Girl of the Southern Sea


Book Description

From the time she was a little girl, Nia has dreamed up adventures about the Javanese mythical princess, Dewi Kadita. Now fourteen, Nia would love nothing more than to continue her education and become a writer. But high school costs too much. Her father sells banana fritters at the train station, but too much of his earnings go toward his drinking habit. Too often Nia is left alone to take over the food cart as well as care for her brother and their home in the Jakarta slums. But Nia is determined to find a way to earn her school fees. After she survives a minibus accident unharmed and the locals say she is blessed with 'good luck magic,' Nia exploits the notion for all its worth by charging double for her fried bananas. Selling superstitions can be dangerous, and when the tide turns it becomes clear that Nia’s future is being mapped without her consent. If Nia is to write a new story for herself, she must overcome more obstacles than she could ever have conceived of for her mythical princess, and summon courage she isn't sure she has.




Southern Seas


Book Description

Barcelona detective Pepe Carvalho’s radical past catches up with him when a powerful businessman—a patron of artists and activists—is found dead after going missing for a year. In search of the spirit of Paul Gauguin, Stuart Pedrell—eccentric Barcelona businessman, construction magnate, dreamer, and patron of poets and painters—disappeared not long after announcing plans to travel to the South Pacific. A year later he is found stabbed to death at a construction site in Barcelona. Gourmand gumshoe Pepe Carvalho is hired by Pedrell’s wife to find out what happened. Carvalho, a jaded former communist, must travel through circles of the old anti-Franco left wing on the trail of the killer. But with little appetite for politics, Carvalho also leads us on a tour through literature, cuisine, and the criminal underbelly of Barcelona in a typically brilliant twist on the genre by a Spanish master.




The Theory of Hummingbirds


Book Description

"Hummingbirds and angels don’t need two good feet. They have wings." That's what Alba's mother always says. Of course, Alba doesn't have wings or two good feet: she has Cleo. Cleo is the name Alba has given to her left foot, which was born twisted in the wrong direction. When she points this out, though, her mother just smiles like the world has some surprise in store Alba doesn't know about yet. Well, Alba has her own surprise planned. After one final surgery and one final cast, Cleo is almost ready to meet the world straight on--just in time to run in the sixth grade cross-country race. Unfortunately, Alba's best friend Levi thinks there's no way she can pull it off. And she thinks there's no way he's right about the school librarian hiding a wormhole in her office. Tempers flare. Sharp words fly faster than hummingbirds. And soon it looks like both friends will be stuck proving their theories on their own.




The Green Glass Sea


Book Description

It is 1943, and 11-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is traveling west on a train to live with her scientist father—but no one, not her father nor the military guardians who accompany her, will tell her exactly where he is. When she reaches Los Alamos, New Mexico, she learns why: he's working on a top secret government program. Over the next few years, Dewey gets to know eminent scientists, starts tinkering with her own mechanical projects, becomes friends with a budding artist who is as much of a misfit as she is—and, all the while, has no idea how the Manhattan Project is about to change the world. This book's fresh prose and fascinating subject are like nothing you've read before. Everyone who deals with middle-grade kids — parents, teacher, librarians — is busy answering questions about a movie they have heard so much about, but are too young to see. Green Glass Sea will answer their questions and more.




The Seas


Book Description

National Bestseller "The Seas took me back to how I felt as a kid, when you’re newly falling in love with literature, newly shocked by its capacity to cast a spell..." ?Maggie Nelson (from the Introduction) A Most Anticipated Book of Summer at BuzzFeed, NYLON, and more. Moored in a coastal fishing town so far north that the highways only run south, the unnamed narrator of The Seas is a misfit. She’s often the subject of cruel local gossip. Her father, a sailor, walked into the ocean eleven years earlier and never returned, leaving his wife and daughter to keep a forlorn vigil. Surrounded by water and beckoned by the sea, she clings to what her father once told her: that she is a mermaid. True to myth, she finds herself in hard love with a land-bound man, an Iraq War veteran thirteen years her senior.The mesmerizing, fevered coming-of-age tale that follows will land her in jail. Her otherworldly escape will become the stuff of legend. With the inventive brilliance and psychological insight that have earned her international acclaim, Samantha Hunt pulls readers into an undertow of impossible love and intoxication, blurring the lines between reality and fairy tale, hope and delusion, sanity and madness.




I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl


Book Description

A memoir of addiction and grief, forgiveness, and survival from a poet who recovers from alcoholism only after she sees her child die of leukemia.




Sea Change


Book Description

Bestselling author Aimee Friedman is back, with her signature combination of warmth and humor. And with this book, she adds a touch of fantasy. . . Lifetime Original Movie!New York Times bestselling author Aimee Friedman is back, with her signature combination of warmth and humor. And with this book, she adds a touch of fantasy. . .Sixteen-year-old Miranda Merchant is great at science. . .and not so great with boys. After major drama with her boyfriend and (now ex) best friend, she's happy to spend the summer on small, mysterious Selkie Island, helping her mother sort out her late grandmother's estate.There, Miranda finds new friends and an island with a mysterious, mystical history, presenting her with facts her logical, scientific mind can't make sense of. She also meets Leo, who challenges everything she thought she knew about boys, friendship. . .and reality.




Girl by Sea


Book Description

The conclusion to Penelope Green's bestselling trilogy about her life in Italy that includes When in Rome and See Naples and Die From her rooftop terrace, Penelope looks out across the sparkling waters of the Bay of Naples, and into a garden of lemon trees and magnolias. Has her Italian dream come true? Imagine catching a ferry home and stepping onto a waterfront lined with multicoloured buildings, busy with fishing boats and couples strolling to their favourite café. For Penny and her Italian love Alfonso, the idyllic island of Procida can offer the life they are looking for. But first Penny has to find a way into its small community. One thing she has in common with the locals is a love of food, so she sets herself a goal - to master the Procidan cuisine and become more than just a visitor. Across kitchen tables, in bustling cafés, and over long lunches under vine-covered pergolas, Penny learns the art of Italian cooking, builds friendships, and discovers the rhythms and secrets of island life. 'It’s a lovely chronicle of the joys and pitfalls of moving to a small community... A charming concoction of love, food and life – with recipes!' - The Australian Women’s Weekly 'With her observant eye for detail, young Sydney-born journalist Penelope Green's account of her time living on the beautiful Italian island of Procida with her partner, Alfonso, is an endearing insight into a small community where life, love and food reign supreme' - Sunday Telegraph 'interspersed with mouthwatering recipes and Procida is explored from a historical, cultural, architectural, social and heart-on-the-sleeve personal perspective. Delivered with a light and breezy tone, it's easy to consume' - Courier Mail Author Biography Penelope Green was born in Sydney and worked as a print journalist around Australia for a decade before moving to Rome in 2002. Her first book, When in Rome, recounts her early experiences in the Eternal City. In 2005 she moved to Naples to work for ANSAmed, a Mediterranean news service. She found an apartment in the city's colourful Spanish Quarter, worked hard at mastering the Neapolitan dialect, and writing her second travel memoir, See Naples and Die. Girl by Sea completes Penny's Italian experience as she moves to the idyllic island of Procida, across the bay from Capri, with her Italian partner, Alfonso. The couple have now returned to Australia, where they are making a new life for themselves back in the Southern hemisphere. For more information visit penelopegreen.com.au




The Island of Sea Women


Book Description

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A mesmerizing new historical novel” (O, The Oprah Magazine) from Lisa See, the bestselling author of The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, about female friendship and devastating family secrets on a small Korean island. Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends who come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook’s mother. As the girls take up their positions as baby divers, they know they are beginning a life of excitement and responsibility—but also danger. Despite their love for each other, Mi-ja and Young-sook find it impossible to ignore their differences. The Island of Sea Women takes place over many decades, beginning during a period of Japanese colonialism in the 1930s and 1940s, followed by World War II, the Korean War, through the era of cell phones and wet suits for the women divers. Throughout this time, the residents of Jeju find themselves caught between warring empires. Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator. Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers in their village. Little do the two friends know that forces outside their control will push their friendship to the breaking point. “This vivid…thoughtful and empathetic” novel (The New York Times Book Review) illuminates a world turned upside down, one where the women are in charge and the men take care of the children. “A wonderful ode to a truly singular group of women” (Publishers Weekly), The Island of Sea Women is a “beautiful story…about the endurance of friendship when it’s pushed to its limits, and you…will love it” (Cosmopolitan).




The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea


Book Description

A New York Times Bestseller! Don't chase fate. Let fate chase you. 'Clever, creative, and exquisitely written' Stephanie Garber For generations, deadly storms have ravaged Mina's homeland. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curse them with death and despair. To appease him, each year a maiden is thrown into the sea, in the hopes that one day the 'true bride' will be chosen and end the suffering. Many believe Shim Cheong - Mina's brother's beloved - to be the legendary true bride. But on the night Cheong is sacrificed, Mina's brother follows her, even knowing that to interfere is a death sentence. To save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water in Cheong's stead. Swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts, Mina finds the Sea God, trapped in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man and a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits, Mina sets out to wake him and bring an end to the storms once and for all. But she doesn't have much time: a human cannot live long in the land of the spirits. And there are those who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking . . . The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is a magical feminist retelling of a classic Korean legend, perfect for fans of Uprooted and Miyazaki's Spirited Away. 'A beautiful, mesmerizing retelling' Elizabeth Lim, New York Times bestselling author of Six Crimson Cranes 'A true jewel of a story' Janella Angeles, bestselling author of Where Dreams Descend