These titles were recently added to the collection of Yakima Valley Libraries
Children of the ghetto : my name is Adam
Khūrī, Ilyās, author.
Long exiled in New York, Palestinian ex-pat Adam Dannoun thought he knew himself. But an encounter with Blind Mahmoud, a father figure from his childhood, changes everything. It is when Adam encounters his former teacher that Adam discovers the story he must tell. Ma’moun’s testimony brings Adam back to the first years of his life in the ghetto of Lydia, in Palestine, where his family endured thirst, hunger, and terror in the aftermath of unspeakable horror. With unmatched literary craft and empathy, Khoury peels away layers of lost stories and repressed memories to unveil Adam’s story. Oscillating between two narrators—the self-reflexive "Elias Khoury" and Adam himself—Children of the Ghetto: My Name is Adam engages real (and invented) scholarly texts, Khoury’s own work, and Adam’s lost notebooks in an intertextual account of a life shadowed by atrocity.....
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The matchmaker : a novel
Saeed, Aisha, author.
Business has never been better for Nura Khan, a third-generation matchmaker in Atlanta. Her exclusive clientele benefits from her impeccable track record. And while a single thirty-one-year-old matchmaker would normally raise some perfectly threaded eyebrows in the community, Nura's childhood best friend, Azar, is willing to double as her pretend fiancé at her clients' weddings-even though Nura's feelings for him might not be so pretend. But all that glitters isn't gold. While it's not uncommon to get the occasional hate mail from rejected prospective clients, Nura is blindsided after a couple's carefully constructed wedding implodes, the first in a cascading chain of suspicious and increasingly terrifying events. Someone is taking things too far, and with Azar and her matchmaking team by her side, Nura embarks on a dangerous cat-and-mouse game that threatens not only her safety but everything she's worked so hard to build.....
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We rip the world apart : a novel
Carr, Charlene, author.
When 24-year-old Kareela discovers she's pregnant with a child she isn't sure she wants, her struggle to understand her place in the world as a person who is half-Black, half-white―yet feels neither―is amplified. Her mother, Evelyn, fled to Canada with her husband and their first-born child during the politically charged Jamaican exodus in the 1980s, only to realize they'd come to a place where Black men are viewed with suspicion―a constant and pernicious reality Evelyn watches her husband and son navigate daily. Years later, in the aftermath of her son's murder by the police, Evelyn's mother-in-law, Violet, moves in, offering young Kareela a link to the Jamaican heritage she had never fully known. Despite Violet's efforts to help them through their grief, the traumas they carry grow into a web of secrets that threatens the very family they all hold so dear. In the present day, Kareela, prompted by fear and uncertainty about the new life she carries, must come to terms with the mysteries surrounding her family's past and the need to make sense of both her identity and her future. Weaving the women's stories across multiple timelines, We Rip the World Apart reveals the ways that simple choices, made in the heat of the moment and with the best of intentions, can have deep and lasting repercussions―especially when people stay silent.....
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The bright years : a novel
Damoff, Sarah, author.
One family. Four generations. A secret son. A devastating addiction... Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married, and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn't told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn't told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall. When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian's son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family's history, and decide whether she can open up to love for them-or herself-while there's still time. Told from three intimate points of view, The Bright Years is a tender, true-to-life novel that explores the impact of each generation in a family torn apart by tragedy but, over time, restored by the power of grace and love.....
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The pretender
Harkin, Jo, author.
In 1480 John Collan's greatest anxiety is how to circumvent the village's devil goat on his way to collect water. But the arrival of a well-dressed stranger from London upends his life forever: John is not John Collan, not the son of Will Collan but the son of the long-deceased Duke of Clarence, and has been hidden in the countryside after a brotherly rift over the crown -- and because Richard III has a habit of disappearing his nephews. Removed from his humble origins, sent to Oxford to be educated in a manner befitting the throne's rightful heir, John is put into play by his masters, learning the rules of etiquette in Burgundy and the machinations of the court in Ireland, where he encounters the intractable Joan, the delightfully strong-willed and manipulative daughter of his Irish patrons, a girl imbued with both extraordinary political savvy and occasional murderous tendencies. Joan has two paths available her -- marry or become a nun. Lambert's choices are similarly stark: he will either become king or die in battle. Together they form an alliance that will change the fate of the English monarchy.....
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The Dollhouse Academy
Montimore, Margarita, author.
For eighteen years, she has been the most famous star at the Dollhouse Academy, the elite boarding school and talent incubator that every aspiring performer dreams of attending. But now, at thirty-four, she is tired of pretending everything is fine. In secret diary entries, Ivy begins to reveal the truth of her life at the Dollhouse: strange medical exams, mysterious supplements, and something unspeakable that's left Ivy terrified and feeling like a prisoner. Ramona Holloway and her best friend, Grace Ludlow, grew up idolizing Ivy, and at twenty-two, neither has made much headway in showbiz. Then a lucky break grants them entry to the Dollhouse, where they're enchanted by the picturesque campus and the chance to perform alongside their idols. When Ramona begins to receive anonymous threatening messages, it's easy to dismiss them as a rival's prank. Her bigger concern is Grace's skyrocketing success, while Ramona struggles to keep up with the fierce competition. As the messages grow more unsettling, so does life at the Dollhouse. Can Ramona overcome her jealousy and resentment to figure out what's really going on? Will Ivy finally find her voice before another young performer follows her catastrophic path? With dark academia twists and enormous heart, The Dollhouse Academy is a novel about he complexities of friendship, our desire to be seen and understood, and the true cost of making our dreams a reality.....
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Follow me to Africa : a novel
Haw, Penny, author.
It's 1983, and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an archaeological dig at Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti plains of Tanzania. Here, seventy-year old Mary Leakey enlists Grace to sort and pack her fifty years of work and memories. Their interaction reminds Mary how she pursued her ambitions of becoming an archaeologist in the 1930s by sneaking into lectures and working on excavations. When well-known paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey commissions her to illustrate a book, she's not at all expecting to fall in love with the older married man. Mary then follows Louis to East Africa, where she falls in love for a second time, this time with Olduvai Gorge, where her work defines her as a great scientist and allows her to step out of Louis's shadow. In time, Mary and Grace learn they are more alike than they thought, which eventually leads them to the secret that connects them. They also discover a mutual deep love for animals, and when Lisa, an injured cheetah, appears at camp, Mary and Grace work together to save her. On the morning Grace is due to leave, the girl-and the cheetah- are nowhere to be found, and it becomes a race against time to rescue Grace before the African bush claims her. From the acclaimed author of The Invincible Miss Cust and The Woman at Wheel comes an adventurous, dual-timeline tale that explores the consequences of our choices, wisdom that comes with retrospection, and relationships that make us who we are, based on the extraordinary real life of Mary Leakey.....
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The eights
Miller, Joanna, 1969- author.
Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1,000-year history, Oxford University officially admits female students. Burning with dreams of equality, four young women move into neighboring rooms in Corridor 8. Beatrice, Dora, Marianne, and Otto-collectively known as The Eights-come from all walks of life, each driven by their own motives, each holding tight to their secrets-and are thrown into an unlikely, unshakeable friendship. Among the historic spires, and in the long shadow of the Great War, the four women must navigate and support one another in a turbulent world in which misogyny is rife, influenza is still a threat, and the dead do not always remain dead.......
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The tenant
McFadden, Freida, author.
Blake Porter is riding high, until he's not. Fired abruptly from his job as a VP of marketing and unable to make his mortgage payments on his new brownstone, he's desperate to make ends meet for his fiancee, Krista. Enter: Whitney. Beautiful, charming, down-to-earth, and looking for a room to rent, she's exactly what Blake's looking for. Or is she? Because something isn't quite right. The neighbors start treating Blake differently. The smell of decay permeates the kitchen, no matter how hard he scrubs. Whitney claims she knows what he's done.... Strange noises jar him awake in the middle of the night. And soon Blake fears someone knows his darkest secrets. Danger lives right at home, and by the time Blake realizes it, it'll be far too late. The trap is already set.....
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Open, heaven
Hewitt, Seán, author.
James—a sheltered, shy sixteen-year-old—is alone in his newly discovered sexuality, full of an unruly desire but entirely inexperienced. As he is beginning to understand himself and his longings, he also realizes how his feelings threaten to separate him from his family and the rural community he has grown up in. He dreams of another life, fantasizing about what lies beyond the village’s leaf-ribboned boundaries, beyond his reach: autonomy, tenderness, sex. Then, in the autumn of 2002, he meets Luke, a slightly older boy, handsome, unkempt, who comes with a reputation for danger. Abandoned by his parents—his father imprisoned, and his mother having moved to France for another man—Luke has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle on their farm just outside the village. James is immediately drawn to him "like the pull a fire makes on the air, dragging things into it and blazing them into its hot, white centre," drawn to this boy who is beautiful and impulsive, charismatic, troubled. But underneath Luke’s bravado is a deep wound—a longing for the love of his father and for the stability of family life. ....
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Guatemalan rhapsody : stories
Lemus, Jared, 1991- author.
A vibrant debut story collection-poignant, unflinching, and immersive-masterfully moving between sharp wit and profound tenderness, Guatemalan Rhapsody offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of an ever-changing country, the people who claim it as home, and those who no longer do.....
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Tea with elephants
Gunn, Robin Jones, 1955- author.
Ever since they met as teenagers volunteering at a conference center in Costa Rica 20 years ago, Fern Espinoza and Lily Graden have shared a close friendship, even though they live in different states. They can hardly believe it when their teen dream of traveling to Africa together becomes a reality. It's the trip of a lifetime--but life sure isn't what they thought it would be back when they were young. Along with their suitcases, each woman brings along emotional baggage that weighs heavily on them. Yet the people they meet and the places they experience have the power to change their hearts--but only if they surrender to the lessons God wants to teach them in this unexpected land of emerald tea fields, graceful giraffes, and rambunctious elephants. ....
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The fact checker : a novel
Kelley, Austin, 1973- author.
"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 at The Magazine -- terrorism, war, or some other grave matter -- 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.....
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A mind of her own : a novel
Steel, Danielle, author.
Alexandra Bouvier is born in Paris in 1900, at the dawn of a new century. From an early age, she is encouraged to think for herself by her enlightened family: her father, a French doctor; her mother, an American nurse; and her maternal grandfather a highly regarded newspaperman back in the Midwest. At age fourteen, Alex's comfortable life is upended as war erupts across Europe. Her parents follow their sense of duty to the front, performing triage at a field hospital and confronting the horrors of poison gas and trench warfare. The merciless fighting, coupled with the fast-spreading Spanish flu, wreaks havoc on the continent, as well as on Alex's loved ones. By the time she is eighteen, she has suffered unimaginable losses. With her grandfather's support, she attends the University of Chicago and decides to follow his footsteps into journalism. As a newspaper intern she meets reporter Oliver Foster, who is covering the gang wars sparked by Prohibition. He too has known devastating loss, and the two are drawn to each other, though both fear any attachment. As it turns out, Alex has good reason to be cautious.....
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