Ocean State Libraries

"Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America's rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair's brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country's most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who,...

The town of Juliet, population 1,011, is a blink-and-miss-it kind of town - a dusty oasis on the edge of vast sand hills. It's easy to believe that nothing of consequence takes place here. But the hills vibrate with life and the town's heart beats in the rich stories of its people. Set over the course of just one night, Juliet in August unfolds through a series of episodes as its characters' lives overlap and intersect in the business of day-to-day...

Midwife Patience Murphy has a gift for escorting mothers through the challenges of bringing children into the world. Working in the hardscrabble conditions of Appalachia during the Depression, she helps those most in need - and least likely to pay. But a successful midwifery practice must be built on a foundation of openness and trust, and the secrets Patience is keeping are far too intimate and fragile for her to let anyone in.

"A young woman from Nigeria leaves behind her home and her first love to start a new life in America, only to find her dreams are not all she expected"--

Santa Barbara private investigator Jaymie Zarlin built her fledgling agency on finding missing people. Still struggling with the death of her troubled brother in police custody, she's determined to help others in similar situations find their way home. Homicides are not in her repertoire. But when Lili Molina, a local teenager chosen for the coveted role of Daphne in the annual solstice parade, is murdered, Jaymie is urged to take on the case. Reluctant...

"When his beloved brother-in-law goes missing at the front in 1916, Angus defies his pacifist upbringing to join the war and find him. Assured a position as a cartographer in London, he is instead sent directly into the visceral shock of battle. Meanwhile, at home, his son Simon Peter must navigate escalating hostility in a fishing village torn by grief"--Amazon.com.

Into the quaint town of Fairport on Shelter Island comes Lily Byrne, a young widow who is not so much running from the old but rather edging toward something new. In the peaceful Pacific Northwest, she hides from the world in her new vintage clothing boutique. But Lily knows that solitude can't sustain her forever. Something's got to give. And it does, with the unexpected arrival of an exuberant little cat. As she searches for the cat's true home,...

Sisters Natalie and Alice Kessler were close until adolescence wrenched them apart. Natalie is a headstrong, manipulative beauty; Alice is a dreamer who loves books and birds. During a lakeside summer holiday, they sit for a family portrait by struggling young painter Thomas Bayber. By summer's end, three lives are shattered. Decades later, Bayber, now a reclusive, world-renowned artist, unveils a never-before-seen work, Kessler Sisters. Bayber asks...

March 1912: Twenty-four-year-old Elspeth Dunn, a published poet, has never seen the world beyond her home on Scotland's remote Isle of Skye. So she is astonished when her first fan letter arrives, from a college student, David Graham, in far-away America. As the two strike up a correspondence -- sharing their favorite books, wildest hopes, and deepest secrets -- their exchanges blossom into friendship, and eventually into love. But as World War I...

For fans of Downton Abbey: the enthralling true story of family secrets and aristocratic intrigue in the days before WWI. After the Ninth Duke of Rutland, one of the wealthiest men in Britain, died alone in a cramped room in the servants' quarters of Belvoir Castle on April 21, 1940, his son and heir ordered the room, which contained the Rutland family archives, sealed. Sixty years later, Catherine Bailey became the first historian given access. What...