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The secret pocket / by Janicki, Peggy.; Victor, Carrielynn,1982-;
The true story of how Indigenous girls at a Canadian residential school sewed secret pockets into their dresses to hide food and survive. Mary was four years old when she was first taken away to the Lejac Indian Residential School. It was far away from her home and family. Always hungry and cold, there was little comfort for young Mary. Speaking Dakelh was forbidden and the nuns and priest were always watching, ready to punish. Mary and the other girls had a genius idea: drawing on the knowledge from their mothers, aunts and grandmothers who were all master sewers, the girls would sew hidden pockets in their clothes to hide food. They secretly gathered materials and sewed at nighttime, then used their pockets to hide apples, carrots and pieces of bread to share with the younger girls. Based on the author's mother's experience at residential school, The Secret Pocket is a story of survival and resilience in the face of genocide and cruelty. But it's also a celebration of quiet resistance to the injustice of residential schools and how the sewing skills passed down through generations of Indigenous women gave these girls a future, stitch by stitch.
Subjects: Illustrated works.; Off-reservation boarding schools; Carrier Indians; Carrier Indians; Dakelh; Indigenous students; Indigenous peoples;

As death draws near / by Huber, Anna Lee,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."The latest mystery from the national bestselling author of A Study in Death tangles Lady Kiera Darby and Sebastian Gage in a dangerous web of religious and political intrigue. July 1831. In the midst of their idyllic honeymoon in England's Lake District, Kiera and Gage's seclusion is interrupted by a missive from Kiera's new father-in-law. A deadly incident involving a distant relative of the Duke of Wellington has taken place at an abbey south of Dublin, Ireland, and he insists that she and Gage look into the matter. Intent on discovering what kind of monster could murder a woman of the cloth, the couple travels to Rathfarnham Abbey school. Soon, a second nun is slain in broad daylight near a classroom full of young girls. With the sinful killer growing bolder, the mother superior would like to send the students home, but the growing civil unrest in Ireland would make the journey treacherous. Before long, Kiera starts to suspect that some of the girls may be hiding a sinister secret. With the killer poised to strike yet again, Kiera and Gage must make haste and unmask the fiend before their matrimonial bliss comes to an untimely end."--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Historical fiction.; Serial murder investigation;

Ripeness : a novel / by Moss, Sarah,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Edith, just out of school, has been sent from her quiet English life to rural Italy. It is the 1960s, and her mother has issued strict instructions: tend to her sister, ballet dancer Lydia, in the final weeks of her scandalous pregnancy; help at the birth; make a phone call that will summon the nuns who will spirit the child away to a new home. Decades later, happily divorced, recently moved, and full of new energy, Edith has made a life of contentment and comfort in Ireland. Then her best friend Maebh receives a shocking phone call from an American man. He claims to be a brother she never knew existed: a child her mother gave up and never spoke of again. As Edith helps her friend reckon with this new idea of family and how it might change her life, her thoughts turn back to Lydia and her own fractured history. What did they give up when they sent him away? What kind of life has he been given? And how did it change their own lives? In Ripeness, Sarah Moss has again tapped into the questions that haunt us individually and as communities. Ripeness is an extraordinary novel about familial love and the bonds we forge across time, migration and new beginnings, and what it is to have somewhere to belong"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Novels.; Belonging (Social psychology); English; English; Families; Interpersonal relations; Life change events; Sisters;

How we live is how we die / by Chödrön, Pema,author.; Waxman, Joseph,editor.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Beloved Buddhist nun and bestselling author Pema Chödrön's wise words on working with the countless changes in our lives to find more freedom and less fear. As much as we might try to resist, endings happen in every moment-the end of a relationship, the end of a day, the end of a breath, and ultimately the end of life. And behind each ending is a beginning-though it may be unclear what the beginning holds. How We Live is How We'll Die shares Pema Chödrön's wise words on working with this flow of life-learning to live with more ease, joy, and compassion though uncertainty; embracing new beginnings; and ultimately preparing for death with more wonder and less fear. Beloved teacher Pema Chödrön writes this book in her 85th year, and her insights on making friends with change are poignant for readers of all ages. This book shares Pema's thoughts on the bardos-the Tibetan teachings on what happens between this life and the next-and how they are relevant in each moment of our life now. She also shares wisdom on working with challenging emotions of craving, aggression, and ignorance, transforming them into a path of awakening and love. The more freedom we can find in our hearts and minds as we live, the more fearlessly we'll be able to confront death andlife's countless changes"--
Subjects: Buddhism; Death; Future life;

The home for unwanted girls : a novel / by Goodman, Joanna,1969-author.;
"In 1950s Quebec, the French and English tolerate each other with precarious civility--much like Maggie Hughes' parents. Maggie's English-speaking father has ambitions for his daughter that don't include marriage to the poor French boy, Gabriel Phénix. But Maggie's heart is captured by Gabriel. When she becomes pregnant at fifteen, her parents force her to give baby Elodie up for adoption and get her life ‘back on track'. Elodie is raised in Quebec's impoverished orphanage system. It's an insecure enough existence that takes a tragic turn when Elodie, along with thousands of other orphans in Quebec, is declared mentally ill as the result of a new law that provides more funding to psychiatric hospitals than to orphanages. Withstanding abysmal treatment at the nuns' hands, Elodie finally earns her freedom at seventeen, when she is thrust into an alien, often unnerving, world. Maggie, married to a businessman eager to start a family, cannot forget the daughter she was forced to abandon, and a chance reconnection with Gabriel spurs a wrenching choice. Over the years Maggie's and Elodie's lives have intertwined but never touched, but they are finally brought together when Maggie goes in search of her long-lost daughter, reclaiming the truth that has been denied them both."--Jacket flap.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Historical fiction.; Teenage mothers; Orphans; Mothers and daughters;

The color of hope : a novel / by Steel, Danielle,author.;
Following the unexpected death of her beloved husband, art gallery owner Samantha Thompson finds herself adrift in their Malibu beach house. Her three adult children ... scattered from New York to London to Milan ... are concerned for her well-being and encourage her to take a trip to Paris. Once abroad, an impulsive day trip from Paris to Biarritz leads Samantha to discover the charming medieval village of Arcangues in the Basque countryside, with its unique and iconic blue shutters and historic château. The château is the ancestral home of Xavier de Bonport, who is trapped in a loveless marriage and trying to dig himself out financially after a business failed due to the pandemic. He needs rental income as urgently as Samantha needs a refuge. With Xavier living in a smaller house on the property, Samantha begins to transform the château into a temporary home. As they each sense compassion and resilience in the other, as well as kindness, a friendship blossoms. Inspired by the stories of Xavier's grandmother, who saved hundreds of Jewish children during World War II, Samantha considers fostering some children at the request of the local Dominican nuns, whose orphanage is filled to capacity. As a newfound family begins to fill the château, Samantha and Xavier wonder if their friendship is becoming something more.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Dwellings; Foster children; Friendship; Man-woman relationships; Orphans; Widows;

The color of hope [text (large print)] : a novel / by Steel, Danielle,author.;
Following the unexpected death of her beloved husband, art gallery owner Samantha Thompson finds herself adrift in their Malibu beach house. Her three adult children ... scattered from New York to London to Milan ... are concerned for her well-being and encourage her to take a trip to Paris. Once abroad, an impulsive day trip from Paris to Biarritz leads Samantha to discover the charming medieval village of Arcangues in the Basque countryside, with its unique and iconic blue shutters and historic château. The château is the ancestral home of Xavier de Bonport, who is trapped in a loveless marriage and trying to dig himself out financially after a business failed due to the pandemic. He needs rental income as urgently as Samantha needs a refuge. With Xavier living in a smaller house on the property, Samantha begins to transform the château into a temporary home. As they each sense compassion and resilience in the other, as well as kindness, a friendship blossoms. Inspired by the stories of Xavier's grandmother, who saved hundreds of Jewish children during World War II, Samantha considers fostering some children at the request of the local Dominican nuns, whose orphanage is filled to capacity. As a newfound family begins to fill the château, Samantha and Xavier wonder if their friendship is becoming something more.
Subjects: Large print books.; Domestic fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Dwellings; Foster children; Friendship; Man-woman relationships; Orphans; Widows;

The virgins of Venice : a novel / by Buonaguro, Gina,author.;
Venice in 1509 is on the brink of war. The displeasure of Pope Julius II is a continuing threat to the republic, as is the barely contained fighting in the countryside. Amid this turmoil, noblewoman Justina Soranzo, just sixteen, hopes to make a rare love marriage with her sweetheart, Luca Cicogna. Her hopes are dashed when her father decides her younger sister, Rosa, will marry in a strategic alliance and Justina will be sent to the San Zaccaria convent, in the tradition of aristocratic daughters. Lord Soranzo is not acting only to protect his family. It's well known that he is in debt to both his trading partners and the most infamous courtesan in the city, La Diamante, and the pressure is closing in. After arriving at the convent, Justina takes solace in her aunt Livia, one of the nuns, and in the growing knowledge that all is not strictly devout at San Zaccaria. Justina is shocked to discover how the women of the convent find their own freedom in what seems to her like a prison. But secrets and scandals breach the convent walls, and Justina learns there may be even worse fates for her than the veil, if La Diamante makes good on her threats. Desperate to protect herself and the ones she loves, Justina turns to Luca for help. She finds she must trust her own heart to make the impossible decisions that may save or ruin them all.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Convents; Man-woman relationships; Nobility; Secrecy;

Coexistence : stories / by Belcourt, Billy-Ray,author.; Belcourt, Billy-Ray.Short stories.Selections.;
"A collection of intersecting stories about Indigenous love and loneliness from a Giller-longlisted author and one of contemporary literature's most boundless minds. Across the prairies and Canada's west coast, on reservations and university campuses, at literary festivals and existential crossroads, the characters in Coexistence are searching for connection. They're learning to live with and understand one another, to see beauty and terror side by side, and to accept that the past, present, and future can inhabit a single moment. An aging mother confides in her son about an intimate friendship from her distant girlhood. A middling poet is haunted by the cliché his life has become. A chorus of anonymous gay men dispense unvarnished truths about their sex lives. A man freshly released from prison finds that life on the outside has sinister strictures of its own. A PhD student dog-sits for his parents at what was once a lodging for nuns operating a residential school -- a house where the spectre of Catholicism comes to feel eerily literal. Bearing the compression, crystalline sentences, and emotional potency that have characterized his earlier books, Coexistence is a testament to Belcourt's mastery of and playfulness in any literary form. A vital addition to an already rich catalogue, this is a must-read collection and the work of an author at the height of his powers."--
Subjects: Short stories.; Indigenous peoples; Interpersonal relations; Loneliness; Love;

Galway's Edge / by Bruen, Ken,author.;
"Edge, a shadow organization made up of the most powerful figures in Galway society, exists to rid the city of criminals and abusers who have evaded the law. Long wary of the organization, the Vatican is not pleased when rumors start swirling that one of the Catholic Church's own priests has joined its ranks. And who better to ask to intercede than the whiskey-swigging ex-cop who always seems to have one foot in the pub and another among Ireland's clergy? Lately, Jack has been spending his days sitting at the bedside of a man he put into a coma and taking care of a little dog named Trip, bequeathed to him by a dead nun. Then an envoy to the Archdiocese shows up at his door, asking Jack to go speak to a priest named Kevin Whelan and dissuade him from any involvement with Edge. Jack accepts the mission, but the next day Father Whelan is found dead, hanging from a rope in his own backyard. Would Edge really kill one of their own? And if not, who else would be bold enough to take on the most powerful organization in the city? As more Edge members are murdered, the Vatican grows alarmed that someone even worse will take their place. It's up to Jack Taylor to nail the culprit before Edge is dissolved completely and Galway is thrown into chaos."--
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Novels.; Taylor, Jack (Fictitious character); Murder; Priests; Priests; Private investigators; Secret societies; Vigilantes;