Due to the untimely death of a local clergy who'd enlisted Letty Murphy's services, she must now flee her life of prostitution at the White Dove Saloon. She takes on a new persona, Sister Leticia. Her accomplice, Eulis Potter, the town drunk and local gravedigger, also takes a new identity as the Reverend Randall Ward Howe. Although in most ways an unlikely pair, Letty and Eulis are a good match in that they both want what a new life can provide.
For lovers of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Love in Lowercase, by Francesc Miralles, shares many of the same elements, but with a lighter touch; philosophical, humorous, it is a story of loneliness and love, coincidence – and cats.
To the Bright Edge of the World deserves all the praise it has been receiving. In 1885, newly-married Colonel Allen Forrester leads a small group of men on an expedition into untamed Alaska Territory to explore the possibilities for future settlements and trade routes. He leaves his pregnant wife, Sophie, behind and they exchange letters, writing about the hardships they each face while away from the other.
Antoinette Conway and her partner, Stephen Moran, are rookies and outsiders on the Dublin Murder Squad. Just as they're about to finish up their night shift, the boss gives them another dud case: Aislinn Murray has been reported dead via an anonymous call to a local police station. It was obviously her boyfriend, with whom she had a dinner date planned. Open-and-closed. So why does the boss put a senior detective, Breslin, on the case to watch over them? And why does his help seem more like obstruction?
The Librarian: Quest for the Spear is the story of a professional student who gets pushed out into the real world (finally, at the age of 30) to find that not everything is as it seems and magic is real. He is hired by "the library," an age-old institution that traps magical artifacts and prevents them from falling into the wrong hands.
Isabelle comes back to her family home after the death of her sister to find an autistic savant growing up in her sister's home. She teaches the girl, Karen, how to function in the world. Karen learns how to interact with the whole, not only through her aunt's patience, but also through the animals with whom she shares a special connection. Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World is Karen's story.
When Jason Amundsen drops an egg farm bomb on his wife Lucie, she understandably balks at the idea. He’s already dragged her from city to city chasing his supposed dreams, but those dreams at least came with health benefits. This one? It’s too much, and Lucie successfully puts the kibosh on the idea. Until Jason gets laid off.
Margee Kerr, author of Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear, and also the reader of the audiobook, is a sociologist who studies fear. Using herself as a guinea pig, and taking part in activities as varied as riding roller coasters, walking through haunted houses, taking part in paranormal investigations, and visiting Japan's notorious "suicide forest," Kerr explains what happens to the body and the mind when we take part in scary activities, or daredevil adventures.
In his introduction to Forever Words, Paul Muldoon says, “So ingrained in our collective unconscious is the voice of Johnny Cash that we can all but hear the boom-chicka boom-chicka of his guitar accompaniment, at once reassuring and disquieting in its very familiarity.” That was absolutely true for me as I was reading through this collection.
