Daring to Dream (Wildwood Stables #1)


Book Description

A rescued horse, an abandoned ranch, a new beginning for a very lucky girl... and the start of an exciting new horse series! Taylor Henry loves horses, but her single mom can't afford riding lessons, much less a horse. So when she discovers an abandoned gelding and pony, Taylor is happy just to be around them. But the rescued animals have nowhere to go, and Taylor is running out of time to find them a good home. Could the empty old barn on Wildwood Lane be the answer? And could Taylor's wildest dream -- of a horse to call her own -- finally be coming true?




Racing Against Time (Wildwood Stables #3)


Book Description

A rescued horse, an abandoned ranch, a new beginning for a very lucky girl ... and the start of an exciting new middle-grade horse series, sure to be an instant classic! All of Taylor's hard work with Prince Albert is finally paying off, and both she and the horse feel at home at Wildwood Stables. But spoiled Plum Mason is still causing problems, overtraining her new horse, Shafir. Can Taylor and the other Wildwood girls protect Shafir from the reckless rider?




Learning to Fly


Book Description

Taylor feels more at home at Wildwood Stables than she does anywhere else. But she still has so much to learn! So when Daphne offers to teach her English-style riding, Taylor can't wait to get started. But will her horse, Prince Albert, be as excited to try something new? Especially is it means competition--and jumping?




Taking the Leap (Wildwood Stables #6)


Book Description

Taylor's adventures at Wildwood Stables, where anything is possible, continue! One of Taylor Henry's best friends at Wildwood Stables, Daphne Chang, is a brilliant rider. So when she gets the offer of a lifetime from Ross River Ranch, Wildwood's toughest competition, it comes as no surprise -- but it could also mean the end of Wildwood Stables.




Mean Green Mystery Machine


Book Description

SCOOBY-DOO is an 'Ameri-canine' icon, the most beloved cartoon pooch of all time. Scooby is in the midst of a huge popularity boom, with new TV episodes and a sequel to the hit movie due in summer 04. Based on episodes from the hit new Kids WB! TV show, "What's New, Scooby-Doo," this new line of junior chapter books is designed for first and second-graders who are just learning to read. The books are 48 pages long, with minimal, simple text and lots of illustrations. Zoinks! The Mystery Machine is acting very strange. It's chasing Scooby and gang all around Coolsville. Like, why is the Mystery Machine being so mean? The kids must crack the case before the Mystery Machine drives them up a wall!




Playing for Keeps (Wildwood Stables #2)


Book Description

New friends, old rivalries, and the amazing place that brings them together ... welcome back to Wildwood Stables! Taylor Henry thinks Wildwood Stables is perfect -- even if it needs repair and a lot more money, it's become a home to her and her new horse, Prince Albert. And as soon as Taylor trains Prince Albert to give lessons, Wildwood will be in business!But the gelding refuses to let anyone ride him except Taylor. Can she convince Prince Albert to earn his keep? Or will Taylor need the help of her worst enemy to save her beloved new home?




The Beloved Girls


Book Description

"It's a funny old house. They have this ceremony every summer . . . There's an old chapel, in the grounds of the house. It's half-derelict. The Hunters keep bees in there. Every year, on the same day, the family processes to the chapel. They open the combs, taste the honey. Take it back to the house. Half for them -" my father winced, as though he had bitten down on a sore tooth. "And half for us." Catherine, a successful barrister, vanishes from a train station on the eve of her anniversary. Is it because she saw a figure - someone she believed long dead? Or was it a shadow cast by her troubled, fractured mind? The answer lies buried in the past. It lies in the events of the hot, seismic summer of 1989, at Vanes - a mysterious West Country manor house - where a young girl, Jane Lestrange, arrives to stay with the gilded, grand Hunter family, and where a devastating tragedy will unfold. Over the summer, as an ancient family ritual looms closer, Janey falls for each member of the family in turn. She and Kitty, the eldest daughter of the house, will forge a bond that decades later, is still shaping the present . . . 'We need the bees to survive, and they need us to survive. Once you understand that, you understand the history of Vanes, you understand our family.'




A Game of Thrones


Book Description

NOW THE ACCLAIMED HBO SERIES GAME OF THRONES—THE MASTERPIECE THAT BECAME A CULTURAL PHENOMENON Winter is coming. Such is the stern motto of House Stark, the northernmost of the fiefdoms that owe allegiance to King Robert Baratheon in far-off King’s Landing. There Eddard Stark of Winterfell rules in Robert’s name. There his family dwells in peace and comfort: his proud wife, Catelyn; his sons Robb, Brandon, and Rickon; his daughters Sansa and Arya; and his bastard son, Jon Snow. Far to the north, behind the towering Wall, lie savage Wildings and worse—unnatural things relegated to myth during the centuries-long summer, but proving all too real and all too deadly in the turning of the season. Yet a more immediate threat lurks to the south, where Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King, has died under mysterious circumstances. Now Robert is riding north to Winterfell, bringing his queen, the lovely but cold Cersei, his son, the cruel, vainglorious Prince Joffrey, and the queen’s brothers Jaime and Tyrion of the powerful and wealthy House Lannister—the first a swordsman without equal, the second a dwarf whose stunted stature belies a brilliant mind. All are heading for Winterfell and a fateful encounter that will change the course of kingdoms. Meanwhile, across the Narrow Sea, Prince Viserys, heir of the fallen House Targaryen, which once ruled all of Westeros, schemes to reclaim the throne with an army of barbarian Dothraki—whose loyalty he will purchase in the only coin left to him: his beautiful yet innocent sister, Daenerys.




The Blue Castle


Book Description

29 and unmarried, gasp! - can you think of anything worse? In 1920s rural Canada, Valancy Stirling is considered "past it" and with a controlling, nagging mother and petty gossips for relatives she feels trapped in the life she has ended up in and when she is diagnosed with a terminal heart condition and given a year to live, it seems she will die without ever experiencing happiness. And so, she rebels. She leaves her family home slamming the door as she does and moves in with her old friend Cissy and starts working as a housekeeper. The independence is intoxicating - as is a growing friendship with local man, Barney Snaith. It looks as though Valancy will have love to warm her heart in her final months. But secrets on both sides threaten to ruin things. The intoxicating story of love and loss is perfect for fans of Elizabeth Gaskell and Jodie Picoult. Lucy Maud (L.M.) Montgomery was a Canadian author best known for a series of children's books beginning with 'Anne of Green Gables'. The books were a huge hit in her lifetime and were recently made in the Netflix series 'Anne with an E'. Montgomery published 20 novels, 530 short stories, 500 poems and 30 essays in her lifetime. Most were set in Canada's smallest province, Prince Edward Island.




The Warmth of Other Suns


Book Description

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this beautifully written masterwork, the Pulitzer Prize–winnner and bestselling author of Caste chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves. With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties. Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.