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The 19th Wife
by David Ebershoff
Jordan returns from California to Utah to visit his mother in jail. As a teenager he was expelled from his family and religious community, a secretive Mormon offshoot sect. Now his father has been found shot dead in front of his computer, and one of his many wives - Jordan's mother - is accused of the crime.Over a century earlier, Ann Eliza Young, the nineteenth wife of Brigham Young, Prophet and Leader... (more)
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The Chosen
by Chaim Potok
A classic story of two fathers and two sons and the pressures on all of them to pursue the religion they share in the way that is best suited to each. And as the boys grow into young men, they discover in the other a lost spiritual brother, and a link to an unexplored world that neither had ever considered before. In effect, they exchange places, and find the peace that neither will ever retreat from again....
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Angle of Repose
by Wallace Stegner
Stegner's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel--the magnificent story of four generations in the life of an American family. A wheelchair-bound retired historian embarks on a monumental quest: to come to know his grandparents, now long dead. The unfolding drama of the story of the American West sets the tone for Stegner's masterpiece.
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The Promise
by Chaim Potok
Reuven Malter lives in Brooklyn, he’s in love, and he’s studying to be a rabbi. He also keeps challenging the strict interpretations of his teachers, and if he keeps it up, his dream of becoming a rabbi may die. One day, worried about a disturbed, unhappy boy named Michael, Reuven takes him sailing and cloud-watching. Reuven also introduces him to an old friend, Danny Saunders–now a psychologist with a growing... (more)
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My Sister's Keeper
by Jodi Picoult
New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness. Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her... (more)
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The Ender Quartet: Book 1
Ender's Game
by Orson Scott Card
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make... (more)
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My Name is Asher Lev
by Chaim Potok
Asher Lev is a Ladover Hasid who keeps kosher, prays three times a day and believes in the Ribbono Shel Olom, the Master of the Universe. Asher Lev is an artist who is compulsively driven to render the world he sees and feels even when it leads him to blasphemy. In this stirring and often visionary novel, Chaim Potok traces Asher’s passage between these two identities, the one consecrated to God, the other... (more)
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The Deptford Trilogy
by Robertson Davies
Around a mysterious death is woven a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived trilogy of novels: "Fifth Business", often described as Robertson Davies' finest novel; "The Manticore", and "World of Wonders". Luring the reader down labyrinthine tunnels of myth, history and magic, "The Deptford Trilogy" provides an exhilarating antidote to a world from where 'the fear and dread and splendour of wonder have been... (more)
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Eva
by Peter Dickinson
The picnic on the beach is Eva's last memory. As she lies in the hospital bed while her mother explains about the accident and the coma, Eva senses there is something they are not telling her--a price she must pay to be alive.
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Dark Debts
by Karen Hall
"TRULY FRIGHTENING." --Chicago Tribune There is pure evil at work, infesting the body and spirit, driving its victims to insanity, suicide, and murder. To cast it out, a Jesuit priest must take a frightening journey into the heart of a Southern family tormented by an unspeakable curse. "HARD TO PUT DOWN." --Philadelphia Inquirer As he unravels three generations of secrets and battles for the very soul of the... (more)
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Unwind: Book 1
Unwind
by Neal Shusterman
In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them. Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev's unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family's strict religion. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation,... (more)
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God's Ear: A Novel (Library of Modern Jewish Literature)
by Rhoda Lerman
A son tries his best to reject a 1000-year-old tradition that compels him to become a rabbi.
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The Gathering
by Anne Enright
In the taut latest from Enright (What Are You Like?), middle-aged Veronica Hegarty, the middle child in an Irish-Catholic family of nine, traces the aftermath of a tragedy that has claimed the life of rebellious elder brother Liam. As Veronica travels to London to bring Liam's body back to Dublin, her deep-seated resentment toward her overly passive mother and her dissatisfaction with her husband and children come... (more)
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Still Alice
by Lisa Genova
Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience from Harvard University. Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into... (more)
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Dollanganger Saga: Book 1
Flowers in the Attic
by V. C. Andrews
Four children are locked in an attic for, according to their mother, only a short time, but as the days turn into years the children, now cared for by a vengeful grandmother, survive only because of their overwhelming love for each other.
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Trans-Sister Radio
by Chris Bohjalian
With Trans-Sister Radio , Chris Bohjalian, author of the bestseller Midwives , again confronts his very human characters with issues larger than themselves, here tackling the explosive issue of gender. When Allison Banks develops a crush on Dana Stevens, she knows that he will give her what she needs most: attention, gentleness, kindness, passion. Her daughter, Carly, enthusiastically witnesses the change in... (more)
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Animal Dreams
by Barbara Kingsolver
From the acclaimed author of The Bean Trees and Homeland, comes a powerful story of love and courage in an exotc southwestern landscape. Blending flashbacks, dreams, and Native American myths, thisis a suspenseful love story and a moving exploration of life's greatest commitments.
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The Bean Trees
by Barbara Kingsolver
Clear-eyed and spirited, Taylor Greer grew up poor in rural Kentucky with the goals of avoiding pregnancy and getting away. But when she heads west with high hopes and a barely functional car, she meets the human condition head-on. By the time Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, she has acquired a completely unexpected child, a three-year-old American Indian girl named Turtle, and must somehow come to terms with... (more)
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Pigs in Heaven
by Barbara Kingsolver
When a six-year-old child named Turtle is the sole witness to a freak accident, she and her adoptive mother, Taylor, appear on television. After seeing them, Annawake Fourkiller, an attorney for Oklahoma's Cherokee Nation, challenges Taylor's claim to Turtle, sending her fleeing across country on a wild odyssey that winds up in Heaven, Oklahoma, where pigs light the way to love.
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Midwives
by Chris Bohjalian
A talented midwife is arrested for murder when she saves a baby by performing a Caesarean section once she believes the mother has died--only to have her assistant insist later that the woman was still very much alive. Told in the mesmerizing voice of the midwife's daughter, Midwives depicts the aftermath of the tragedy.

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