Ariel Lawhon’s The Frozen River plunges readers into the harsh winters of 1789 Hallowell, Maine, with a historical mystery that’s as chilling as the Kennebec River. At the heart of this riveting tale is Martha Ballard, a 54-year-old midwife and healer with connections that stretch from Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, to Mary Hobart, one of America’s pioneering female physicians. When Martha is called to examine a man found frozen in the river, she uncovers signs of foul play. The deceased, Joshua Burgess, appears to have been beaten and hanged prior to his icy entombment. Adding layers to the mystery, Martha recalls her earlier documentation of […]
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A History of Burning
The story begins at the turn of the twentieth century, when 13-year-old Pirbhai, the eldest son of a poor family, is conscripted British to work on the East African Railway in Kenya. The hardship the workers experienced was unimaginable. Then one day, Pirbhai commits an act so heinous it will haunt him forever and reverberate across his family’s future for generations to come. Pirbhai’s children are born and raised under the searing sun of Kampala during the waning days of British colonial rule. As Uganda moves towards independence and military dictatorship, Pirbhai’s granddaughters, Latika, Mayuri, and Kiya, are coming of age in a divided nation. Then, in 1972, under Idi […]
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We Hope for Better Things
“How do you put into words the feeling that you’re an adult and yet you are utterly lost and confused? How do you say that you don’t know what to do with your life? That it feels like everything you’ve worked for is worthless and yet you don’t know what else to do but more of the same? How do you explain the feeling that your life is over when there’s nothing wrong beyond the fact that you lost a job? How do you say that out loud when innocent people are shot and killers go free and it feels like the very fabric of society is unraveling?” — Erin […]
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Burning Ground
Burning Ground by D.A. Galloway begins in 1971. It is the story of Graham Davidson, a young man grappling with survivor’s guilt after losing three siblings. Estranged from his father and searching for purpose, he stumbles upon the concept of vision quests from a Crow Indian. Graham lands seasonal work in Yellowstone National Park, which sets the stage for a spiritual journey that takes a rather unexpected turn. During a full moon at a sacred thermal area, something extraordinary happens—he finds himself transported back in time one hundred years. There he joins the Hayden Geological Survey, which explored the region that one year later became Yellowstone National Park. A menacing […]
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