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The house of fortune : a novel / by Burton, Jessie,1982-author.;
Amsterdam in the year 1705. It is Thea Brandt's eighteenth birthday. She is ready to welcome adulthood with open arms, but life at home is increasingly difficult. Her father Otto and her Aunt Nella argue endlessly over their financial fate, selling off furniture in a desperate attempt to hold on to the family home. As catastrophe threatens to engulf the household, Thea seeks refuge in Amsterdam's playhouses. She loves the performances, and the stolen moments afterwards are even better. In the backrooms of her favorite theater, Thea can spend a few precious minutes with her secret lover, Walter, the chief set-painter, a man adept at creating the perfect environments for comedies and tragedies to flourish. The thrill of their hidden romance offers Thea an exciting distraction from home. But it also puts her in mind of another secret that threatens to overwhelm the present: Thea knows her birthday marks the day her mother, Marin, died in labor. Thea's family refuses to share the details of this story, just as they seem terrified to speak of "the miniaturist" - a shadowy figure from their past who is possessed of uncanny abilities to capture that which is hidden. Aunt Nella believes the solution to all Thea's problems is to find her a husband who will guarantee her future. An unexpected invitation to Amsterdam's most exclusive ball seems like a golden opportunity. But when Thea finds, on her doorstep, a parcel containing a miniature figure of Walter, it becomes clear that someone out there has another fate in mind for the family ...
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Family secrets; Man-woman relationships; Secrecy;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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The girl on the cliff / by Riley, Lucinda,author.;
Why has a secret from 1914 caused a century of heartache? Troubled by recent loss, Grania Ryan has returned to Ireland and the arms of her loving family. And it is here, on a cliff edge, that she first meets a young girl, Aurora, who will profoundly change her life. Mysteriously drawn to Aurora, Grania discovers that the histories of their families are strangely and deeply entwined. From a bittersweet romance in wartime London to a troubled relationship in contemporary New York, from devotion to a foundling child to forgotten memories of a lost brother, the Ryans and the Lisles, past and present, have been entangled for a century. Ultimately, it will be Aurora whose intuition and remarkable spirit help break the spell and unlock the chains of the past. Haunting, uplifting and deeply moving, Aurora's story tells of the triumph of hope over loss.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Families; Family secrets; Man-woman relationships;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The girl behind the door : a father's quest to understand his daughter's suicide / by Brooks, John,1956-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Early one Tuesday morning John Brooks went to his teenage daughter's room to make sure she was getting up for school and found her room dark and "neater than usual." Casey was gone but he found a note: The car is parked at the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm sorry. Several hours later a security video was found that showed Casey stepping off the bridge. Brooks spent months after Casey's suicide trying to understand what led his seventeen-year-old daughter to take her life. He examines Casey's journey from her abandonment at birth in Poland, to the orphanage where she lived for the first fourteen months of her life, to her adoption and life with John and his wife Erika in Northern California. He reads. He talks to Casey's friends, teachers, doctors, therapists, and other parents. He consults adoption experts, researchers, clinicians, attachment therapists, and social workers. In The Girl Behind the Door, Brooks shares what he learned and asks "What did everyone miss? What could have been done differently?" He'd come to realize that Casey might have been helped if someone had recognized that she'd likely suffered an attachment disorder from her infancy--an affliction common among children who've been orphaned, neglected, and abused. This emotional deprivation in early childhood, from the lack of a secure attachment to a primary caregiver, can lead to a wide range of serious behavioral issues later in life. John's hope is that Casey's story, and what he discovered since her death, will help others. This important book is a wakeup call that parents, mental health professionals, and teens should read"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Brooks, Casey,; Brooks, John, 1956-; Adopted children; Adopted children; Attachment disorder in adolescence.; Fathers and daughters; Suicide;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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On a night of a thousand stars / by Clark, Andrea Yaryura,author.;
"New York, 1998. Santiago Larrea, a wealthy Argentine diplomat, is holding court alongside his wife, Lila, and their daughter, Paloma, a college student and budding jewelry designer, at their annual summer polo match and soiree. All seems perfect in the Larreas' world--until an unexpected party guest from Santiago's university days shakes his usually unflappable demeanor. The woman's cryptic comments spark Paloma's curiosity about her father's past, of which she knows little. When the family travels to Buenos Aires for Santiago's UN ambassadorial appointment, Paloma is determined to learn more about his life in the years leading up to the military dictatorship of 1976. With the help of a local university student, Franco Bonetti, an activist member of H.I.J.O.S.--a group whose members are the children of the Desaparecidos, or the "Disappeared," men and women who were forcibly disappeared by the state during Argentina's "Dirty War"--Paloma unleashes a chain of events that not only leads her to question her family and her identity, but also puts her life in danger. In compelling fashion, On a Night of a Thousand Stars speaks to relationships, morality, and identity during a brutal period in Argentinian history, and the understanding--and redemption--people crave in the face of unspeakable tragedy"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Dictatorship; Diplomats; Disappeared persons; Family secrets;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The worst life has to offer : a mother's grief journey to the other side of sadness after the death of her two sons / by Cox-Mlynczyk, Venetta,author.;
"Venetta Mlynczyk has endured unimaginable tragedy, a parent's worst nightmare. The sudden deaths of her only two children, just six months apart. Suffering excruciating pain, and grappling with complicated grief and guilt, led her to dark places. Then, in the throes of grief, she was completely blindsided by a cruel twist that shocked people around the world. Suspicions surrounding the investigation into Brandon's death, left Venetta on a path seeking justice for years. Devon's death also sparked mysterious lingering questions. From the depths of despair, she found the courage and strength to navigate the multiple layers of her grief, exploring a myriad of messy emotions. In the face of adversity, Venetta's resilience offers hope and inspiration to anyone grieving the death of a loved one. The sun will shine again on the other side of sadness, even when the worst life has to offer, happens."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Cox-Mlynczyk, Venetta.; Children; Grief in women.; Grief.; Mothers and sons.; Mothers; Parental grief.; Traffic accident victims;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The dazzling truth : a novel / by Cullen, Helen,1981-author.;
For fans of Alice McDermott, J. Courtney Sullivan, and Lisa Genova, 'The Dazzling Truth' is a moving Irish family saga spanning three decades about a mother struggling to find herself and the family that must find solace in each other. From the author of 'The Lost Letters of William Woolf', which received a starred review from Booklist, was a New York Best Book of the Week, and a PopSugar Best Book of Summer.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Married people; Man-woman relationships; Families;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Truly, madly, deeply : a novel / by Kingsbury, Karen,author.;
"In love for the first time, a son's decisions about the future divides his family. When eighteen-year-old Tommy Baxter declares to his family that he wants to be a police officer after graduation, his mother, Reagan, won't hear of it. After all, she's still mourning the death of her own father on September 11 and she's determined to keep her son safe from danger and disaster. But Tommy's father, Luke Baxter, is proud of Tommy's decision, even arranging for his son to take part in a ride-along program with the Indianapolis Police Department. Meanwhile, Tommy is in love for the first time. Annalee Miller has been a family friend for years. Their relationship is sweet and too good to be true. After prom, Tommy begins seriously thinking about asking her to marry him but she hasn't been feeling well. Days later, tests reveal the unthinkable. While his girlfriend begins the fight of her life, Tommy is driven to learn more about the circumstances surrounding his birth ... and the grandfather he never knew. Realizations come to light that rock Tommy's world, and he becomes determined to spend his future fighting crime. Or is this just his way to wage war in a battle he cannot win-the one facing Annalee? Blending romance and family drama into an emotionally satisfying story, Truly, Madly, Deeply is a testament to living and loving without fear, so that each moment is marked by reckless abandon and breathtaking passion"--
Subjects: Religious fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Cancer; Man-woman relationships; Family secrets; Families;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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My bad : a Zits treasury / by Scott, Jerry,1955-; Borgman, Jim.; Scott, Jerry,1955-Zits.Selections.;
Subjects: American wit and humor, Pictorial.; Comic books, strips, etc.; Family; Teenage boys; Teenagers;
© c2009., Andrews McMeel Pub.,
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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Empty : a memoir / by Burton, Susan,1973-author.;
"Susan Burton is ready to come clean. Happily married with two children, working at her dream job, she has lived a secret life of compulsive eating and starving for twenty-five years. This is a relentlessly honest, fiercely intelligent narrative of living with binge-eating disorder. When Burton was thirteen, her stable life in suburban Michigan was turned upside down by her parents' abrupt, hostile divorce, and she moved to Colorado with her mother and sister. She seized on this move west as an adventure and an opportunity to reinvent herself from middle-school nerd to popular teenage girl. But she hadn't escaped unscathed, and in the fallout from her parents' breakup--including her mother's intensifying alcoholism--an inherited fixation on thinness went from "peculiarity to pathology." She entered into a painful cycle of anorexia, or "iron purity" and feral binge eating that formed the subterranean layer of her sunny life. This is the story not only of loosening the grip of her compulsion but of moving past her shame and learning to tell her secret. In tart, soulful prose Susan Burton strikes a blow for the importance of women's stories, brings to life an indelible cast of characters and tells a story of exhilaration, longing, compulsion and hard-earned self-revelation"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Burton, Susan, 1973-; Eating disorders in women; Eating disorders; Eating disorders; Women journalists;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Restaurant kid : a memoir of family and belonging / by Phan, Rachel,author.;
"A warm and poignant narrative about finding one's self amidst the grind of restaurant life, the cross-generational immigrant experience, and a daughter's attempts to connect with parents who have always been just out of reach. When she was three years old, Rachel Phan met her replacement. Instead of a new sibling, her mother and father's time and attention were suddenly devoted entirely to their new family restaurant. For her parents--whose own families fled China during Japanese occupation and then survived bombs and starvation during the war in Vietnam--it was a dream come true. For Phan, it was something quite different. Overnight, she became a restaurant kid, living on the periphery of her own family and trying her best to stay out of the way. As Phan grew up, the restaurant was the most stalwart and suffocating member of her family. For decades, it's been both their crowning achievement and the origin of so much of their pain and suffering: screaming matches complete with smashed dishes; bodies worn down by long hours and repetitive strain; and tenuous relationships where the family loved one another deeply without ever really knowing each other. In Restaurant Kid, Phan seeks to examine the way her life has been shaped by the rigid boxes placed around her. She had to be a "good daughter," never asking questions, always being grateful. She had to be a "real Canadian," watching hockey and speaking English so flawlessly that her tongue has since forgotten how to contort around Cantonese tones. As the only Chinese girl at school, she had to alternate between being the sidekick, geek, or Asian fetish, depending on whose gaze was on her. Now, three decades after their restaurant first opened, Phan's parents are cautiously talking about retirement. As an adult, Phan's "good daughter" role demands something new of her--and a chance to get to know her parents away from the restaurant. In Restaurant Kid, Phan deftly combines candour, wit and insight to craft a vibrant and important narrative on the strength and foibles of family, and how we come to understand ourselves."--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Phan, Rachel.; Phan, Rachel; Children of immigrants; Restaurateurs; Restaurateurs; Chinese Canadian women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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