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c2012., General, HarperCollins Canada, Limited Call No: Fic Ber Edition: 1st ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Born in 1930 in a small town outside Winnipeg, beautiful Hope Koop appears destined to have a conventional life. Church, marriage to a steady young man, children - her fortunes are already laid out for her, as are the shiny modern appliances in her new home. All she has to do is stay with Roy, who loves her. But as the decades unfold, what seems to be a safe, predictable existence overwhelms Hope. An indelible portrait of a seemingly ordinary woman who struggles to accept herself as she is, and in so doing becomes unique."--Publisher.
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2022., Adult, Anchor Books Call No: NEW Fic Boy Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby has lived in the same well-to-do mansion block in London for decades. She lives a quiet, comfortable life, despite her deeply disturbing, dark past. She doesn't talk about her escape from Nazi Germany at age twelve. She doesn't talk about the grim post-war years in France with her mother. Most of all, she doesn't talk about her father, who was the commandant of one of the Reich's most notorious extermination camps. Then, a new family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can't help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget. One night, she witnesses a disturbing, violent argument between Henry's beautiful mother and his arrogant father, one that threatens Gretel's hard-won, self-contained existence. .
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c2011., Adult, Knopf Canada Call No: IND Fic Bar Edition: 1st ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "The novel begins at the age of six, Martha is taken from her family and their home in the Cat Lake First Nation in northern Ontario and flown to a residential school on James Bay. It's not a good experience. She doesn't speak English but is punished for speaking her Native language; most terrifying and bewildering, she is also "fed" to the school's attendant priest with an attraction to little girls. Ten years later, it is an emotionally devastated sixteen-year-old who finds her way home again, barely able to speak the only language her mother knows. Martha hangs out with other young people, and gives birth to a little boy, whom she calls Spider, because of a web-shaped birthmark on his forehead. She loves him but has little knowledge or experience of good parenting. She seeks comfort and forgetfulness in alcohol, and Chidlren's Aid authorities in Toronto, a place she has only heard of, take Spider away from her. When she later gives birth to Raven, a daughter, Martha's mother insists on keeping her in Cat Lake when Martha decides to move to Toronto to find Spider. When Raven turns thirteen, she feels hopeless, rejected by her mother and not sure what, if anything, life has in store for her. She enters a suicide pact with three other teens and is eventually the only one of the group still alive."--Inside front cover.
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By Dean, Sunyi2022., Adult, Tor Call No: Fic Dea Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries. Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairytales and cautionary stories. But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.
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2023., Adult, Atria Books Call No: Fic Wei Availability:1 of 1 At Your LibraryConnect to this eBook title Summary Note: Thirty-three-year-old Abby Stern has made it to a happy place. True, she still has gig jobs instead of a career, and the apartment where she's lived since college still looks like she's just moved in. But she's got good friends, her bike, and her bicycling club in Philadelphia. She's at peace with her plus-size body, at least, most of the time, and she's on track to marry Mark Medoff, her childhood summer sweetheart, a man she met at the weight-loss camp that her perpetually dieting mother forced her to attend. Fifteen years after her final summer at Camp Golden Hills, when Abby reconnects with a half-his-size Mark, it feels like the happy ending she's always wanted. Yet Abby can't escape the feeling that some-thing isn't right-- or the memories of one thrilling night she spent with a man named Sebastian two years previously. When Abby gets a last-minute invitation to lead a cycling trip from NYC to Niagara Falls, she's happy to have time away from Mark, a chance to reflect and make up her mind. But things get complicated fast. First, Abby spots a familiar face in the group, Sebastian, the one-night stand she thought she'd never see again. Sebastian is a serial dater who lives a hundred miles away. In spite of their undeniable chemistry, Abby is determined to keep her distance. Then there's a surprise last-minute addition to the trip: her mother, Eileen, the woman Abby blames for a lifetime of body shaming and insecurities she's still trying to undo. Over two weeks and more than seven hundred miles, strangers become friends, hidden truths come to light, a teenage girl with a secret unites the riders in unexpected ways-- and Abby is forced to reconsider everything she believes about herself, her mother, and the nature of love.
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By Rum, Etaf2023., HarperCollins Call No: Fic Rum Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: After Yara is placed on probation at work for fighting with a racist coworker, her Palestinian mother claims the provocation and all that’s come after were the result of a family curse. While Yara doesn’t believe in old superstitions, she finds herself unpacking her strict, often volatile childhood growing up in Brooklyn, looking for clues as to why she feels so unfulfilled in a life her mother could only dream of. Etaf Rum’s follow-up to her 2019 debut, A Woman Is No Man, is a complicated mother-daughter drama that looks at the lasting effects of intergenerational trauma and what it takes to break the cycle of abuse.
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1994., Adult, Orion Call No: Fic Bin Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Kit grows up without the mother she has loved, determined to make something of her life and take control of her own future.
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2019., 149, Warner Bros. Call No: DVD Fic Goldfinch Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Theodore Decker is thirteen years old when his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The tragedy changes the course of his life, sending him on a stirring odyssey of grief and guilt, reinvention and redemption, and even love. Through it all, he holds on to one tangible piece of hope from that terrible day -- a painting of a tiny bird chained to its perch.
![The goldfinch [DVD] (2019). Directed by John Crowley.](/Library/images/~imageCT100850.JPG "The goldfinch [DVD] (2019). Directed by John Crowley.")
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By Thomas, Bev2019., Adult, Random House Canada Call No: MYS Fic Tho Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "A suspenseful, enthralling story of a mother who is a psychotherapist, her missing son, a patient who reminds her of him, and the boundaries they cross. Ruth Hartland is the director of a trauma therapy unit in London. A psychotherapist with twenty years of experience, she is highly respected in her field. But her family life tells another story: her marriage has fractured and her daughter, Caroline, has moved far away to Australia. Most devastatingly, Caroline's twin brother, Tom, has disappeared and has had no contact with anyone for two years. Ruth's fragile son has always been sensitive and anxious, the opposite of his cheerful and resilient sister. Is he hiding? Is he dead? How did she fail him, and how can she find him after all this time? Then Ruth is assigned a new patient, a young man who bears a striking resemblance to Tom. She is determined to work with Dan, to become immersed in his trauma and help him emerge from it, but grief and guilt cloud her judgment. Professional boundaries, once inviolable, are transgressed. When events spiral out of control, Ruth must confront the unthinkable and reckon with those who truly matter in her life. Deeply insightful, with riveting twists and turns, A Good Enough Mother is a brilliant and heartfelt exploration of the responsibilities and limitations of motherhood."-- .
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c2009., Atria Books Call No: Fic Pic Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: After her daughter contracts a fatal disease, Charlotte O'Keefe must confront some serious questions that ultimately lead to one final epiphany: what constitutes a valuable life.
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2018., St Martins Call No: Fic Arc Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Alexander Karpenko is no ordinary child, and from an early age, it is clear he is destined to lead his countrymen. But when his father is assassinated by the KGB for defying the state, he and his mother will have to escape from Russia if they hope to survive. At the docks, they are confronted with an irreversible choice: should they board a container ship bound for America, or Great Britain? Alexander leaves that choice to the toss of a coin. In a single moment, a double twist decides Alexander's future. During an epic tale of fate and fortune, spanning two continents and thirty years, we follow his triumphs and defeats as he struggles as an immigrant to conquer his new world. As this unique story unfolds, Alexander comes to realize where his destiny lies, and accepts that he must face the past he left behind in Russia.
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2016., Adult, Bloomsbury USA Call No: Fic Lev Edition: 1st U.S. ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Sofia, a young anthropologist, has spent much of her life trying to solve the mystery of her mother's unexplainable illness. She is frustrated with Rose and her constant complaints, but utterly relieved to be called to abandon her own disappointing fledgling adult life. She and her mother travel to the searing, arid coast of southern Spain to see a famous consultant--their very last chance--in the hope that he might cure her unpredictable limb paralysis. But Dr. Gomez has strange methods that seem to have little to do with physical medicine, and as the treatment progresses, Sofia's mother's illness becomes increasingly baffling. Sofia's role as detective--tracking her mother's symptoms in an attempt to find the secret motivation for her pain--deepens as she discovers her own desires in this transient desert community. Hot Milk is a profound exploration of the sting of sexuality, of unspoken female rage, of myth and modernity, the lure of hypochondria and big pharma, and, above all, the value of experimenting with life; of being curious, bewildered, and vitally alive to the world."--From publisher.
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2009., Mariner Books-Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Call No: Fic Mil Edition: 1st Mariner Books ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: From the publisher. As a wealthy, young real-estate developer in Los Angeles, T. lives an isolated life. He has always kept his distance from people {8212} from his doting mother to his crass fraternity brothers {8212} but remains unaware of his loneliness until one night, while driving to Las Vegas, he hits a coyote on the highway. The experience unnerves him and inspires a transformation that leads T. to question his business pursuits for the first time in his life, to take a chance at falling in love, and finally to begin breaking into zoos across the country, where he finds solace in the presence of animals on the brink of extinction.
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By Genova, Lisac2012., General, Gallery Books Call No: Fic Gen Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Olivia Donatelli's dream of a 'normal' life shattered when her son, Anthony, was diagnosed with autism at age three. Understanding the world from his perspective felt bewildering, nearly impossible. He didn't speak. He hated to be touched. He almost never made eye contact. And just as Olivia was starting to realize that happiness and autism could coexist, Anthony died. Now she's alone in a cottage on Nantucket, separated from her husband, desperate to understand the meaning of her son's short life, when a chance encounter with another woman facing her own loss brings Anthony alive again for Olivia in a most unexpected way. Beth Ellis's entire life changed with a simple note: 'I'm sleeping with Jimmy.' Fourteen years of marriage. Three beautiful daughters. Yet even before her husband's affair, she had never felt so alone. Heartbroken, she finds the pieces of the vivacious, creative person she used to be packed away in a box in her attic. For the first time in years, she uncaps her pen, takes a deep breath, and begins to write. The young but exuberant voice that emerges onto the page is a balm to the turmoil within her, a new beginning, and an astonishing bridge back to herself. In a piercing story about motherhood, autism, and love, New York Times bestselling author Lisa Genova offers us two unforgettable women on the verge of change and the irrepressible young boy whose unique wisdom helps them both find the courage to move on."--Publisher.
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c2012., General, Random House of Canada Call No: Fic Oco Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: What's a girl supposed to do after her mother kills herself by walking into the Don River with her pockets full of unpolished zircon stones? Maggie removes the zircon stones from the inventory of the family's New Age shop and opens up for another day of business. Then her blackouts begin, as do the visits from a mysterious customer who offers help for Maggie's blackouts and her project of investigating her mother's past in the American South. Is Maggie breaking down in the way her mother did, or is her "madness" a distinctive show of grief? Nobody really knows, not her father, her boyfriend or her psychiatrist, and especially not Maggie, who has to make some crazy decisions in order to work to feel sane again. A vivid look at the various confusions that can set in after a trauma and an insightful, gently funny portrait of a woman in her early twenties, especially relatable to readers who grew up in the eighties and nineties, 'Magnified World' dramatizes the battle between the head and the heart and the limitations of both in unlocking something as complicated as loss.
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2016., Riverhead Books Call No: BLK Fic Ben Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "A dazzling debut novel from an exciting new voice, The Mothers is a surprising story about young love, a big secret in a small community--and the things that ultimately haunt us most"--
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2014., Adult, McClelland and Stewart Call No: Fic Toi Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Set in Wexford, Ireland, and in breathtaking Ballyconnigar by the sea, Colm Toibin's tour de force 8th novel introduces the formidable, memorable Nora Webster. Widowed at 40, with four children and not enough money, Nora has lost the love of her life, Maurice, the man who rescued her from the stifling world she was born into. Wounded and self-centred from grief and the need to provide for her family, she struggles to be attentive to her children's needs and their own difficult loss. Toibin has given us a vivid portrait of a time and an intricately woven tapestry of lives in a small town."--Publisher.
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2014., Adult, Audioworks Call No: CD Fic Toi Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Set in Wexford, Ireland, and in breathtaking Ballyconnigar by the sea, Colm Toibin's tour de force 8th novel introduces the formidable, memorable Nora Webster. Widowed at 40, with four children and not enough money, Nora has lost the love of her life, Maurice, the man who rescued her from the stifling world she was born into. Wounded and self-centred from grief and the need to provide for her family, she struggles to be attentive to her children's needs and their own difficult loss. Toibin has given us a vivid portrait of a time and an intricately woven tapestry of lives in a small town."--Publisher.
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2018., William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Call No: MYS Fic Sla Edition: First edition. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Series Title: Andrea Oliver Volume: 1Summary Note: Andrea knows everything about her mother, Laura. She knows she’s spent her whole life in the small beachside town of Belle Isle; she knows she’s never wanted anything more than to live a quiet life as a pillar of the community; she knows she’s never kept a secret in her life. Because we all know our mothers, don’t we? But all that changes when a trip to the mall explodes into violence and Andrea suddenly sees a completely different side to Laura. Because it turns out that before Laura was Laura, she was someone completely different. For nearly thirty years she’s been hiding from her previous identity, lying low in the hope that no one would ever find her. But now she’s been exposed, and nothing will ever be the same again.
