Ocean State Libraries

Fall in love with one of the bestselling novels of all time — the legendary love story that became a beloved film starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep.
If you've ever experienced the one true love of your life, a love that for some reason could never be, you will understand why readers all over the world are so moved by this small, unknown first novel that they became a publishing phenomenon and #1 bestseller. The story of Robert...

The murder of a wealthy young woman sparks a backlash against the hippie commune that has recently arrived in Black River Falls A hippie commune has invaded Black River Falls.   While the majority of the townspeople believe that the bohemians have to right to stay—despite how bizarre some of their ways can seem—as always there is a minority that constantly accuses them of everything from criminal activities to Satanism. As usual, lawyer

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Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack--the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years--comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain.

Infused with sharp insight, honesty, and emotion, At Paradise Gate is a treat for both the heart and the intellect. In this poignant story, best-selling author Jane Smiley pens a graceful portrait of an ordinary midwestern family confronting the mysteries of death and regeneration. While her 77-year-old husband lies upstairs, dying, Anna Robison spends her depleting energy defending their home. Their three middle-aged daughters and 23-year-old granddaughter...

For many years, Ilsa Redlich has helped her parents run a hotel in South Amana. But as the United States enters the Great War, anti-German sentiment sweeps the country, and Amanans now face persecution from former friends.

In the midst of a 1981 meteor shower in Iowa, a homicidal maniac escapes from prison and returns to the farm where his nineteen-year-old son, Ry, must summon three childhood toys, including one called Scowler, to protect himself, his eleven-year-old sister, Sarah, and their mother.

"It happens quietly one August morning. As dawn's shimmering light drenches the humid Iowa air, two families awaken to find their little girls have gone missing in the night. Seven-year-old Calli Clark is sweet, gentle, a dreamer who suffers from selective mutism brought on by tragedy that pulled her deep into silence as a toddler. Calli's mother, Antonia, tried to be the best mother she could within the confines of marriage to a mostly absent, often...

For generations, a grand estate house was the crowning glory of more than 3,000 acres of Iowa farmland. Named Aurelia, it was a monument to matriarch Lavinia Hathaway's dream to elevate the family name--no matter what relative or stranger she had to destroy in the process. Now, Lavinia's youngest grandchild, Meredith Pincetti, is thrust into conflict with the legacy that destroyed her family's once-great name.

"Sarah Quinlan's husband, Jack, has been haunted for decades by the untimely death of his mother when he was just a teenager, her body found in the cellar of their family farm, the circumstances a mystery. The case rocked the small farm town of Penny Gate, Iowa, where Jack was raised, and for years Jack avoided returning home. But when his beloved aunt Julia is in an accident, hospitalized in a coma, Jack and Sarah are forced to confront the past...

"Forging an unlikely bond when they first meet in nursing school in 1967 Iowa, roommates BettyKay and Kitty are forced apart when tragedy strikes, sending them down separate paths, but against all odds, their decades-long friendship sees them through life's trials and tribulations until one snowy night leads their relationship to the ultimate crossroads."--