When Gillian Herbert dug through a file of old family papers she launched a journey of exploration. Flipping through faded photos she recalled in raw black and white detail the moments that shaped her relationship with her parents. Skilfully crafted scenes from her youth reveal how illness, disability, and war combined with parental hopes, fears, and delusions to define her family. Herbert re-enters her experience as a child and young adult to present the stories from a youthful perspective, while steadily chipping away at the hard rock of her beliefs to reveal what her younger self could not see—the cost of keeping her father’s secrets. British understatement adds power to unsettling discoveries that sweep both writer and reader from Canada to England to Egypt and back to England. So pour a cup of tea, as the Herbert family so often did, and consider the depth in Spare Scenes.

Spare Scenes

Herbert, Gillian P.

Parenting & Relationships

Word Project Press

Lily is ornery, all right—and real stubborn. According to the Texas relatives she is not-one-lick like any of the kinfolk. Just doesn’t fit, no siree.Lily tells us all about it. Her stories are about leaving home where there are no jobs and the dust has destroyed the earth, of the family who has only a few pots and pans and a little jingling money in Daddy’s pocket, of settling in California...and growing up different. Lily pulls you into the lives of her wonderfully peculiar family and friends inciting some chuckles and nods along the way and maybe a tear or two when you experience Lily’s innocence and resilience as she navigates the childhood road of wonder, worry, struggle and joy. These poignant vignettes evoke memories of the times and offer insight into the hardships, toughness and humor of a transplanted family during the Great Depression, World War II and its aftermath.

Lily's Own: Stories of a Childhood

Biographies & Memoirs

Pedron, Nadine

Historical

From a childhood in England to significant world events such as the Chernobyl explosion, Signal Fires traverses a physical and emotional terrain marked by strong moments of connection. Though the poems fly in many different directions, a clear thread runs throughout-the intricate balance between the flawed, fraught character of our world and the boundless restorative power of nature.

Signal Fires

Literature & Fiction

Baldwin, Sy Margaret

Poetry

In her debut memoir, Ellen Woods draws the reader into her progression from an inquisitive Indiana girlhood to the aches and astonishments of adulthood in Berkeley. Through twenty-eight stories, readers are introduced to memorable characters—family, friends, teachers and strangers woven into her life, often with unexpected circumstances. Readers are pulled into the depths of the present moment, and find themselves sharing the author’s spiritual and political context. As Woods traces the importance of her meditation practice, we see how silence soothes her and faith emerges through life's stunning transitions. With the cautious wisdom of almost seven decades, she focuses on integrating events of the past and redeeming lost connections. Warriors in Transition is incisive, provocative and astute, unflinchingly honest in its revelation of a personal journey rooted in social realities of times past and present.

Warriors In Transition: A Memoir In Twenty-Eight Stories

Woods, Ellen

Memoirs

This collection of stories for school age readers chronicles the everyday life of a California family during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Each story is based on and inspired by the memories of Marian Louise Moore Wolfe as she and her brother, Hibbard, grew, explored, and played against a backdrop of poverty. Being a gold miner, Marian’s father held onto the dream that one day they would strike it rich. Marian’s mother, having grown up in a successful farming family, had a perspective that was rooted in worry and embarrassment. Through it all, the family hangs on waiting for better times, allowing us to witness the strength and resilience of the human spirit.

Hanging On

Restivo, Cynthia

Children's Books

Gwen Cunningham, collector of human failings and gossipmonger nonpareil, drops dead at an elegant party given in honor of the visiting bishop. No one will grieve.It doesn’t take long for Detectives Dawson and Eggleton to learn the cause of her death and, more importantly, that all the guests at the party have touched the murder weapon: a bottle of nicotine concentrate - used by gardeners for pest eradication. How appropriate. But why would the guests touch the bottle?Set in the California Wine Country and interwoven with the hierarchy and pageantry of the Episcopal Church, Sherry With the Bishop, twists and turns as the detectives ferret out clues, motives, and enough red herrings to feed the masses.

Sherry With the Bishop

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

BIEDERMAN, CAROL

Mystery

As an eleven year old, I helped Mom skin and can rose-kissed, juicy Rio Oso Gem peaches, big as a man's fist. They hung like innocent children in the leaf-folded orchards surrounding Yuba City. Their ripe scent fragranced August evenings, fuzz-tickled our noses and made us sneeze as the sun sank behind the Sutter Buttes. Dad was a Sutter Basin farmer; mom ran the house and kept five kids in order. I was the oldest.Not even the arrowed flights of autumn geese warned us of the tragedy that struck our little town at one a.m. on Christmas Eve. And like the levee melting away under the force of the Feather River, our fragile family fabric began to give way as well.I hoped and prayed that my newfound faith would help me find my own wings.

Waiting for Wings: A Child's Journey

Kimura, Denella

Follow the paths of Sarah and Sam, the two key protagonists, as they tell their stories of trust, secrets, and betrayal in the old West. Their pioneer spirit helped to fuel the expansion into the Western territories of the United States. The two are historically on their separate journeys, yet they remain intimately connected. Through the fictionalized Western frontier tale of Sam and Sarah, the author, Beverly Scott, was inspired to reveal rumored secrets from her family history. In the 1880’s, Sam, who is irresponsible, lonely and untrustworthy has abandoned those he loves until he seeks redemption and marries Sarah. After Sam’s death in 1911, Sarah struggles to find the inner strength to overcome loneliness, poverty, and illness, to support her children. After a perilous journey by wagon from New Mexico to Nebraska, she learns of Sam’s betrayal. Will Sarah find forgiveness in her heart and the resolve to accept her new life alone?

Sarah's Secret: A Western Tale of Betrayal and Forgiveness

Beverly Scott

Genre Fiction

Sisters of the Soul is an epic tale about a privileged white woman, Elizabeth Dumond, and a plantation slave, Sophie Washington. Like petals on a flower, the story unfolds as the characters narrate sometimes violent and tumultuous events. Sisters of the Soul touches on themes of slavery, friendship, romance, love, hatred, tragedy, joy, and strong women surviving and thriving in an unpredictable and often brutal world. The story crosses the continent of North America, starting at the Sweetbrier Plantation in Louisiana in the mid-1800s to the bustling city of San Francisco in the early 1900s. Ultimately, Sisters of the Soul is a story of redemption, transformation, the healing of a mother-daughter relationship, and of resilient women who find joy and satisfaction as they overcome the struggles and hardships of life.

Sisters of the Soul

Fulton, Kristin

Seventeen-year-old Loretta Lynn Duvall has spent her life cleaning up her mother’s messes. When her mom leaves on a summer business trip, Loretta and her friend Cora get stuck working at Willow Grove, the house and property owned by crazy old Noleen Deerborne.Meanwhile, Loretta’s friend Ethan has grown suspicious of his parents’ involvement in a survivalist organization called The Group. What’s more, Ethan suspects that a connection between Willow Grove and The Group lies in an underground maze of tunnels dating back to the Civil War. After a series of suspicious incidents, these inquisitive teens decide to investigate further. Soon Loretta and her friends have tunneled themselves into a mess of their own.

Tunneling

Muniz, Shelley

Action & Adventure

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