The Day the Falls Stood Still

The Day the Falls Stood Still
Author: Cathy Marie Buchanan
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2011-08-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1446494462

Niagara Falls, 1915 When Bess Heath returns to her family home near the picturesque falls, it is to an unfamiliar scene - the elegance of the life she once knew has vanished. Her father is a broken man, jobless and losing hope, and her mother is struggling to keep the family afloat. Isabel, the lively, charismatic sister Bess has always relied on is almost unrecognisable. Her engagement called off, she languishes in her bedroom, brooding and refusing to eat. Through all of this Bess finds solace in Tom Cole, a man she met by chance the night she returned home. Constant, gentle and devoted to Bess, he understands better than anyone the awesome and potentially devastating power of the falls - and consoles her through a tragedy that nearly ruins her. But as their lives become more fully entwined, Bess is forced to make a painful choice between what she wants and what is best for her family . . .

The Painted Girls

The Painted Girls
Author: Cathy Marie Buchanan
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2013-01-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101603798

A heartrending, gripping novel about two sisters in Belle Époque Paris and the young woman forever immortalized as muse for Edgar Degas’ Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. 1878 Paris. Following their father’s sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist masterpiece L’Assommoir. Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. There she meets a wealthy male patron of the ballet, but might the assistance he offers come with strings attached? Meanwhile Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde. Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural, and societal change, The Painted Girls is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of “civilized society.” In the end, each will come to realize that her salvation, if not survival, lies with the other.

The Day the Streets Stood Still

The Day the Streets Stood Still
Author: JaQuavis Coleman
Publisher: Urban Books
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2014-10-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1622860675

In this gripping and heart-wrenching story, you will meet Sean. He was raised by a hustling, well-connected mother and was taught early about street survival. When his mother is brutally murdered, Sean is thrust into a cold world all alone. An old friend of his mother takes Sean under his wing and introduces him to a life of drug dealing at its highest level. Sean becomes "King Sean" and rises up the drug game's totem pole. King Sean makes a solid name for himself in the street game. The only weakness he has ever had is a childhood friend and also the love of his life—a beauty named Sunny. Sunny has a struggle with drugs, and along her road to recovery, Sean falls victim to the vice as well. His life is slowly headed on a downward spiral, and his decline from street fame is filled with murder, lies, backstabbing, and a struggle to survive. Walk on the journey with Sunny and Sean as they hit rock bottom and steal, lie, and deceive in their struggle with addiction. Someone dies . . . but not until the end is the truth unveiled. New York Times bestseller JaQuavis Coleman pens an intricate, fast-paced street thriller that tells a bold story of true love, addiction, and murder. Read about The Day the Streets Stood Still.

If He Had Been with Me

If He Had Been with Me
Author: Laura Nowlin
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2013-04-02
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1402277849

If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...

Empire Falls

Empire Falls
Author: Richard Russo
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 498
Release: 2011-11-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307809889

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • The bestselling author of Nobody's Fool and Straight Man delves deep into the blue-collar heart of America in a work that overflows with hilarity, heartache, and grace. “Rich, humorous ... Mr. Russo’s most seductive book thus far.” —The New York Times Welcome to Empire Falls, a blue-collar town full of abandoned mills whose citizens surround themselves with the comforts and feuds provided by lifelong friends and neighbors and who find humor and hope in the most unlikely places, in this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Richard Russo. Miles Roby has been slinging burgers at the Empire Grill for 20 years, a job that cost him his college education and much of his self-respect. What keeps him there? It could be his bright, sensitive daughter Tick, who needs all his help surviving the local high school. Or maybe it’s Janine, Miles’ soon-to-be ex-wife, who’s taken up with a noxiously vain health-club proprietor. Or perhaps it’s the imperious Francine Whiting, who owns everything in town–and seems to believe that “everything” includes Miles himself. Look for Richard Russo's new book, Somebody's Fool, coming soon.

Gibeon, Where the Sun Stood Still

Gibeon, Where the Sun Stood Still
Author: James B. Pritchard
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2012-05-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1400843189

This first book-length presentation of the results of our excavations at el-Jib has been written for the general reader who is concerned with the contribution that archaeology has made to the biblical history of the site.... In telling the story of Gibeon I have tried to show how the tale of the city unfolded week by week and year by year through excavation and study. I have sought to give in these pages a personally conducted tour, as it were, of the ruins of ancient Gibeon and what we have seen in them.... The results of the excavations at el-Jib are unique in that they can be related with a high degree of certainty to specific events described in the Old Testament. For the first time in the history of scientific archaeology in the land of the Bible an actual place name of a biblical city, neatly incised on clay, has been found under circumstances which make certain the identification of the name with the ruins.--from the Preface

The Age of Miracles

The Age of Miracles
Author: Karen Thompson Walker
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2012-06-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0679644385

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People ∙ O: The Oprah Magazine ∙ Financial Times ∙ Kansas City Star ∙ BookPage ∙ Kirkus Reviews ∙ Publishers Weekly ∙ Booklist NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A stunner.”—Justin Cronin “It’s never the disasters you see coming that finally come to pass—it’s the ones you don’t expect at all,” says Julia, in this spellbinding novel of catastrophe and survival by a superb new writer. Luminous, suspenseful, unforgettable, The Age of Miracles tells the haunting and beautiful story of Julia and her family as they struggle to live in a time of extraordinary change. On an ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, Julia awakes to discover that something has happened to the rotation of the earth. The days and nights are growing longer and longer; gravity is affected; the birds, the tides, human behavior, and cosmic rhythms are thrown into disarray. In a world that seems filled with danger and loss, Julia also must face surprising developments in herself, and in her personal world—divisions widening between her parents, strange behavior by her friends, the pain and vulnerability of first love, a growing sense of isolation, and a surprising, rebellious new strength. With crystalline prose and the indelible magic of a born storyteller, Karen Thompson Walker gives us a breathtaking portrait of people finding ways to go on in an ever-evolving world. “Gripping drama . . . flawlessly written; it could be the most assured debut by an American writer since Jennifer Egan’s Emerald City.”—The Denver Post “Pure magnificence.”—Nathan Englander “Provides solace with its wisdom, compassion, and elegance.”—Curtis Sittenfeld “Riveting, heartbreaking, profoundly moving.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Look for special features inside. Join the Circle for author chats and more.

Queen of the Falls

Queen of the Falls
Author: Chris Van Allsburg
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 45
Release: 2011-04-04
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0547608403

She could remember standing in a park near the falls, hypnotized by the sight and sound, and holding her father’s hand as they took a walk that would lead them closer. That’s what everyone wonders when they see Niagara . . . How close will their courage let them get to it? At the turn of the nineteenth century, a retired sixty-two-year-old charm school instructor named Annie Edson Taylor, seeking fame and fortune, decided to do something that no one in the world had ever done before—she would go over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel. Come meet the Queen of the Falls and witness with your own eyes her daring ride!

City of Light

City of Light
Author: Lauren Belfer
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Total Pages: 514
Release: 2003-08-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0385337647

NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • “Breathtaking . . . a remarkable blend of murder mystery, love story, political intrigue, and tragedy of manners.”—USA Today The year is 1901. Buffalo, New York, is poised for glory. With its booming industry and newly electrified streets, Buffalo is a model for the century just beginning. Louisa Barrett has made this dazzling city her home. Headmistress of Buffalo’s most prestigious school, Louisa is at ease in a world of men, protected by the titans of her city. But nothing prepares her for a startling discovery: evidence of a murder tied to the city’s cathedral-like power plant at nearby Niagara Falls. This shocking crime—followed by another mysterious death—will ignite an explosive chain of events. For in this city of seething intrigue and dazzling progress, a battle rages among politicians, power brokers, and industrialists for control of Niagara. And one extraordinary woman in their midst must protect a dark secret that implicates them all. . . .