NCW Libraries

"It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church. Already a bestseller in France and certain to be read worldwide for generations to come, Small Things...

Kansas 1872. Unwed mother Nell Lillington hopes to support her daughter Sarah and friend Tess by working as a seamstress in an isolated seminary. When her only ally among the seminary's leaders dies, she must choose between returning to her old life in Chicago and remaining in charge of her destiny. As her talent as a dressmaker begins to win her commissions, Nell attracts the attention of two suitors: Reiner Lehmann, a wealthy senior student, and...

Three eras. Three women desperate for hope. Three reasons to believe it won't come in time.

"Best friends Unity and Ellen are in serious ruts. High school teacher Ellen, whose son's dream of going out of state for college is arousing financial anxiety, hasn't dated since she became pregnant on the night of her junior prom. Unity, a successful handyman, is grieving after her soldier husband was killed three years ago. Each woman goads the other to venture out of her restrictive comfort zone, daring the other to take on a list of challenges,...

En el invierno de 1956, la joven embarazada Ivy es enviada en desgracia a St Margaret's, un hogar para madres solteras en el sur de Inglaterra, dirigido por monjas, para tener su hijo. Adoptan a su pequeña hija. Ivy nunca se irá. Sesenta años después, la periodista Samantha se topa con una serie de cartas de Ivy a su amante, suplicándole que la rescate de St. Margaret's antes de que sea demasiado tarde. Mientras Sam reconstruye la trágica historia...

Caught in a blizzard five days before Christmas, pregnant 23-year-old Lisa and her friend Brad, a professional snowboarder, take shelter at The Rosemont. A once-great winter resort, The Rosemont has seen better days. After losing her daughter and granddaughter, the cantankerous owner Josephine has let it fall into disrepair. But now, stranded by the blizzard and with Lisa giving birth, everyone comes together to provide what they all need most, a...

Every so often a love story comes along to remind us that sometimes, in our darkest hour, hope shines a candle to light our way ... Tina Craig longs to escape her violent husband. She works all the hours God sends to save up enough money to leave him, also volunteering in a charity shop to avoid her unhappy home. Whilst going through the pockets of a second-hand suit, she comes across an old letter, the envelope firmly sealed and unfranked. Tina opens...

Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. There is ritual and routine, and it has been ever thus for generations. Then one day a jeep appears at the village gate, the first automobile any of them have seen and a stranger arrives. In this remote Yunnan village, the stranger finds the rare tea he has been seeking and a reticent Akha people. In her biggest seller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, See introduced...

"Japan, 1957. Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura's prearranged marriage to the son of her father's business associate would secure her family's status in their traditional Japanese community, but Naoko has fallen for another man--an American sailor, a gaijin--and to marry him would bring great shame upon her entire family. When it's learned Naoko carries the sailor's child, she's cast out in disgrace and forced to make unimaginable choices with consequences...

Katy, the precocious ten-year-old daughter of the town doctor, befriends a retarded boy.