The Low Road


Book Description

The Low Road is a memoir of the life and exploits of a twenty-something Boston City cab driver in the 70s and 80s. This gritty yet humorous story targets audiences of a wide spectrum. It is a must read for anyone who likes true crime, adventure, and a likable villain that triumphs over adversity, peppered with the seediness and debauchery of inner city life. The book places the reader in the shoes of a young man starting out in the world, alone, nave, and troubled. Having no marketable skills but his cleverness and cunning, he carves out a living in a major city. He takes hold of what is his only opportunity in life and becomes more adept as time goes on, finally becoming a master at the game that once had him pinned. Native Bostonians, college students, and anyone with a perverse and pessimistic sense of humor will enjoy reading The Low Road because it is a fast paced, comical, and factual story of a true underdog who finally overcame.







In Flight


Book Description

Marta Demir, a successful attorney with an international trade company based in New York City, travels to Istanbul to sort out a dispute over pasta exportation between Turkey, Italy, and the United States. On the airplane from New York, Marta's seatmate, an elderly Greek man named Vasilli Vassilios, shares his story of exile from Constantinople as a child. He is returning to the land of his birth in response to a letter informing him of the death of his brother, whom he has not seen or heard from in over seventy-five years. Although she is at first unwilling to involve herself in Vasilli's problems, it eventually becomes a relief from the pasta case and Marta is drawn to help her new friend. Their search for his family leads the pair to visit Buyuk Ada, an island in the Marmara that is home to many wealthy Turkish and minority families. There, rather than find information about Vasilli's past, Marta is shaken to learn that her mother perished shortly after she left the country. As Vasilli and Marta search throughout Turkey to find clues to their family secrets, they discover the warmth and beauty of the Turkish countryside and her people.







Memories


Book Description

In 1932, former New York City Fire Captain Jake McCann is appointed fire chief in Woodhill, a small Ohio village. He and his two officers, also from New York City, are haunted by their memories of two tragic events. For Jake the appointment is a chance for him to rebuild his life in the town where his twin brother, a physician, already lives. The first person Jake meets upon his arrival is Laura Darvey, a woman married to a local gangster. In addition to her profession as a nurse, Laura raises Appaloosa horses; inviting Jake to visit her farm sparks his interest in horses and provides an opportunity for Jake and Laura to become more than friends. When Laura's husband learns of the relationship, he unleashes the fury of Prohibition Era gangsters on both of them.




Our Adversary


Book Description




Annie Quinn in America


Book Description

To escape the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, twelve-year-old Annie and her brother emigrate to New York City where they join their older sister as servants, earning money to bring the rest of their family to America, where they discover that both food and hardships abound.




Coal


Book Description

Coal starts at the bottom-in the basement of an old Seattle house-where Ken, a 42-year-old bachelor, stumbles across a box of letters that his sister Cole kept over the years. The discovery brings Ken back to the day Cole died eight years ago. Emotions come like a flood, and suddenly Ken-having moved back to the empty family home after years of bouncing through relationships and life in general-has a plan. But Ken is unprepared for Carol, the seemingly upright nurse who turns out to be a little more on the wild side than first appears. And as he learns more about Carol, and himself, and his sister's past, he pokes determinedly at the smoldering coals of spirit that push us to hope and live and to make hurtful mistakes. It is here, in the lessons learned from the aging of wood and wine and the fragile unpredictability of life that Ken realizes where real beauty resides. And so, despite having spent years stumbling through many relationships, he is intent on finding real love and a peaceful life. Sort of.




Froggitt Chain


Book Description

Everybody's best mate but nobody's soul mate. Milkman Peter Froggitt is stressed out and when life overwhelms him he always runs. Now he is terrified. In his new stealth-camper, he heads north, running from the memory of a dead woman, his fear of the Watcher on the scrubland and from his own interminable loneliness. In his possession is the heavy gold chain he has kept since childhood. The chain he took from The Blackened Man. At 4.30am, in an attempt to re-invent himself as a carefree man, Peter tosses his burden into a field; a bag containing the chain, along with letters from his father and his ex-wife, his phone, some keys and a mysterious photograph of a pale, scruffy child. But from a hotel balcony, Hugo Quin is watching. And when Hugo is watching, anything is possible. The Froggitt Chain is a story of ordinary people who long to belong. It is about brokenness, connection and hope. 'It's rare to come across such an original voice and to find a book that is both very funny and intensely moving.' K. Holmes




He Was Her Man


Book Description

“The action is non-stop and full of surprises” in this “entertaining mystery” when a spa weekend in Hot Springs, Arkansas, is marred with murder (Publishers Weekly). Leaving a bad boyfriend behind in New Orleans, crime reporter and amateur sleuth Samantha Adams heads to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to celebrate the engagement of her old friend Jinx Watson, who also just won the Texas lottery. Sam is hoping a girls’ weekend of posh spa treatments will help wash her ex out of her hair, but Jinx’s run of good luck comes up short when her friend Olivia is a no-show—and her fiancé, Speed McKay, disappears. A former call girl, Olivia now lives an upstanding life as a local diner owner. But could her disappearance have something to do with her son’s recent arrest? As for Speed, the more Sam looks into his life, the less he seems to be who he claims. And when Sam and Jinx realize they’re up against a kidnapper demanding a million-dollar ransom, Sam’s weekend away from her relationship problems might put her in the arms of a killer. “A high, wide, and handsome romp—occasionally tinged by melancholy—through a regional subculture brought to vivid life by an author who dares more and gets better with each outing.” —Kirkus Reviews