Ocean State Libraries

It is 1830, and the Berrybender family -- rich, aristocratic, English, and fiercely out of place -- is on its way up the Missouri River to see the American West as it begins to open up. Lord and Lady Berrybender have abandoned their palatial home in England to explore the frontier and to broaden the horizons of their children, who include Tasmin, a budding young woman of grit, beauty, and determination, her vivacious and difficult sister, and her...

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry continues his epic four-novel telling of The Berrybender Narratives with a new adventure that is both a grand literary achievement and riveting entertainment as forged by a master wordsmith.... The indefatigable Tasmin Berrybender and her eccentric family trek on through the unexplored Wild West of 1830s America -- and suffer the harsh realities of the untamed wilderness, including sickness, brutal violence...

From one of America's best-loved storytellers - the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Where the Heat Is - comes a tale of a small Oklahoma town and the mystery that has haunted its residents for years. In 1972, windswept DeClare, Oklahoma, was consumed by the murder of a young mother, Gaylene Harjo, and the disappearance of her baby, Nicky Jack. When the child's pajama bottoms were discovered on the banks of Willow Creek, everyone feared...

Brimming with charm and whimsy, this national bestseller set in the Tower of London has the transportive qualities and delightful magic of the contemporary classics Chocolat and Amélie. 
Balthazar Jones has lived in the Tower of London with his loving wife, Hebe, and his 120-year-old pet tortoise for the past eight years. That’s right, he is a Beefeater (they really do live there). It’s no easy...

In this brilliant saga-the final volume of The Berrybender Narratives and an epic in its own right-Larry McMurtry lives up to his reputation for delivering novels with "wit, grace, and more than a hint of what might be called muscular nostalgia, fit together to create a panoramic portrait of the American West" (The New York Times Book Review). As this finale opens, Tasmin and her family are under irksome, though comfortable, arrest in Mexican Santa...

In this tale of adventure, at once high-spirited and terrifying, set against the background of the West that Larry McMurtry has made his own, By Sorrow's River is an epic in its own right with an extraordinary young woman as its leading figure. At the heart of this third volume of his Western saga remains the beautiful and determined Tasmin Berrybender, now married to the "Sin Killer" and mother to their young son, Monty, who, although Tasmin intends...

"...propulsive and compelling...a gripping [story]." - New York Times Book Review "Beautifully subtle. . . . It draws the reader in page after page." - Boston Globe "Astonishing Splashes of Colours is a brave and startling book, tinted, shaded and stained like life itself." - Philadelphia Inquirer "This finely constructed novel, Booker Prize (shortlist), should please readers of both popular and literary fiction." - Library Journal (starred review) "Wellington,...

Adrian Monk is actually doing well lately. He is solving murders as fast as they come, and he has been noticeably less compulsive-he doesn't count his morning Wheat Chex until they're in the bowl. Progress is progress, and Monk knows he owes it all to his therapist, Dr. Kroger. So when Dr. Kroger attends a conference in Germany, Monk ends up in trouble. He can't tie his shoes, forgets how to swallow, and loses track of his blinking. Desperate to regain...

Madmen may see monsters – but some monsters hide in plain sight
 
From a basement office in London’s notorious Bethlehem Hospital, former policeman and Pinkerton agent, Sebastian Becker investigates those whose dubious mental health may render them unfit to manage their own affairs. When Becker is sent to interview wealthy landowner Sir Owain Lancaster, he claims that the same dark creatures who killed his family...

""At first, Oh! seems a satire, a sitcom stripped of its sentiment and foolishness. But it is far more. Mary Robison is trying to show us how the the incredibly complicated dance of family life works."" —The New Yorker
Those who know Mary Robison's work will not be surprised that her first novel leaps from one prodigal moment to the next, for as Kenneth Burke has said of this startling writer, ""Robison outguesses the...