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A love song for Ricki Wilde [text (large print)] : a novel / by Williams, Tia,1975-author.;
"Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing. Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn't one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she's the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they're long-stemmed roses, she's a dandelion: an adorable bloom that's actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her. When regal nonagenarian, Ms. Della, invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the music, stories and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmer. One evening in February as the heady, curiously off-season scent of night-blooming jasmine fills the air, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way. Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance, and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked"--
Subjects: Romance fiction.; Large print books.; Novels.; Florists; Man-woman relationships; Women artists;

Wild women and the blues / by Bryce, Denny S.,author.;
"1925: Chicago is the jazz capital of the world, and the Dreamland Cafe is the ritziest black-and-tan club in town. Honoree Dalcour is a sharecropper's daughter, willing to work hard and dance every night on her way to the top. Dreamland offers a path to the good life, socializing with celebrities like Louis Armstrong and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. But Chicago is also awash in bootleg whiskey, gambling, and gangsters. And a young woman driven by ambition might risk more than she can stand to lose. 2015: Film student Sawyer Hayes arrives at the bedside of 110-year-old Honoree Dalcour, still reeling from a devastating loss that has taken him right to the brink. Sawyer has rested all his hope on this frail but formidable woman, the only living link to the legendary Oscar Micheaux. If he's right-if she can fill in the blanks in his research, perhaps he can complete his thesis and begin a new chapter in his life. But the links Honoree makes are not ones he's expecting ... Piece by piece, Honoree reveals her past and her secrets, while Sawyer fights tooth and nail to keep his. It's a story of courage and ambition, hot jazz and illicit passions"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; African Americans; Nightclubs; Nineteen twenties; Women dancers;

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny A Novel [electronic resource] : by Desai, Kiran.aut; CloudLibrary;
BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLIST • KIRKUS PRIZE FINALIST A spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years—an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize–winning author of The Inheritance of Loss “A transcendent triumph . . . not so much a novel as a marvel.”—The New York Times Book Review “A spectacular literary achievement. I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever.”—Ann Patchett “Devastating, lyrical, and deeply romantic . . . an unmitigated joy to read.”—Khaled Hosseini One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Fall: The New York Times, Oprah Daily, Time, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, Book Riot, Publishers Weekly, and more When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that served only to drive Sonia and Sunny apart. Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India. She fears that she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary;
© 2025., Knopf Canada,

World's fastest man* : the incredible life of Ben Johnson / by Ormsby, Mary,author.;
For twenty-four hours in the summer of 1988, Canada's Ben Johnson was the most celebrated athlete on the planet. He'd won the 100-metre sprint at the Seoul Olympics in a world-record 9.79 seconds and just had time to say, "A gold medal - that's something no one can take away from you," before testing positive for performance enhancing drugs and giving back his medal. Admitting to steroid use, Johnson has lived in ignominy ever since, but there's much more to his incredible story. The sprint he won has since been called "the dirtiest race in history," with six of eight competitors linked to doping infractions. The steroid for which Johnson tested positive was not the steroid he was using. There were so many irregularities and mistakes in his testing that credible experts now say he should never have been disqualified and some see a conspiracy of Johnson's track rivals behind his disgrace. Sportswriter Mary Ormsby was on the scene in Seoul. Now, with unprecedented access to Johnson, she tells his whole story for the first time - the rise of a skinny kid working Jamaican sugar estates to track-and-field superstardom to his lifetime ban from the sport and his unyielding efforts to determine exactly what happened to him on that fateful night in 1988.
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Johnson, Ben, 1961-; Doping in sports.; Sprinters;

The puppets of Spelhorst / by DiCamillo, Kate,author.; Corduner, Allan,narrator.; Morstad, Julie,illustrator.; Playaway Products, LLC,issuing body.;
Narrated by Allan Corduner.Shut up in a trunk by a taciturn old sea captain with a secret, five friendsa king, a wolf, a girl, a boy, and an owlbicker, boast, and comfort one another in the dark. Individually, they dream of song and light, freedom and flight, purpose and glory, but they all agree they are part of a larger story, bound each to each by chance, bonded by the heart's mysteries. When at last their shared fate arrives, landing them on a mantel in a blue room in the home of two little girls, the truth is more astonishing than any of them could have imagined. A beloved author of modern classics draws on her most moving themes with humor, heart, and wisdom in the first of the Norendy Tales, a projected trio of novellas linked by place and mood, each illustrated in black and white by a different virtuoso illustrator. This first tale is one that promises to soothe and strengthen us on our journey, leading us through whatever dark forest we find ourselves in.Grades 3 - 6.
Subjects: Novellas.; Fairy tales.; Action and adventure fiction.; Children's audiobooks.; Book plus audio.; Dyslexia-friendly books.; Puppets; Friendship; Toys; Storytelling;

The Rose Arbor : a novel / by Bowen, Rhys,author.;
London: 1968. Liz Houghton is languishing as an obituary writer at a London newspaper when a young girl's disappearance captivates the city. If Liz can break the story, it's her way into the newsroom. She already has a scoop: her best friend, Marisa, is a police officer assigned to the case. Liz follows Marisa to Dorset, where they make another disturbing discovery. Over two decades earlier, three girls disappeared while evacuating from London. One was found murdered in the woods near a train line. The other two were never seen again. As Liz digs deeper, she finds herself drawn to the village of Tydeham, which was requisitioned by the military during the war and left in ruins. After all these years, what could possibly link the missing girls to this abandoned village? And why does a place Liz has never seen before seem so strangely familiar?
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Historical fiction.; Novels.; Best friends; Missing persons; Murder; Policewomen; Women journalists; Women private investigators;

Innie Shadows [electronic resource] : by Coetzee, Olivia M..aut; Coetzee, Olivia M..; cloudLibrary;
A taut and unsparing novel about a community plagued by violence, drugs, corruption, and prejudice—but where love and justice prevail. The unidentifiable remains of a body are discovered in a field in Shadow Heights, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. Ley, the youngest detective at her precinct, is assigned the case and quickly begins her investigation. Soon after, Ley receives a phone call saying that Carl, a friend struggling with a meth addiction, has gone missing after being linked to the Drug King of Shadow Heights. Meanwhile, a local church group believe they are cleansing the area by burning sinners, starting with homosexuals. The search for Carl and the truth leads the reader through the vibrant lives of the residents of Shadow Heights. Violence, poverty, and shame plague the neighbourhood, but there is also love, acceptance, and hope to be found among friends and family in the shadows of everyday life. A pioneering work of fiction in which the dispossessed tell their own stories, Innie Shadows is the first novel to be translated from Kaaps, a dialect of Afrikaans that was until recently a spoken language only.General adult.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Crime; Cultural Heritage; Crime;
© 2024., House of Anansi Press Inc,

A stitch in time / by Armstrong, Kelley,author.;
Thorne Manor has always been haunted and it has always haunted Bronwyn Dale. As a young girl, Bronwyn could pass through a time slip in her great-aunt's house, where she'd visit William Thorne, a boy her own age, born two centuries earlier. In the wake of a family tragedy, the house was shuttered and Bronwyn was convinced that William existed only in her imagination. Twenty years later, Bronwyn inherits Thorne Manor, exactly when she needs it most, her life stalled since her young husband's death years earlier. And when she returns, William is waiting. William Thorne is no longer the calm and quiet boy she remembers. He's a difficult and tempestuous man, his own life marred by a tragedy and scandal that had him retreating to self-imposed exile in his beloved moors. He's also none too pleased with Bronwyn for abandoning him all those years ago. As their friendship rekindles and sparks into something more, Bronwyn must also deal with ghosts in the present version of the house, and soon she realizes they are linked to William and the secret scandal that drove him back to Thorne Manor.
Subjects: Ghost stories.; Paranormal fiction.; Haunted houses; Man-woman relationships;

Many rivers to cross / by Robinson, Peter,1950-author.;
A skinny young boy is found dead-- his body carelessly stuffed into a wheelie bin. Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his team are called to investigate. Who is the boy, and where did he come from? Was his body discarded, or left as a warning to someone? He looks Middle Eastern, but no one on the Eastvale Estate has seen him before. As the local press seize upon an illegal immigrant angle, and the national media cover the story of another stabbing, there is a less newsworthy death: a middle-aged heroin addict found dead of an overdose in another estate, scheduled for redevelopment. Banks finds the threads of each case seem to be connected to the other, and to the dark side of organized crime in Eastvale. Does another thread link to his friend Zelda, who is coming to terms with her own dark past? The truth may be more complex-- or much simpler-- than it seems ...
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Banks, Alan (Fictitious character); Police; Murder; Organized crime;

A treacherous tale / by Penney, Elizabeth.;
"Lately, Molly has been feeling that she might have fallen into a fairy tale: she's reinvigorated the family bookshop Thomas Marlowe--Manuscripts and Folios, made friends in her new home of Cambridge, England, and is even developing a bit of a romance with the handsome Kieran--a bike shop owner with a somewhat intimidating family pedigree. Having recently discovered 'The Strawberry Girls,' a classic children's tale, Molly is thrilled to learn the author, Iona York, lives nearby. But while visiting the famous author at her lovely cottage in nearby Hazelhurst, an old acquaintance of Iona's tumbles off her roof to his death. Then, when one of Iona's daughters--an inspiration for the original Strawberry Girls--goes missing, Molly begins to worry this story might be more Brothers Grimm than happily-ever-after. Especially after Molly learns about the mysterious long-ago death of Iona's husband and co-author of 'The Strawberry Girls'...could past and present crimes be linked? Molly must put the clues together before someone turns this sweet tale sour"--
Subjects: Cozy mysteries.; Detective and mystery fiction.; Bookstore owners; Missing persons; Murder;