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The color purple / by Walker, Alice,1944-author.;
This book is part of our Book Sanctuary collection. A Book Sanctuary is a physical or digital space that actively protects the freedom to read. It provides shelter and access to endangered books. Launched by Chicago Public Library in 2022, The Book Sanctuary initiative brings attention to challenged titles, and commits to making these books accessible. Innisfil ideaLAB & Library's Book Sanctuary Collection represents books that have been challenged, censored or removed from a public library or school in North America. More than 50 adult, teen, and children's books are in our collection and are available for browsing and borrowing in our branches and online. Explore the collection to learn more about why these books were challenged.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Banned book sanctuary.; Classics; Literary; African American women; Adult child sexual abuse victims; Abused wives; Sisters; Abused wives.; Adult child sexual abuse victims.; African American women.; Sisters.;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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Wives like us : a novel / by Sykes, Plum,author.;
"Following a ghastly row about a missing suite of diamonds, Tata Hawkins has flounced out of Monkton Bottom Manor with her daughter, Minty, and Executive Butler Ian Palmer in tow, decamping to The Old Coach House to teach her husband Bryan a lesson. But things don't go to plan: Bryan disappears to Venice with a bikini designer; Selby Fairfax, the glamorous American divorcée who has inherited the beautiful estate next door, is refusing Tata's overtures at friendship; Tata's best friends, Sophie Thompson and Fernanda Ovington-Williams, are distracted by their own heartache, and the posh Pennybacker-Hoare sisters are plotting to prevent Tata regaining her crown as Queen of the Bottoms. Worst of all, Ian has nowhere to store his collection of vintage Gucci loafers. Will Tata ever return to the comforts of the Manor? Will Selby find her Prince Charming? Will the Pennybacker-Hoares prevail? With the help of a pig farmer-ess moonlighting as a Personal Assistant, a male model moonlighting as a stable hand and a London barrister moonlighting as a gentleman farmer, can Ian restore harmony to The Bottoms?"--
Subjects: Humorous fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Novels.; Americans; Butlers; Families; Household employees; Manors; Man-woman relationships; Rich people; Villages; Wives;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Devil is fine / by Vercher, John,author.;
"Our narrator is haunted. Haunted by panic attacks, a failed relationship, alcoholism, an academic career that wants to define him by his Blackness, and the trauma of the recent death of his 17-year-old son, Malcolm. When a letter arrives informing him that his maternal grandfather has left Malcolm a plot of land, our narrator leaves his life behind and heads to the seaside of the Northeast, where his identity is shaken by the dark and haunting secret that lies beneath this inherited land. With the wit of Paul Beatty's The Sellout and the nuance of Zadie Smith's On Beauty, author John Vercher's Devil is Fine is an emotional account of what it is to be a father, a son, a writer, and a biracial American fighting to reconcile freedom and creativity with the footprint of colonialism. Gripping, surrealist, and darkly funny, Devil is Fine is a brilliantly-crafted dissection of the legacies we leave behind, and those we inherit"--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Magic realist fiction.; Novels.; African Americans; Fathers and sons; Grief; Identity (Psychology); Inheritance and succession; Sons;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Rushing waters : a novel / by Steel, Danielle,author.;
"A 38-year-old American interior designer based in London and her independent-minded 74-year-old architect mother; a British investment banker in New York to see his ex-wife and young children; a resident ER doctor who experienced Hurricane Sandy when she was a medical student; two young men, 21-year-old NYU students; their friends; and others are thrust together when a major hurricane descends upon New York City and wreaks unimaginable chaos and devastation. Yet through the darkness, these characters form unlikely new friendships and together, manage to find hope and revitalization"--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Disaster victims; Hurricanes; Interpersonal relations;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 3
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Homeland elegies : a novel / by Akhtar, Ayad,author.;
A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home. Ayad Akhtar forges a new narrative voice to capture a country in which debt has ruined countless lives and the gods of finance rule, where immigrants live in fear, and where the nation's unhealed wounds wreak havoc around the world. Akhtar attempts to make sense of it all through the lens of a story about one family, from a heartland town in America to palatial suites in Central Europe to guerrilla lookouts in the mountains of Afghanistan, and spares no one--least of all himself--in the process.
Subjects: Picaresque fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Fathers and sons; Pakistani Americans; Muslim families; Immigrants; Immigrant families;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Family lore : a novel / by Acevedo, Elizabeth,author.;
Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake--a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she's led--her sisters are surprised. Has Flor foreseen her own death, or someone else's? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila. But Flor isn't the only person with secrets: her sisters are hiding things, too. And the next generation, cousins Ona and Yadi, face tumult of their own. Spanning the three days prior to the wake, Family Lore traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City. Told with Elizabeth Acevedo's inimitable and incandescent voice, this is an indelible portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces--one family's journey through their history, helping them better navigate all that is to come.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Novels.; Dominican American women; Families; Psychic ability; Secrecy; Sisters; Wake services;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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Evil eye : a novel / by Rum, Etaf,author.;
Raised in a conservative and emotionally volatile Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she would finally feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur who took her to the suburbs. She's gotten to follow her dreams, completing an undergraduate degree in Art and landing a good job at the local college. As a traditional wife, she also raises their two school-aged daughters, takes care of the house, and has dinner ready when her husband gets home. With her family balanced with her professional ambitions, Yara knows that her life is infinitely more rewarding than her own mother's. So why doesn't it feel like enough? After her dream of chaperoning a student trip to Europe evaporates and she responds to a colleague's racist provocation, Yara is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counseling to keep her position. Her mother blames a family curse for the trouble she's facing, and while Yara doesn't really believe in old superstitions, she still finds herself growing increasingly uneasy with her mother's warning and the possibility of falling victim to the same mistakes. Shaken to the core by these indictments of her life, Yara finds her carefully constructed world beginning to implode. To save herself, Yara must reckon with the reality that the difficulties of the childhood she thought she left behind have very real, and damaging, implications not just on her own future but that of her daughters.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Social problem fiction.; Novels.; Blessing and cursing; Businesspeople; Families; Generational trauma; Immigrant families; Immigrants; Marriage; Mothers and daughters; Palestinian American women; Palestinian Americans; Psychic trauma; Racism in the workplace; Racism; Self-actualization (Psychology) in women; Self-realization in women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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How the light gets in : a novel / by Maynard, Joyce,1953-author.;
"Following the death of her former husband, Cam, fifty-four-year-old Eleanor has moved back to the New Hampshire farm where they raised three children to care for their brain-injured son, Toby, now an adult. Toby's older brother, Al, is married and living in Seattle with his wife; their sister, Ursula, lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Although all appears stable, old resentments, anger, and bitterness simmer just beneath the surface. How the Light Gets In follows Eleanor and her family through fifteen years (2010 to 2024) as their story plays out against a uniquely American backdrop and the events that transform their world (climate change, the January 6th insurrection, school violence) and shape their lives (later-life love, parental alienation, steadfast friendship)."--
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Domestic fiction.; Novels.; Brain-damaged children; Families; Mother and child; Siblings;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The inheritance of Orquídea Divina : a novel / by Córdova, Zoraida,author.;
"The Montoyas are used to a life without explanations. They know better than to ask why the pantry never seems to run low or empty, or why their matriarch won't ever leave their home in Four Rivers--even for graduations, weddings, or baptisms. But when Orquídea Divina invites them to her funeral and to collect their inheritance, they hope to learn the secrets that she has held onto so tightly their whole lives. Instead, Orquídea is transformed, leaving them with more questions than answers. Seven years later, her gifts have manifested in different ways for Marimar, Rey, and Tatinelly's daughter, Rhiannon, granting them unexpected blessings. But soon, a hidden figure begins to tear through their family tree, picking them off one by one as it seeks to destroy Orquídea's line. Determined to save what's left of their family and uncover the truth behind their inheritance, the four descendants travel to Ecuador--to the place where Orquídea buried her secrets and broken promises and never looked back. Alternating between Orquídea's past and her descendants' present, The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina is an enchanting novel about what we knowingly and unknowingly inherit from our ancestors, the ties that bind, and reclaiming your power."--
Subjects: Fantasy fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Magic realist fiction.; Ecuadorian Americans; Families; Family secrets; Homecoming; Inheritance and succession; Magic;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A great country : a novel / by Gowda, Shilpi Somaya,author.;
Pacific Hills, California: Gated communities, ocean views, well-tended lawns, serene pools, and now the new home of the Shah family. For the Shah parents, who came to America twenty years earlier with little more than an education and their new marriage, this move represents the culmination of years of hard work and dreaming. For their children, born and raised in America, success is not so simple. For the most part, these differences among the five members of the Shah family are minor irritants, arguments between parents and children, older and younger siblings. But one Saturday night, the twelve-year-old son is arrested. The fallout from that event will shake each family member's perception of themselves as individuals, as community members, as Americans, and will lead each to consider: how do we define success? At what cost comes ambition? And what is our role and responsibility in the cultural mosaic of modern America?--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Americanization; Families; Immigrant families;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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