America's Daughter


Book Description

An epic and heartbreaking novel about a woman caught in the fight for American independence, perfect for readers who loved My Dear Hamilton and Flight of the Sparrow. Addie stands with the restless crowd in Boston Harbor, watching her brother climb aboard the English tea ship. She isn’t supposed to be out, but this is no ordinary night. When she sees him start to toss the cargo into the water, she knows her world is about to change forever… As the fight for American independence begins, Addie Valencourt’s tight-knit family is torn apart. When the British lay siege to Boston, her father welcomes the English army into his home, while her brothers and childhood sweetheart Silas leave to join General Washington. Addie is hatching a plan to follow them when she meets Scottish Highlander John Traverne. The frowning, dark-haired soldier is unlike anyone she has ever known, but she must stay true to Silas and her promise to join him and the Revolutionary army. Addie adjusts quickly to life in the army camp, comfortable with the rebels fighting for their freedom. But when Silas is captured by the British, she knows she must risk it all to search for him. But venturing into enemy territory brings her face to face with the Highlander once more. Now Addie must again ignore what her heart is telling her, to protect the secrets—and even the very lives—of the Patriots on the dangerous front line… The first part of a haunting, emotional and heart-wrenching trilogy. Readers love Celeste De Blasis: “UNPUTDOWNABLE!… If I could give it more stars I would give it more!” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “One of my all-time FAVORITE books!!!!!!!!” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “I didn’t want it to end… always kept me in suspense… truly brilliant and I loved every second… absolutely fantastic.” Charlotte’s Book Corner “Read it OVER and OVER.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “Made me laugh, cry and feel all the range of emotions.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “My favorite book of all time.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “A week doesn’t go by that this book doesn't pop into my head. A great story.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “I had a hard time putting it down and lost more than an hour or two of sleep.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “This book has an extra special place in my heart… A historical romance in the vein of Outlander (except without the time travel).” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “I loved this book!… A great love story, and a book that you just don’t want to put down.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “One of my all-time favorites!… I smile, I cry, I’m sad to see them go.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “Lots of love, lots of tears.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “I just love it.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “Excellent from beginning to end. I highly recommend.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars




American Daughter


Book Description

"American Daughter–in the tradition of classics like The Glass Castle, LA Diaries and White Oleander–explores in unsparing details the complex interplay between intimate family ties, generational abuse and cataclysmic losses." – Gina Frangello, Author of ‘Every Kind of Wanting’ and ‘A Life in Men’ Editor of The Coachella Review For 50 years, Stephanie Thornton Plymale kept her past a fiercely guarded secret. No one outside her immediate family would ever have guessed that her childhood was fraught with every imaginable hardship: a mentally ill mother who was in and out of jails and psych wards throughout Stephanie's formative years, neglect, hunger, poverty, homelessness, truancy, foster homes, a harrowing lack of medical care, and ongoing sexual abuse. Stephanie, in turn, knew very little about the past of her mother, from whom she remained estranged during most of her adult life. All this changed with a phone call that set a journey of discovery in motion, leading to a series of shocking revelations that forced Stephanie to revise the meaning of almost every aspect of her very compromised childhood. ​American Daughter is at once the deeply moving memoir of a troubled mother-daughter relationship and a meditation on trauma, resilience, transcendence, and redemption. Stephanie's story is unique but its messages are universal, offering insight into what it means to survive, to rise above, to heal, and to forgive.




America's First Daughter


Book Description

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, bestselling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson’s eldest daughter, Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph—a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy. From her earliest days, Patsy Jefferson knows that though her father loves his family dearly, his devotion to his country runs deeper still. As Thomas Jefferson’s oldest daughter, she becomes his helpmate, protector, and constant companion in the wake of her mother’s death, traveling with him when he becomes American minister to France. It is in Paris, at the glittering court and among the first tumultuous days of revolution, that fifteen-year-old Patsy learns about her father’s troubling liaison with Sally Hemings, a slave girl her own age. Meanwhile, Patsy has fallen in love—with her father’s protégé William Short, a staunch abolitionist and ambitious diplomat. Torn between love, principles, and the bonds of family, Patsy questions whether she can choose a life as William’s wife and still be a devoted daughter. Her choice will follow her in the years to come, to Virginia farmland, Monticello, and even the White House. And as scandal, tragedy, and poverty threaten her family, Patsy must decide how much she will sacrifice to protect her father's reputation, in the process defining not just his political legacy, but that of the nation he founded.




Somebody's Daughter


Book Description

They are America's forgotten children, the hundreds of thousands of child prostitutes who walk the Las Vegas Strip, the casinos of Atlantic City, the truck stops on interstates, and the street corners of our cities. Many people wrongly believe sex trafficking involves young women from foreign lands. In reality, the majority of teens caught in the sex trade are American girls--runaways and throwaways who become victims of ruthless pimps. In Somebody's Daughter: The Hidden Story of America's Prostituted Children and the Battle to Save Them, meet the girls who are fighting for their dignity, the cops who are trying to rescue them, and the community activists battling to protect the nation's most forsaken children. Author Julian Sher takes you behind the scenes to expose one of America's most underreported crimes: A girl from New Jersey gets arrested in Las Vegas and, at great risk to her own life, helps the FBI take down a million-dollar pimping empire. An abused teenager in Texas has the courage to take the stand in a grueling trial that sends her pimp away for 75 years. Survivors of the sex trade in New York, Phoenix, and Minneapolis set up shelters and rescue centers that offer young girls a chance to break free from the streets. &“The sex trade is the new drug trade,&” says one FBI special agent, and Somebody's Daughter is a call to action, shining a light on America's dirty little secret.




Woman of Color, Daughter of Privilege


Book Description

This fascinating story of Amanda America Dickson, born the privileged daughter of a white planter and an unconsenting slave in antebellum Georgia, shows how strong-willed individuals defied racial strictures for the sake of family. Kent Anderson Leslie uses the events of Dickson's life to explore the forces driving southern race and gender relations from the days of King Cotton through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and New South eras. Although legally a slave herself well into her adolescence, Dickson was much favored by her father and lived comfortably in his house, receiving a genteel upbringing and education. After her father died in 1885 Dickson inherited most of his half-million dollar estate, sparking off two years of legal battles with white relatives. When the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the will, Dickson became the largest landowner in Hancock County, Georgia, and the wealthiest black woman in the post-Civil War South. Kent Anderson Leslie's portrayal of Dickson is enhanced by a wealth of details about plantation life; the elaborate codes of behavior for men and women, blacks and whites in the South; and the equally complicated circumstances under which racial transgressions were sometimes ignored, tolerated, or even accepted.




First Daughter


Book Description

During her father's presidential campaign, sixteen-year-old Sameera Righton, who was adopted from Pakistan at the age of three, struggles with campaign staffers who want to give her a more "all-American" image and create a fake weblog in her name.




American Daughter


Book Description

In this beautifully crafted book, Elizabeth Kendall tells the story of a family, of a passionate attachment between a mother and a daughter and the sudden tragedy that tears it apart. American Daughter is also a brilliant portrait of wellborn women's lives in cities and towns in the post-World War II era, as Kendall evokes how difficult it was to become anything other than an American daughter, which meant being a dependent woman. Occupying a coveted place in St. Louis's privileged high society, Henry and Betty Kendall seemed to be the American dream come true: six children, a sprawling house, a legacy of higher education at Harvard and Vassar. Yet underneath lay the flawed marriage of an idealistic young woman who made her eldest daughter her best friend and turned civil rights into her salvation. Elizabeth maintained the family silence as eccentricities began to appear in her father's behavior, along with whispers of financial difficulties. She accompanied her mother back to Vassar for a summer program on the home and family, then came into her own, away from her family, at the haven of a girls' summer camp and at Radcliffe. From the war-torn 1940s, when young men in uniform, home on leave, went to debutante parties, through the seismic social changes of the 1960s, Kendall tells the intertwined story of her mother and herself, of their powerful bond and how both shaped their lives in response to it. Unrelentingly honest, rich with humor and insights into families and women's lives, American Daughter is both a poignant portrait of American life at the middle of the twentieth century, and a dual coming-of-age story of a mother and a daughter, united by commitment and love, separated by a fatal accident-and by the vastly different birthrights of their generations.




Queen of America


Book Description

At turns heartbreaking, uplifting, fiercely romantic, and riotously funny,this novel from a Pulitzer Prize finalist tells the unforgettable story of a young woman coming of age and finding her place in a new world. Beginning where Luis Alberto Urrea's bestselling The Hummingbird's Daughter left off, Queen of America finds young Teresita Urrea, beloved healer and "Saint of Cabora," with her father in 1892 Arizona. But, besieged by pilgrims in desperate need of her healing powers, and pursued by assassins, she has no choice but to flee the borderlands and embark on an extraordinary journey into the heart of turn-of-the-century America. Teresita's passage will take her to New York, San Francisco, and St. Louis, where she will encounter European royalty, Cuban poets, beauty queens, anxious immigrants and grand tycoons -- and, among them, a man who will force Teresita to finally ask herself the ultimate question: is a saint allowed to fall in love?




Muscogee Daughter


Book Description

How American is Miss America? For Susan Supernaw, a Muscogee (Creek) and Munsee Native American, the question wasn't just academic. Throughout a childhood clouded by poverty, alcoholism, abuse, and a physical disability, Supernaw sought escape in school and dance and the Native American Church. She became a presidential scholar, won a scholarship to college, and was crowned Miss Oklahoma in 1971. Supernaw might not have won the Miss America pageant that year, but she did call attention to the Native peoples living largely invisible lives throughout their own American land. And she did at long last earn her Native American name. Chronicling a quest to escape poverty and find meaning, Supernaw's story is revealing, humorous, and deeply moving. Muscogee Daughter is the story of finding a Native American identity among the distractions and difficulties of American life and of discerning an identity among competing notions of what it is to be a woman, a Native American, and a citizen of the world.




The Children's Book of America


Book Description

Presents stories of significant events and people in American history, patriotic songs, and American folk tales and poems.