

Book Summary

This is the non-fiction story of nine working-class boys – sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers – who beat all the odds to become the American rowing team. They weren’t expected to win at home, let alone defeat others on the international stage. Out of the depths of the Depression, these unlikely young men shocked the world by defeating the German team at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

In writing this story, Brown drew upon the boys’ own journals and vivid memories to paint a portrait of an era.

Book Summary

As British men left to fight in WWI, women stepped up to work in the arsenals, making weapons for the military. Thousands of former housewives, shop girls, cooks, and maids became “munitionettes” and worked grueling shifts with little protective gear.

April is 19 years old and was a housemaid before hearing about the higher wages she could earn at Thornshire Arsenal near London. Lucy is married to an Olympic gold medalist & star forward of the Tottenham Hotspur football team. She joins Thornshire to do her part in shortening the war. When her coworkers learn she is a footballer’s wife, they invite her to join the arsenal ladies’ football club, the Thornshire Canaries.

When the women begin having unexplained health problems, including yellowing skin, the boss’s wife, Helen, becomes their biggest advocate. Helen suspects the chemicals are to blame for the health issues and became a staunch advocate for the workers who became known as “canary girls.”

Book Summary

By 1906, San Francisco was full of new wealth and those dreaming of new wealth. Two of those dreamers were Gemma, who was trying to rekindle her singing career, and Suling, a Chinese seamstress trying to escape an arranged marriage. The women meet through the acquaintance of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate and collector of Chinese antiques, including the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing’s fallen Summer Palace.

However, before the women can benefit from Thornton’s patronage, the 1906 earthquake rips through the city and Thornton disappears. Then, five years later, the Phoenix Crown reappears at a Paris costume ball. Gemma and Suling must join forces to figure out what really happened to Thornton.

Book Summary

It was not easy to be a female scientist in 1914, so Violet Schuyler Grant endures her much older, philandering husband because he makes her role as a physicist in prewar Germany possible. When Lionel, a captain in the British Army, meets Violet, he encourages her to escape her husband’s hold. However, with WW1 on the horizon, Lionel’s motives are suspect.

Fifty years later, Vivian Schuyler is a recent Bryn Mawr grad in New York City but not content to be a socialite. Instead, she’s trying to break into the glamorous world of magazine publishing. She puts her investigative skills to use when she receives a package of information about a mysterious aunt she never knew.

Book Summary

What could feel more like spring than the green, rolling hills of Ireland? We’ve always loved the Irish works of the late, great Maeve Binchy, so when we heard Jean Grainger referred to as “the next Maeve Binchy,” we knew we needed to check out her books. And then when we read a review that described The Tour as “a feel-good Irish springtime read,” we knew we’d hit the jackpot.

Each week, Conor O’Shea leads American tourists on a high-end tour of “The Real Ireland.” He’s a seasoned guide, but his most recent tour group is filled with a colorful cast of unintentionally hilarious characters that manage to leave him speechless for the first time in his life. As the tour continues, you won’t be able to help but fall in love with these tourists, as well as the locals they meet along the way. This is the perfect spring break book for armchair travelers!

Book Summary

This historical fiction novel traces the life of Anne Morrow, who was a shy college senior the first time she met Colonel Charles Lindbergh shortly after his famed 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic. Their wedding made headlines, but that was just the beginning. In the following years, Anne was the first woman in the US to become a licensed glider pilot and one of the first licensed radio operators. Still, despite her intelligence and accomplishments, she remained known as just the “aviator’s wife.”

Throughout the decades, the Lindberghs’ marriage took them to new highs and devastating lows, including the tragic kidnapping of their first son and Charles’ affairs. Through it all, the Lindberghs became fodder for the earliest paparazzi.

Book Summary

In 1829, a poor young servant named Agnes is convicted of the brutal murder of her former master. She’s sent to an isolated farm in Iceland to await execution. The family who lives on the farm does not want to house a convicted murderer, and they do their best to avoid Agnes.

The only person who seems interested in understanding more about Agnes is Tóti, the priest that she has chosen to be her spiritual guardian as the end of her life nears. But as the date of her execution draws closer, the farmer’s wife and daughters begin to discover that there may be more to Agnes’ story than the sensationalized version they’ve heard.

Book Summary

Marcella has been married for three years and has two young children. Her once charming husband. Michael has revealed his true, cruel nature, and she’s determined to divorce him. While Michael’s waiting for a judge in France to award custody of their children, he receives shocking news.

Margaret is a fun-loving New York socialite who is touring Europe with friends. When she begins to feel restless, she decides to return home aboard a celebrated new steamer ship, the Titanic.

As the ship sets sail for America, the paths of Marcella, Michael, and Margaret become forever intertwined. This historical fiction novel is based on a true story.

Book Summary

Detroit museum curator Cassie loves solving mysteries from the past, especially when the stories involve the Detroit River rumrunners from the Prohibition days. When a home renovation uncovers a cache of Bailey Brothers Best whisky, she hopes it’s the missing piece she needs to understand the truth about the bootleggers.

In 1918, Corporal Jeremiah Bailey was wounded as part of his job planting mines under enemy trenches. As he recovers at a Belgium hospital, he’s cared for by nurse Adele, one of the Canadian “Bluebirds.” The connection between Jerry and Adele is strong as they’re from a similar area along the Detroit River. But when Jerry is sent back to the front, he’s not sure he’ll ever see Adele again.

When Jerry and Adele unexpectedly cross paths after the war, they have a chance for a fresh start, but both carry baggage from what they saw overseas. Prohibition is in full swing, bringing them both opportunity and the threat of destroying everything they’ve worked for.

Book Summary

Selva could have her pick of nearly any man in Ankara, Turkey, but the only one she loved was the handsome Jewish son of a court physician. Despite the protests of their families, the two marry and are determined to build a new life in Paris. But when the Nazis invade France and begin rounding up Jews, it’s no longer safe for them to stay.

After learning that Selva is among the citizens trapped in France, a group of Turkish diplomats devise a plan to transport Selva, Rafael, and hundreds of Jewish people to safety. From Ankara to Paris, Cairo, and Berlin, The Last Train to Istanbul crisscrosses a war-torn continent in an uplifting tale of love and adventure.

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

Audra lost her husband two years ago, and she thinks that it’s time for a fresh start. As she makes plans to relocate from Portland to Philadelphia with her 7-year-old son, he becomes nervous about flying. Soon, his fears escalate into recurring and violent nightmares. Before long, Jack has become so anxious and introverted that Audra barely recognizes him.

After searching for information related to snippets of information that Jack recalls from his dreams, Audra is introduced to a US Army veteran who was wounded in Afghanistan. Together, they begin to unravel a mystery dating back to WWII.

Book Summary

Antarctica is the only continent on Earth where humans could never survive unaided. Many books have come out of our fascination with the frigid region, but this one strives to truly capture the whole story.

Drawing on her broad travels across the continent, science writer Gabrielle Walker weaves all the significant threads of life on the vast ice sheet into an intricate tapestry, illuminating what it feels like to be there and why it draws so many different kinds of people.

We witness cutting-edge science experiments through Gabrielle, visit the South Pole, lodge with American, Italian, and French researchers, drive snowdozers, drill ice cores, and listen for the message Antarctica is sending us about our future in an age of global warming.

Book Summary

The Peterson family, including Lisa, have a store in Vancouver but an opportunity to make a fortune if they move to Dawson City, the only established town in the Yukon. Constable Ben Turner, a new recruit for the North-West Mounted Police, is also headed to Dawson City, but instead of looking for riches, he is looking to bring integrity to a town overrun with guns, liquor, prostitutes, and thieves.

The journey over icy mountains and whitewater rapids is more treacherous than Liza or Ben imagined. When a tragedy strikes near the mountain’s peak, Lisa must continue without her family. Ben is wracked with guilt over the accident and looking for an opportunity to make things right.

Book Summary

It’s 1885, and newly married Colonel Allen Forrester has received the commission of a lifetime. He is being sent to lead a small group of men to navigate Alaska’s Wolverine River (a fictional river based on the Copper River). Finding a way to pass the river is the key to opening Alaska to the outside world, but previous attempts have been fatal.

Sophie is pregnant and not excited about being relegated to a year in the military barracks away from her husband while he attempts the impossible. She’s worried about her pregnancy and what will happen while apart from Allen.

Book Summary

Subtitled “The Grand and Terrible Voyage of the USS Jeanette,” this non-fiction tells the story of the United States’ aspiration to be the first nation to reach the North Pole. US Navy Captain George Washington DeLong set sail on the JSS Jeanette with a team of 32 men. They departed San Francisco, heading deep into Arctic waters.

Two years into the expedition, Jeannette’s hull was breached by an impassable stretch of ice. The crew was forced to abandon the ship into the icy water. Shipwrecked a thousand miles north of Siberia, they are forced to march across the endless ice pack as they struggle to survive.

Book Summary

In 1899, railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman organized an epic trip. He converted a steamship into a luxury “floating university” and invited some of the brightest scientists and writers to join him on a journey through Alaska’s beauty.

Author Mark Adams retraced this journey more than 100 years later. He traveled three thousand miles, following the itinerary north through Wrangell, Juneau, and Glacier Bay, then continuing west into the colder and stranger regions of the Aleutians and the Arctic Circle.

Along the way, several unusual characters are encountered, and Adams examines how lessons learned in 1899 could apply today. While this non-fiction travelogue is often humorous, it’s also a realistic look at how Alaska’s resources are being depleted and endangered.

Book Summary

In 1897, a polar expedition went terribly wrong. The crew of the Belgica was ready for adventure when they set sail on a three-year expedition to uncharted Antarctica and the magnetic South Pole. However, they hadn’t even cleared South America yet when everything seemed to be going wrong. But they pushed forward into freezing water, chasing glory for Belgium.

That decision led to the Belgica and her crew becoming stuck in the ice for an entire sunless Arctic winter and being driven to the brink of madness. The author tells this compelling non-fiction tale with extra detail thanks to exclusive access to the ship’s logbook.