FROM SARAH:

One of my all-time favorite children's classics. My kids all loved this book (boys and girls alike). We're reading it as our RAR Premium Family Book Club novel in spring 2024, in fact! Also great on audio! (Audible l Libro.fm)

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

What secrets lie behind the doors at Misselthwaite Manor? Recently arrived at her uncle's estate, orphaned Mary Lennox is spoiled, sickly, and certain she won't enjoy living there. Then she discovers the arched doorway into an overgrown garden, shut up since the death of her aunt ten years earlier. Mary soon begins transforming it into a thing of beauty--unaware that she is changing too.

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

The set includes: Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, Farmer Boy, On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years, and The First Four Years.

FROM SARAH:

I wrote this book as a love note, of sorts, to the Read-Aloud Revival community. You'll find practical tips, inspiring stories, and booklists for every age. The audiobook won was nominated for an Audie Award! (Audible | LibroFM).

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

USA Today Bestseller |  The stories we read--and the conversations we have about them--help shape family traditions, create lifelong memories, and become part of our legacy. Reading aloud not only has the power to change a family--it has the power to change the world. 

FROM SARAH:

Susan Meissner is my very favorite adult novelist, and this is the book I recommend most often for teens who are just getting started with her work. It's also a great place for mamas! Weaves together two tales—one from 9/11 and the other from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. And in traditional Susan Meissner form, your heart will be bigger by the time you finish.

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

Two stories thread together: one of Clara Wood, who must sort out her world after the catastrophic Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911, and the other of Taryn Michaels, who is rebuilding her life after losing her husband in the 9/11 attacks. A testament to the power of the shape of history on our life in the present.

Far off the coast of California looms a harsh rock known as the island of San Nicholas. Dolphins flash in the blue waters around it, sea otter play in the vast kep beds, and sea elephants loll on the stony beaches. Here, in the early 1800s, according to history, an Indian girl spent eighteen years a...

FROM THE PUBLISHER: 

Ten-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada’s twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn’t waste a minute—she sneaks out to join him.

FROM THE PUBLISHER: 

April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco just before daybreak, igniting a devouring inferno. Lives are lost, lives are shattered, but some rise from the ashes forever changed.

FROM THE PUBLISHER: 

Novelist Jessica Brody presents a comprehensive story-structure guide for novelists that applies the famed Save the Cat! screenwriting methodology to the world of novel writing.

FROM THE PUBLISHER: 

Maybe you're a first-time novelist looking for practical guidance. Maybe you've already been published, but your latest effort is stuck in mid-list limbo. Whatever the case may be, author and literary agent Donald Maass can show you how to take your prose to the next level and write a breakout novel - one that rises out of obscurity and hits the best-seller lists.

FROM SARAH:

My favorite from Ann Patchett. Everyone I know who has read this book absolutely loved it, which makes it very easy to recommend! Wonderful on audio (Audible | LibroFM).

Recommended for ages 16+, I think, though I'm not sure a teen will enjoy it as much as you will, and it wasn't written for young adults. Strong language warning, discretion advised. 

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.

FROM SARAH:

Susan Meissner is my very favorite living writer. If she writes it, I read it! This is one of my favorites, and tells a story we don't hear often—about the Germans who were sent to internment camps in the U.S. during WWII. Highly recommended for historical fiction lovers. I tend to recommend Susan Meissner's books for ages 16+, and that's about right for this one.

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

In 1943, Elise Sontag is a typical American teenager from Iowa—aware of the war but distanced from its reach. Then her father, a legal U.S. resident for nearly two decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where, behind the armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stripped of everything beloved and familiar, including her own identity.

FROM THE PUBLISHER: 
Hundreds of books have been written on the art of writing. Here at last is a book by two professional editors to teach writers the techniques of the editing trade that turn promising manuscripts into published novels and short stories.

FROM THE PUBLISHER: 

Widows and Orphans is the debut novel in the new Rachael Flynn mystery series by critically acclaimed author, Susan Meissner.  The perfect new series for readers who enjoy CBA authors Dee Henderson, Angela Hunt, and Brandilyn Collins.