Pines and Plains Libraries

In the dramatic conclusion to the New York Times best seller Her Mother's Hope, Francine Rivers delivers a rich and deeply moving story about the silent sorrows that can tear a family apart and the grace and forgiveness that can heal even the deepest wounds. Growing up isn't easy for little Carolyn Arundel. With her mother, Hildemara, quarantined to her room with tuberculosis, Carolyn forms a special bond with her oma Marta, who moves in to care for...

"It's December 23, 1971, and the Hildebrandt family is at a crossroads. The patriarch, Russ, the associate pastor of a suburban Chicago church, is poised to break free of a marriage he finds joyless--unless his brilliant and unstable wife, Marion, breaks free of it first. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college afire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem's sister, Becky, long the social queen...

Reverend John Ames is dying in 1956 in Gilead, Iowa, and he in recording his family's story. Glory Boughton has returned to care for her dying father and soon her brother, Jack, the prodigal son, comes home, too.

Considered one of George Eliot's finest achievements, "The Mill on the Floss" is famed for its unsurpassed description of English rural life and for its striking, superbly drawn heroine, Maggie Tulliver. This novel's unsentimental evocation of childhood stands as an enduring triumph.

"Barkskins opens in New France in the late 18th century as René Sel, an illiterate woodsman makes his way from Northern France to the homeland to seek a living. Bound to a "seigneur" for three years in exchange for land, he suffers extraordinary hardship and violence, always in awe of the forest he is charged with clearing. In the course of this epic novel, Proulx tells the stories of René's children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, as well...

Chaos erupts in the Rubinstein household when Olympia's twin daughters are invited to New York's most exclusive debutante ball--with one twin and Olympia's current husband refusing to attend, and the other young woman and Olympia's snobbish ex-husband already shopping for the event.

"Sisters Matilde, Pastora, Camila, and Flor thought they knew each other well, until Flor--inspired by a documentary her daughter Ona made her watch--decides she wants a living wake, a party to bring her family and community together and celebrate the long life she's led, while she's still around to enjoy it. She's not ill, as far as anybody knows, but Flor does have a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. Has she foreseen her...

From the glamorous San Francisco social scene of the 1920s, through war and the social changes of the '60s, to the rise of Silicon Valley today, this extraordinary novel takes us on a family odyssey that is both heartbreaking and inspiring, as each generation faces the challenges of their day. The Parisian design houses in 1928, the crash of 1929, the losses of war, the drug culture of the 1960s - history holds many surprises, and lives are changed...

Told in two voices, Ashish's friends Pinky and Samir pretend to date during a summer at Cape Cod to achieve their individual goals--especially to get their respective mothers off their backs.

"Quinn Maybrook just wants to make it to graduation. She might not make it to morning. When Quinn and her father move to a tiny town with a weird clown for a mascot, they're looking for a fresh start. But ever since the town's only factory shut down, Kettle Springs has been cracked in half. Most of the town believes that the kids are to blame. After all, the juniors and seniors at Kettle Springs High are the ones who threw the party where Arthur...