Flower Life

Martha Pfeiffer, age 19, was one of 844 persons who perished when a ship chartered for the Western Electric annual picnic capsized in Chicago in 1915. Martha's surviving family members never recovered from their grief. The Eastland Disaster has been mostly overlooked in recent years. In 1997, Pearl Pospisil, a third-generation Pfeiffer, composed a family history and delivered it to her niece, Zara Vrabel, who was completely unfamiliar with its contents. Pearl had one request: "Do something with this." Learning of her great-aunt's death on the Eastland Disaster made Zara's heart sink.

A charming and evocative tale of family and fortune from the queen of the West Country saga, Linda Finlay. Isabella Carrington has been brought up in a life of privilege in London. Her life seems perfect until her father suddenly announces bankruptcy. To save Isabella from destitution he sends her to stay with family she has never met, far away on a violet farm deep in Devon. Isabella is horrified to find her uncle expects her to work for her keep, packing up the flowers and selling them in the nearby market.

Brooke King has been asked over and over what it's like to be a woman in combat, but she knows her answer is not what the public wants to hear. The answers people seek lie in the graphic details of war - the sex, death, violence, and reality of it all as she experienced it. In her riveting memoir War Flower, King breaks her silence and reveals the truth about her experience as a soldier in Iraq.

Three years have passed since Joelle Gordon came home to Landon, Minnesota, following her heart back to her family of women and their little café on Flickertail Lake. Joelle, her sister Jillian, and her daughter Camille have grown closer through the shared heartaches and passionate loves they experienced since that first summer. Now the Shore Leave Café is again basking under the brilliant June sunshine, and this summer promises to be hotter than ever.

When a New England Christmas reunites two lifelong friends, romance blooms. From the author of Christmas in Vermont. Miracles are like snowflakes - no two are alike, but each one is precious and beautiful. This Christmas, Dr. Beth Harding could use a few miracles. The hospital she runs in River Dale, New Hampshire, is being shut down, unless she can convince the Scrooge-like board to save it. At least her closest friend, firefighter Logan Mitchell, is home for the holidays to offer a broad shoulder to lean on.

Book-smart Melissa Fletcher lives a predictable life in her hometown, working behind the scenes for her charismatic father in a financial career that makes perfect sense. But when her dad is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Missy is forced to step up and take over as his primary caregiver and the principal of the firm. After her father's death, Missy finds a letter from him in which he praises her for being a dutiful daughter but admonishes her for not taking any risks in life.

A moving and eloquent novel about love, grief, renewal - and the powerful language of flowers. Ruby Jewell knows flowers. In her 20 years as a florist, she has stood behind the counter at the Flower Shoppe with her faithful dog, Clementine, resting at her feet. A customer can walk in, and with just a glance or a few words, Ruby can throw together the perfect arrangement for any occasion.

From the award-winning author of Creep comes a powerful book by a writer at the peak of her powers—at once a love letter to California and a literary tour de force that tells the story of resilience and reclamation through a relationship with plants, memory, myth, and indigenous knowledge...

1934: Lizzie Flowers has been mother and protector to her East End family, the Allens of Langley Street, since she was 15. Even when her doomed marriage to Frank Flowers collapses, she sacrifices her own happiness to keep the family united. But when Lizzie buys the infamous dockland's pub the Mill Wall, she discovers she's bitten off more than she can chew.

Fifteen-year-old Nina Perez is faced with a future she never expected. She must leave her Garden of Eden, her lush island home in Samana, Dominican Republic, when she's sent by her mother to live with her brother, Darrio, in New York, to seek out a better life. As Nina searches for some glimpse of familiarity amid the urban and jarring world of Washington Heights, she learns to uncover her own strength and independence. She finds a way to grow, just like the orchids that blossom on her fire escape.

This book is about one mom's journey in raising a child with special needs. Her daughter Lydia has Down syndrome. This is the story of their life together. Kerry Lynn Patton shares the blessings, trials, and what their family has learned by having Lydia in their lives. This is not meant to be a “How To” book for raising a child with special needs, but rather a book to encourage moms, dads, family, and friends. This delightful book is written in whimsical and heartfelt “snippets" for the listener to enjoy a little at a time or easily in one sitting.

In these stories, inspired by long-lost photographs, the lives of the people in the frame are imagined and then explored, layer by layer. What must have it like to be them? We share the lives of three sisters, brought up in Penang. We hear of what happened to them, and to their Chinese neighbours caught in the tides of war. We see a group of small boys in a Glasgow slum, their young lives stunted by poverty, and hear how life worked out in contrasting ways for them. We follow a young woman's search for love in the unlikely realm of Egyptian antiquities.

Street Kids: The Lives of Runaway and Thrownaway Teens, Second Edition, by award-winning and best-selling criminologist R. Barri Flowers, is an audiobook that examines the pathway from home to homeless for runaways and thrownaways, including precursors to life on the street. Street Kids will be a useful source for child welfare advocates, academics, professionals, sociologists, criminologists, researchers, laypersons, and others with an interest in the plight and mistreatment of children living on the streets or away from a safe home environment.

The heartwarming start to a brand-new series by multimillion-selling author Kate Hewitt, Wildflower Valley will introduce you to a wonderful community of quirky characters as you follow the Bryants on their homesteading adventure.

One small town. One magical Christmas. Connor Norton returns to his childhood home for the holidays, still grieving after his mother’s recent death. Tom, her orange tabby cat, is with him. He runs into Alana, the estranged daughter of his next-door neighbor Dottie who is struggling to come to terms with the devastating secret that tore her family apart. Mary Ann has everything she wants...except for that special someone. Now Connor’s back in town, but is he too late? Hope, love, and the power of forgiveness. Anything can happen - when you least expect it.

Three audiobooks in one volume. This family saga follows three generations of 13-year-old girls and their families from 1941 to 1982 Appalachia.

Curiosity and circumstance often propel individuals beyond the confines of their upbringing, dumping them into unfamiliar, unexpected life situations. Thus was JJ Semple transported into a trial-and-error process of self-discovery, a path that took him from the East Coast Brahman establishment, to France, to a meeting with Gopi Krishna in India, and back to the United States. What he found along the way was Kundalini, the biological basis of both science and religion.

Tormented at school, ten-year-old Jane wants a best friend more than anything. Her wish is answered when Acacia moves in next door and a carefree summer break beckons. Yet as their friendship blossoms and secrets are shared, Acacia remains stubbornly guarded about her home life, especially when it comes to her mother’s new boyfriend, Daryl, a Harley-riding ladies’ man. At a neighborhood party, Jane stumbles onto a disturbing scene involving Daryl and is coerced into silence.

From Katie Vaz, author of Don’t Worry, Eat Cake, the beloved Make Yourself Cozy, and The Escape Manual for Introverts, comes My Life in Plants. Her newest book tells the story of her life through the thirty-nine plants that have played both leading and supporting roles, from her childhood to her wedding day. Plants include a homegrown wildflower bouquet wrapped in duct tape that she carried on stage at age three, to a fragrant basil plant that brought her and her kitchen back to life after grief.

Connor Norton returns to his hometown, following the death of his mother, knowing that he will have to confront personal feelings of guilt and regret. It is a place he has barely set foot in for the past 20 years. Caught in the period of his life where the vibrancy of youth has diminished and the prospect of becoming middle-aged is looming, Connor finds that he is suddenly alone in the world and must, somehow, reshape his future and face his own mortality.