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Walk the Blue Fields [electronic resource] : by Keegan, Claire.aut; CloudLibrary;
AN IRISH TIMES TOP 100 IRISH BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY 'Exquisite . so intricately wrought, so strange and beguiling as to entirely bewitch.'GUARDIAN 'Pure magic.' COLM TÓIBÍN 'Lyrical, thoughtful, but with a thick, dark strain of melancholy running through.' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY A long-haired woman moves into the priest's house and sets fire to his furniture. That Christmas, the electricity goes out. A forester mortgages his land and goes off to a seaside town looking for a wife. He finds a woman eating alone in the hotel. A farmer wakes half-naked and realises the money is almost gone. And in the title story, a priest waits on the altar for a bride and battles, all that wedding day, with his memories of a love affair. In her long-awaited second collection, Claire Keegan observes an Ireland wrestling with its past.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Short Stories (single author);
© 2013., Faber & Faber,

The Fact Checker [electronic resource] : by Kelley, Austin.aut; CloudLibrary;
Mirthful, laugh-out-loud funny, and surprisingly philosophical, The Fact Checker is a brilliant debut novel featuring a missing woman who might be perfectly fine, and a single-minded investigator yearning for meaning, morality, and accuracy in an increasingly post-truth world. It’s just a puff piece about a farmer’s market, I said to myself. It’s not going to kill anyone. It started out like any other morning for the Fact Checker. The piece, “Mandeville/Green,” didn’t raise any red flags. There were more pressing stories that week—it being 2004 New York City and all. “Mandeville/Green” was a light, breezy look at a local farm called New Egypt, whose Ramapo tomatoes were quickly becoming the summer’s hottest produce. At first glance, the story seemed straightforward, but one line made the Fact Checker pause: a stray quote from a New Egypt volunteer named Sylvia making a cryptic reference to “nefarious business” at the farmer’s market. “People sell everything here,” she’s alleged to have said. “It ain’t all green.” When Sylvia abruptly disappears the morning after an unexpectedly long night with the Fact Checker, he becomes obsessed with finding her. Did Sylvia discover something unsavory about New Egypt or its messianic owner? Is it possible she had some reason to fear for her safety? Or was it simply something the Fact Checker said? Striking the perfect balance of humor, wonder, sadness, and poignancy, Austin Kelley’s debut novel takes readers on a quixotic quest from one hidden corner of New York City to another—from an underground supper club in the Financial District to an abandoned-boat-turned-anarchist-community-space on the Gowanus Canal. As the story develops, the Fact Checker begins to question his perception of what’s real and what’s not. Facts can be deceiving, after all, and if you aren’t careful, you might miss the truth right in front of your eyes.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary; Humorous;
© 2025., Grove Atlantic,

The hard road out : one woman's escape from North Korea / by Park, Jihyun,1968-author.; Seh-Lynn,1965-author.; translation of:Park, Jihyun,1968-Deux coréennes.English.;
"North Korea is an open-air prison from which there is no escape. Only a handful of men and women have succeeded. Jihyun Park is one of these rare survivors. Twice she left the land of the 'socialist miracle' to flee famine and dictatorship. The first time she ran, she was forced to abandon her father on his deathbed-crossing the border under a hail of bullets. In China she was sold to a farmer, with whom she had a son, before being denounced and forcibly returned to North Korea. Six months later guardsabandoned her, injured, outside a prison camp. She recovered and returned to China to seek her son, now six, before attempting to navigate the long, hard road through the Gobi Desert and into Mongolia. Clear-eyed and resolute, Jihyun's extraordinary storyreveals a Korea far removed from the talk of nuclear weapons and economic sanctions"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Park, Jihyun, 1968-; Defectors; Escapes;

What Have You Done? A Novel [electronic resource] : by Lapena, Shari.aut; cloudLibrary;
"Lapena is a master of manipulation." —USA Today Another knockout domestic suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door Nothing ever happens in sleepy little Fairhill, Vermont. The teenagers get their kicks telling ghost stories in the old graveyard. The parents trust their kids will arrive home safe from school. Everyone knows everyone. Curtains rarely twitch. Front doors are left unlocked. But this morning all of that will change. Because Diana Brewer isn't lying safely in her bed where she belongs. Instead she lies in a hayfield, circled by vultures, discovered by a local farmer. How quickly a girl becomes a ghost. How quickly a town of friendly, familiar faces becomes a town of suspects, a place of fear and paranoia. Someone in Fairhill did this. Everyone wants answers. And one innocent question could be deadly.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Psychological; Suspense; Contemporary Women;
© 2024., Doubleday Canada,

Burial Rites A Novel [electronic resource] : by Kent, Hannah.aut; cloudLibrary;
*Soon to be a major motion picture starring Jennifer Lawrence* A brilliant literary debut, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829. Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard. Riveting and rich with lyricism, BURIAL RITES evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?General adult.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary; Suspense;
© 2013., Little, Brown and Company,

The clergyman's wife / by Greeley, Molly,author.; Austen, Jane,1775-1817.Pride and prejudice.;
Includes bibliographical references.Charlotte Collins, nee Lucas, is the respectable wife of Hunsford's vicar, and sees to her duties by rote: keeping house, caring for their adorable daughter, visiting parishioners, and patiently tolerating the lectures of her awkward husband and his condescending patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Intelligent, pragmatic, and anxious to escape the shame of spinsterhood, Charlotte chose this life, an inevitable one so socially acceptable that its quietness threatens to overwhelm her. Then she makes the acquaintance of Mr. Travis, a local farmer and tenant of Lady Catherine ... In Mr. Travis' company, Charlotte feels appreciated, heard, and seen. For the first time in her life, Charlotte begins to understand emotional intimacy and its effect on the heart-- and how breakable that heart can be. With her sensible nature confronted, and her own future about to take a turn, Charlotte must now question the role of love and passion in a woman's life, and whether they truly matter for a clergyman's wife.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Austen, Jane, 1775-1817.; Spouses of clergy; Man-woman relationships;

Carnegie's maid : a novel / by Benedict, Marie,author.;
Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, and pretending to be her just might get Clara some money to send back home. If she can keep up the ruse, that is. Serving as a lady's maid in the household of Andrew Carnegie requires skills she doesn't have, answering to an icy mistress who rules her sons and her domain with an iron fist. What Clara does have is a resolve as strong as the steel Pittsburgh is becoming famous for, coupled with an uncanny understanding of business, and Andrew begins to rely on her. But Clara can't let her guard down, not even when Andrew becomes something more than an employer. Revealing her past might ruin her future -- and her family's.--Provided by Publisher.
Subjects: Biographical fiction.; Historical fiction.; Carnegie, Andrew, 1835-1919; Housekeepers; Philanthropists; Industrialists; Man-woman relationships;

Toxic toffee / by Flower, Amanda.;
Bailey King's in New York wrapping up a six-week shoot on her first cable TV show, Bailey's Amish Sweets, when she gets a call from her Ohio town's resident busybody. With Easter around the corner, Bailey's been recruited to create a giant toffee bunny for the weeklong springtime festival that will also feature live white rabbits. But back home in Harvest, death becomes the main attraction when Stephen Raber keels over from an apparent heart attack--with Bailey and Raber's pet bunny as witnesses. Except it wasn't Raber's heart that suddenly gave out--a lethal dose of lily of the valley was mixed into a tasty piece of toffee. Who'd want to poison a jovial rabbit farmer who reminded Bailey of an Amish Santa Claus? To solve the murder, she and her sheriff deputy boyfriend Aiden must uncover a twenty-year-old secret. She'll need to pull a rabbit out of a hat to keep a healthy distance from toxic people, including one venomous killer...
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Confectioners; Amish; Murder;

The romantic : the real life of Cashel Greville Ross : a novel / by Boyd, William,1952-author.;
"From the award-winning, internationally bestselling author, a romp of a novel, at once intimate and panoramic, about the adventures and misadventures of a 19th-century zelig. One man, many lives ... Cashel Greville Ross experiences more of everything than most, from the rapturous to the devastating, from surprising good luck to unexpected loss. Born in 1799, Cashel seeks his fortune across the turbulence of multiple continents, from County Cork to London, from Waterloo to Zanzibar, embedded with the East Indian Army in Sri Lanka, sunning himself alongside the Romantic poets in Pisa. He travels the world as a soldier, a farmer, a felon, a writer, even a father. And he experiences all the vicissitudes of existence, including a once-in-a-lifetime love that will haunt the rest of his days. In the end, his great accomplishment is to discover who he truly is-which is the romance of life itself, and the beating heart of The Romantic"--
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Historical fiction.; Humorous fiction.; Novels.; Authors; Ethical problems; Man-woman relationships; Men; Self-actualization (Psychology); Voyages and travels;

True Confessions from the Ninth Concession [electronic resource] : by Needles, Dan.aut; CloudLibrary;
Author and playwright Dan Needles has long delighted readers and audiences alike with his insightful and laugh-out-loud perspective on small-town life, published in such bestselling books as Wingfield's World (Random House, 2011), Wingfield's Hope (Key Porter, 2005), With Axe and Flask (McFarlane, Walter and Ross, 2002) and Letters From Wingfield Farm (Key Porter, 1988). In 1988, Needles and his wife left the city to start a family in a country community located two hours north of Toronto. Together they stocked their farm with sheep, cattle, chickens, pigs and, eventually, four children. Needles' charming chronicle unfolds in essays dated from 1997 to 2016, offering homespun advice for successful country living--like whether to wave from the elbow or to merely raise one finger from the steering wheel when passing a neighbour in the car. He cautions on rural superstitions, such as when his neighbour hesitated before selling him weaner pigs because every time he does the wife of the farmer who's buying them becomes pregnant--which turned out to be true. Here too is the tale of an unlikely friendship between a "borderline" collie ("he's never bitten anything in his life and the sheep are catching on") and an odd duck named Ferdinand, as well as other hilarious stories involving an assortment of farm animals, including the weapon of choice to properly dispatch a rooster-gone-bad; the risks of giving a name to a potential Sunday dinner entrée; and how to outsmart a free-range pig. With his witty insight, Needles shares the art of neighbouring in the country--a place made for visits, and "where a figure walking across your field is more of a reason to put the kettle on than to call the police." True Confessions from the Ninth Concession is a sesquicentennial crop of antics and aphorisms by Canada's funniest farmer--one that presents a wonderful escape for world-weary city dwellers, and affirmative reading for anyone who is from, or has moved to, rural Canada.General adult.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Essays; Animals; Personal Memoirs;
© 2017., Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.,