These titles were recently added to the collection of Yakima Valley Libraries
The other Moctezuma girls
Robleda, Sofia, author.
Tenochtitlan, 1551. Thirty years after the Spanish Conquest destroyed everything she loved, the last Aztec empress has passed and left behind a pristine yet tenuous legacy for her children. As her last will and testament is read out, her daughter Isabel suspects that another account of her mother's life may exist, hidden away, chapter by chapter, in the Valley of Mexico. Following each clue, Isabel is determined to find out who her mother really was and to discover the secrets she buried in order to survive. Joined by her siblings and a handsome young cook named Juan, Isabel embarks on a perilous journey to piece together the past--a journey that will force the party to brave the brutal viceroyal court, face fearsome legends in mystical chinampas, and trek through desert, fire, and snow. As Isabel's feelings for Juan grow, she confronts everything she thought she knew about her Spanish father, her empress mother, and herself. Facing everything from the tunnels of ancient pyramids to the summit of an active volcano, Isabel will meet every challenge to fulfill an epic quest for the truth.....
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Whale Harbor : a novel
Keane, Mary Beth, author.
1960s, Ireland. In the wake of tragedy, a father makes choices for his eleven grieving sons. The older brothers will emigrate to England for work, while the younger ones will stay behind. The second eldest, Macdara, is offered a job on a Montana cattle ranch and sets off. His spirited younger brother Rian begs to come along and Mac promises to bring Rian to America as soon as he’s old enough. But then one day Mac gets a call that Rian has gone missing. His disappearance will haunt Mac and his family across decades. ....
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Luna, phoenix, queen
Orringer, Julie, author.
Dava and Barr Pennington, professors at a Midwestern university, both harbor potent secrets. Fiction writing is his specialty, English literature is hers. But Dava is unhappy in their marriage, and secretly in love with a colleague, Svetlana White, who teaches in the Russian Studies department; spurred by their complicated liaison, she spends her nights working on a novel about two women who run a domestic violence shelter in coastal Maine. Though she loves the work and the refuge it provides, the writing becomes increasingly difficult as her memory begins to fail; tests reveal that she’s suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s. After a precipitous decline, she moves to a memory-care facility in a neighboring town. Soon afterward, her husband, alone in the house at night, discovers her hidden manuscript, which he reads with envy, and then with anger, as he extrapolates his wife’s affair from the relationship described in the novel’s pages. Over the next two years he rewrites the novel and publishes it as his own, to wide acclaim. But persistent feelings of guilt lead him to confess his theft to an unlikely party, who leads others to the truth. In a narrative that spans four decades and four thousand miles, Luna, Phoenix, Queen illuminates the power of storytelling and explores the terror of losing the ability to make sense of our world. It is a cry of rage against our vulnerability and helplessness; an acknowledgment of the mysteries beneath the familiar surface of our world; and ultimately, if unexpectedly, a radical testament to love in its many forms.....
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The Christmas book flood
White, Roseanna M., author.
In this charming World War II historical romance novella inspired by Jolabokaflod, Iceland's Christmas Book Flood, an author falls in love with a man who doesn't know he is her editor... Iceland, December 1944: Tatiana Eliasdottir is looking forward to welcoming her niece Elea for Christmas. She's determined to give the little girl a joyful holiday and take her mind off troubles at home. Soon, however, the publishing house where Tatiana works is flooded with orders thanks to the first issue of a seasonal book catalog. With the war causing so many shortages, Icelanders are eager to give their loved ones something that isn't rationed, and books are the perfect solution to their dilemma. Anders Johannsson is an editor who shares Tatiana's love for stories. While he wishes to know her better, he's never dared pursue more than friendship. They are first and foremost colleagues. But when Tatiana's attempts to cheer Elea fail, Tatiana recruits him to help, a plea he can't refuse. He is, after all, not only an editor but a beloved children's book author and devoted uncle to his adoring nieces and nephews. As the two creatively bring Icelandic Christmas traditions to life for Elea and frantically work to meet the demands of the publisher's holiday rush, Tatiana finds herself increasingly drawn to kind, thoughtful Anders. But if a love is to grow between them, she will need to reveal her closely held secret: she is the mysterious author of a popular new novel... and Anders is her editor.....
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The memory of borrowed books
Anderson, Meg, author.
Deep in the library lives a hidden room...where magic lines the shelves and memories lie in wait...Ready for readers daring enough to finally discover the truth. In the coastal town of Foxhollow Bay, librarian Claire Ashford keeps her life as meticulously ordered as the centuries-old library she calls home. But when the town announces plans to shut it down, her sanctuary, and the life she's built within its walls, begins to crumble. One night, while wandering the stacks after hours, Claire discovers a door that shouldn't exist. And behind it lies a secret room filled with books no one else can see. Each book pulls her into the memories of those who have passed through the library's doors--moments half-lived and stories left unfinished. Buried within these pages is a message the library has been trying to share, urging Claire to uncover the path to saving it. With the demolition looming and time running out, Claire must piece together what the library is trying to show her. But one book keeps calling her back, and in its pages is a memory that could change everything. One that reveals the key to saving the library may be tangled in her own memories more than she ever could have imagined.....
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Fair ones : a double novel
Millet, Lydia, 1968- author.
Lydia Millet's dialogue-driven, fast-moving double novel Fair Ones follows two Brooklyn women in their forties reeling from the sudden and baffling death of their friend Claire. Fair, Mara's account, opens in the wake of initial shock as she and Jen come to grips with the enigma of Claire's killing. Ones, told from Jen's point of view, picks up a year later as she and Mara wrestle with new relationships and old secrets. In this vibrant, funny-sad fiction of companionship and solitude, Millet dazzles with dry wit and sharp prose. The narrators' inner and outer conversations, and their ongoing entanglement with the memory of Claire, explore the ways we create and define ourselves through others. Fair Ones is a love song to the intricate annoyances of families both chosen and unchosen--and to the banality, bombast, and humble beauties of midlife friendships.....
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The radiant dark
Oliva, Alexandra, author.
It's March 1980, and Carol Girard and her husband are living an ordinary life in a small town in the Adirondacks. They have just had their first child, and though Carol is struggling with the challenges of new motherhood, her future seems clear. Until something extraordinary happens: an inexplicable flickering of light in the sky, which is ultimately determined to be communication from intelligent life on another planet. But these beings are eleven light-years away, and nothing is known about them other than the fact that they seem to know we exist too. And so begins a decades-long exchange of messages with this mysterious, faraway civilization. As humanity reels from a shifting understanding of its place in the universe, we follow the stories of the Girard family: Carol, whose fascination with this other life sparks a desperate search for spiritual meaning; Michael, her loyal son, who finds solace not in the stars above his head but in the ground beneath his feet; and Ro, Carol's bright and ambitious daughter, whose childhood goal to work in interstellar communication will evolve into something far grander. Tracing five decades of love, loss, ambition, and self-discovery, The Radiant Dark is a stunning examination of a family navigating their lives with the knowledge that we are not alone.....
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Hungered : a novel
Rizkalla, Amanda, author.
Sofia's mother promises that soon she'll have her own bedroom to decorate. Soon, too, she'll be able to see her friends, go back to school, and eat the colorful, tempting cakes in the grocery store's display case. For now, though, twelve-year-old Sofia lives with her mother and younger brother in their car. For now, Sofia's days are a blur of freeways and strip malls as her mother searches for a safe place to park for the night. For now, Sofia tries to carve out a space and an identity for herself while grappling with her family's disintegration.....
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Atomic hearts : a novel
Cummins, Megan, author.
I’d been raised on secrets, I knew they weren’t a good idea. Sixteen and living in a small Michigan town, Gertie is harboring a secret heavy enough to fracture her closest friendship. She and Cindy have been bonded since birth by the fact their fathers are addicts, and their unsteady home lives are a little easier when they’re together, sprawled on a trampoline with pilfered vodka and dreams of moving to New York. Everything was changing so fast. I didn’t know what was real. After an accident involving a bonfire and an aerosol canister sends Gertie to the hospital, she finds herself with nowhere to go but to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to live with her newly sober father. She sees it as a chance to escape the hometown drama she’s caused, but drama finds her all the same: parties without curfews, boys without boundaries, a compromising photo, tragedy back home . . . and her father, once again teetering on the edge of oblivion. Terrified of the consequences of being honest with Cindy, her sole refuge is the fantasy novel she’s writing, a portal to another world and the story of a young girl roaming a strange land, trusting her wits to survive. I had to become a different, stronger person before I’d even figured out who I was in the first place. Years later, when ghosts of the past surface, Gertie decides to write again about that explosive summer from the stabler shores of adulthood. Powered by the fierce imagination of her youth, Gertie finally allows herself the grace to tell a version of her narrative that she always hoped would be true.....
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A serving of hope
Kashiwai, Hisashi, 1952- author.
If I hadn't searched for the 'flavors' of my memories, I think I would have spent my life endlessly chasing the past . . . Down a Kyoto alleyway, near Higashi Honganji Temple, the Kamogawa Diner attracts lost souls. The father-daughter "food detective" duo of Chef Nagare and Detective Koishi help their clientele who seek meaning in their lives by helping them access lost memories through the food of their past. From the onigiri gifted alongside cherished promises to the ginger pork that became a memory of unrequited love, the not-too-sour chilled noodles from grandma's house, and the macaroni gratin shared by a father and young son for the last time, there is no dish or memory too complex for father and daughter. Welcome to another delicious mystery. The Kamogawa Diner is a tonic for the soul, and its customers will leave with a warm belly and a full heart.....
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Music against the night : a novel
Li, Yiyun, 1972- author.
In Dublin, as the eighteenth century nears its end, a young musical virtuoso comes of age. John Field, an awkward and sensitive child, is preternaturally gifted, and his family has visions of him becoming the next Mozart. His talent takes him far―to England, France, and then Russia, where he becomes a famous pianist and composes dreamy, languorous melodies that enchant the night air. John calls them nocturnes, but the prodigy who immortalizes them is Chopin. Oceans away in Pondicherry, in French India, Adelaide Percheron has a startling rise of her own. Orphaned at a young age, she is raised by her imperious, enterprising grandmother. Her cousins give her the name Percherette, an impish reminder that despite their shared relations, Adelaide is not one of the crowd, owing to her parents’ differing ancestry. Without a connection to aristocracy or the luxury of riches, only marriage seems to offer prosperity―until she sets her sights on a pianoforte. Driven by her secret love of music and a desire to see the world, Percherette engineers her exodus, escaping to Paris and later to Moscow, as Napoleon’s army sets out to conquer the continent. Peopled by rival prodigies, irate tutors, begrudging guardians, and the true-to-life masters of the trade, Yiyun Li’s magisterial, polyphonic novel depicts two aspiring musicians―destined to be husband and wife―in pursuit of success. Their struggles unfold amid political and artistic upheaval and pit them against the forces of their time. As John and Adelaide each try to chart a path between talent and genius, success and legacy, profit and passion, they must decide what, and even who, is worth sacrificing along the way. Drawing inspiration from the past but finding entirely new forms, Music Against the Night comes to life with the sweep and dimension of the Romantic era and a deep understanding of the demands of living and of art.....
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Mercy's child
Evans, Richard Paul, author.
In 1874, Etta Wheeler leaves her quiet upstate New York farm town behind to follow her husband into the bustling and sometimes brutal world of Gilded Age New York City. Surrounded by wealth, power, and ambition, Etta struggles to find where she belongs until a chance encounter in the tenements of Hell's Kitchen changes everything. There she meets a young girl trapped in conditions no child should endure. What began as one woman's determination to help a single child soon draws Etta into a battle against the city's most powerful institutions, forcing her to discover a courage she never knew she possessed.....
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Die famous
Koryta, Michael, author.
On the day Savannah Cody spots her first gray hair, she decides it's time to murder the father of her only child. Edward "Nickel" Terhune is the getaway driver for the Brady Gang, one of the FBI's most wanted criminals -- with an enticing bounty set on his head. Dragging her son, Alford, and her father, Wendell, a retired railroad detective, along for the quest, Savannah embarks to find the man she once loved and the nation now fears, journeying across an America transformed by the Great Depression. But Alford -- and soon, the FBI -- notice that the closer the family gets to Nickel, the less clear Savannah's motivations seem to be. As the Brady Gang races to escape the law -- or get rich trying - -Nickel realizes he might not be able to outrun his mistakes. He dreams of a route that will lead him to peace, but no map shows one like that. Will Savannah find him before the police do? And if so, who will return home alive?....
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The names of the new world : a novel
Washburn, Kawai Strong, 1980- author
A ferocious superstorm strikes Minneapolis, leveling large swaths of the city in a matter of minutes. In the storm’s wake, three people forge an unlikely bond that will shape their lives for the next twenty five years: Naomi, a disillusioned lawyer by day and amateur MMA fighter by night, searching for the meaning she’s lost after migrating from Hawai‘i; Amaré, an up-by-the-bootstraps investment banker with grand designs for all the money he’s about to make; and Raheem, a diesel mechanic nearly paralyzed by the storm and struggling to save his business.....
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Trad wife : a novel
Langan, Sarah, author.
Every day, millions watch Mia Wright, the "trad wife" queen, on her idyllic three-hundred-acre farm. With her handsome husband, seven well-behaved children, and a life of from-scratch meals and pastoral bliss, she's an icon of modern femininity. But behind every perfect image is a secret. And in this case, the secret is a horror. Desperate to save her tarnished career, journalist Jenny Kaplan arrives at Black Swan Farm to profile Mia. Jenny is ready to write a scathing expose, determined to expose the deception behind Mia's curated life. But soon, Jenny has more to contend with than staged videos and camera-ready poses. There's something wrong at the farmhouse. Something slithers through Jenny's dreams, and at night, the children sing strange nursery rhymes. She's losing time. She's losing her hair. She starts to worry that she's losing her mind. There is a horror at the heart of Black Swan, and it's waiting just for Jenny. Trad Wife will make you question what's real and what's just a perfectly curated deception... Will you see the lie?....
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