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The great state of West Florida : a novel / by Wascom, Kent,1986-author.;
"It's 2026, and Rally is thirteen years old. The long, hot Louisiana summer looms before him like a face-melting stretch of blacktop, and the country is talking civil war while his adoptive family acts more vicious than ever. Rally spends his days wondering about his dead father's people, the Woolsacks of West Florida, who long ago led a failed rebellion to carve their own state from the swamp and sugar-sand of the coast. That family might have been his too--if his mother and a crew of vigilantes hadn't tried to kill them all back when he was a baby. Rally lives in the shadow of guilt and in fear of the only other survivors: his uncle Rodney, now a professional gunfighter on the app DU3L, where would-be shooters square off in armed combat, and his mysterious cousin Destiny, whereabouts unknown, whose own violence brought the massacre to a screeching end. When the Woolsacks' legacy is co-opted by Troy Yarbrough, a far-right politician leading a movement to turn the Florida panhandle into a white Christian ethnostate, Rodney bursts into Rally's life, taking him on a journey into the wild heart of West Florida, where they join forces with a woman known only as the Governor--part prophet, part machine, with her own blazing vision for West Florida. Soon Rally will learn what West Florida means to the Woolsacks, and the lengths to which they will go to protect it, all while he falls for the machine-gun-toting, ATV-riding girl next door. An explosive, genre-redefining take on family, violence, and the costs of preserving a legacy in a sun-soaked world of megachurch magnates, suburban guerillas, and robotic warriors, The Great State of West Florida is also the tender coming-of-age story of a young man caught in the wheels of something bigger than he knows"--
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Satirical fiction.; Novels.; Families; Generational trauma; Political violence; Teenage boys; Teenagers; White nationalism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The book of lost friends : a novel / by Wingate, Lisa,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours comes a new novel inspired by little-known historical events: a dramatic story of three young women on a journey in search of family amidst the destruction of the post-Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who rediscovers their story and its vital connection to her own students' lives. In her distinctive voice, Lisa Wingate brings to life startling stories from actual "Lost Friends" advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold off. Louisiana, 1875: In the tumultuous aftermath of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now-destitute plantation; Juneau Jane, her illegitimate free-born Creole half-sister; and Hannie, Lavinia's former slave. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following dangerous roads rife with ruthless vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and eight siblings before slavery's end, the pilgrimage westward reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the seemingly limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope. Louisiana, 1987: For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt--until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, seems suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled live oaks and run-down plantation homes lies the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything"--
Subjects: HIstorical fiction.; Women; Poverty;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 4
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The book of lost friends [sound recording] : a novel / by Wingate, Lisa,author,narrator.; Amoss, Sophie,narrator.; Flanagan, Lisa,narrator.; Hoffman, Dominic,narrator.; Jones, Sullivan(Narrator),narrator.; Miles, Robin,narrator.; Turpin, Bahni,narrator.; Random House Audio Publishing,publisher.;
Read by Sophie Amoss and Bahni Turpin, with Lisa Flanagan, Dominic Hoffman, Sullivan Jones, Robin Miles, and Lisa Wingate."From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours comes a new novel inspired by little-known historical events: a dramatic story of three young women on a journey in search of family amidst the destruction of the post-Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who rediscovers their story and its vital connection to her own students' lives. In her distinctive voice, Lisa Wingate brings to life startling stories from actual "Lost Friends" advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold off. Louisiana, 1875: In the tumultuous aftermath of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now-destitute plantation; Juneau Jane, her illegitimate free-born Creole half-sister; and Hannie, Lavinia's former slave. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following dangerous roads rife with ruthless vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and eight siblings before slavery's end, the pilgrimage westward reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the seemingly limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope. Louisiana, 1987: For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt--until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, seems suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled live oaks and run-down plantation homes lies the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything"--
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Historical fiction.; Poverty; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Admiral / by Stockwin, Julian,author.;
1814: Ashore on leave, Captain Sir Thomas Kydd learns of a dismal harvest and general hardship among the population. In Germany, Napoleon Bonaparte is celebrating victories that once again make his name feared throughout Europe. An armistice is signed and while the Allies lick their wounds Bonaparte sets to preparing for a grand advance. And, in a fragile peace, and saddled with huge war debts, the government has no choice but to place HMS Thunderer, along with many other Royal Navy ships, in reserve, until the Navy can decide what to do with their great fleets. Meanwhile, Kydd is offered an admiral's flag but this is the West Africa station and the anti-slavery operations set in fever-ridden swamps. Despite the obvious dangers and hardships, Kydd sees this as the realisation of his life's ambition and readies for sea in his beloved Thunderer as his flagship. In a turn of the tide Bonaparte is defeated by the Allies and exiled to the tiny island of Elba. Then electrifying news breaks out -- the tyrant has escaped and is marching on Paris, the citizens flocking to join him. The British government as well is rocked by a realisation that Napoleon's invasion fleet is still in being and if the French navy declares for him they can sail from the ports now free of blockade and make the invasion of England a reality. The Channel Fleet has been stood down, its ships in various stages of repair, its commander on leave in the country. There's one man in active service who happens to be on the spot -- Admiral Sir Thomas Kydd. With frantic haste he's appointed temporary commander-in-chief to sail with all the men-o'-war that can be scraped together to stand athwart the French. Kydd knows this will probably mean the sacrifice of not only his ships but himself and his men. He calls on subterfuge and daring to flaunt defiance and resolution until the Battle of Waterloo settles the matter. Then, he has the satisfaction of seeing Napoleon Bonaparte carried off to St Helena, from whence he can never return.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Sea fiction.; War fiction.; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821; Admirals; Battleships; Kydd, Thomas (Fictitious character); Seafaring life;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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River of the gods : genius, courage, and betrayal in the search for the source of the Nile / by Millard, Candice,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From the New York Times bestselling author of RIVER OF DOUBT and DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC, the stirring story of one of the great feats of exploration of all time, and its complicated legacy The Nile River is the longest in the world. Its fertile floodplain allowed for rise to the great civilization of ancient Egypt, but for millennia the location of its headwaters was shrouded in mystery. Pharaonic and Roman attempts to find it were stymied by a giant labyrinthine swamp, and subsequent expeditions got nofurther. In the 19th century, the discovery and translation of the Rosetta Stone set off a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe - and extendtheir colonial empires. Two British men - Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke - were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England. Burton was already famous for being the first non-Muslim to travel to Mecca, disguised as an Arab chieftain. He spoke twenty-nine languages, was a decorated soldier, and literally wrote the book on sword-fighting techniques for the British Army. He was also mercurial, subtle, and an iconoclastic atheist. Speke was a young aristocrat and Army officerdetermined to make his mark, passionate about hunting, Burton's opposite in temperament and beliefs. From the start the two men clashed, Speke chafing under Burton's command and Burton disapproving of Speke's ignorance of the people whose lands through which they traveled. They would endure tremendous hardships, illness, and constant setbacks. Two years in, deep in the African interior, Burton became too sick to press on, but Speke did, and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christened Lake Victoria. When they returned to England, Speke rushed to take credit, disparaging Burton. Burton disputed his claim, and Speke launched another expedition to Africa to prove it. The two became venomous enemies, with the public siding with the more charismatic Burton, to Speke's great envy. The day before they were to publicly debate, Speke shot himself. Yet there was a third man on both expeditions, his name obscured by imperial annals, whose exploits were even more extraordinary. This was Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who was enslaved and shipped from his home village in East Africa to India. When the man who purchased him died, he made his way into the local Sultan's army, and eventually traveled back to Africa, where he used his resourcefulness, linguisticprowess and raw courage to forge a living as a guide. Without his talents, it is likely that neither Englishman would have come close to the headwaters of the Nile, or perhaps even survived. In RIVER OF THE GODS Candice Millard has written another peerless story of courage and adventure, set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers"--
Subjects: Bombay, Sidi Mubarak; Burton, Richard Francis, Sir, 1821-1890; Speke, John Hanning, 1827-1864; Explorers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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