The Girl Who Slept with God

Set in Arco, Idaho, in 1970, Val Brelinski’s powerfully affecting first novel tells the story of three sisters: young Frances, gregarious and strong-willed Jory, and moral-minded Grace. Their father, Oren, is a respected member of the community and science professor at the local college. Yet their mother’s depression and Grace’s religious fervor threaten the seemingly perfect family, whose world is upended when Grace returns from a missionary trip to Mexico and discovers she’s pregnant with—she believes—the child of God.

Distraught, Oren sends Jory and Grace to an isolated home at the edge of the town. There, they prepare for the much-awaited arrival of the baby while building a makeshift family that includes an elderly eccentric neighbor and a tattooed social outcast who drives an ice cream truck.

The Girl Who Slept with God is a literary achievement about a family’s desperate need for truth, love, purity, and redemption.

Patron Recommended:

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

With The Nightingale, Hannah departs from the contemporary novels she's known for with this engrossing tale of two sisters' bravery in occupied France during WWII. Viann and Isabelle Rossignol took very different paths after their mother's death devastated their family and war turned their father into a distant and withdrawn parent. Older sister Viann sought comfort in the arms of a schoolmate, getting pregnant and marrying at just 16. Rebellious Isabelle gets herself kicked out of multiple boarding schools. Then the Germans conquer France, and the sisters' lives change drastically. When her husband is captured and detained as a prisoner of war in Germany, Viann is forced to take in a German captain. Soon she finds herself relying on him to ensure there is food on the table for her daughter. Isabelle joins the Resistance, boldly leading fallen airmen fighting for the liberation of France over the mountains to Spain to safety. Hannah's latest is a page-turner that will no doubt have readers reaching for tissues. This moving, emotional tribute to the brave women who fought behind enemy lines during the war is bound to gain the already immensely popular Hannah an even wider audience. (Booklist Starred Review)

Enchanting New Book by Sarah Addison Allen

Featuring characters from her first novel, Garden Spells, Sarah Addison Allen's new novel First Frost picks up ten years after that eventful summer when Claire Waverly's wild half-sister Sydney returned to Bascom and Claire met her now-husband Tyler. Things have settled down and Claire finds she has slipped back into a place of tightly sequestered sameness. It's comfortable. She likes it. But when her father Russell shows up he brings with him information that Claire doesn't want to hear and that will challenge everything she thought she knew about herself.

New to Sarah Addison Allen? Allen's heart-warming fiction centers around southern gals and their families with a touch of magic thrown in. Fans of Alice Hoffman, Rebecca Wells and Jane Smiley may also enjoy Allen's books. Other books by Sarah Addison Allen include:

Garden Spells (2007):

A successful caterer in Bascomb, North Carolina, Claire has always remained tied to the legacy of the Waverly family, until her peaceful life is transformed by Tyler Hughes, an art teacher and new next-door neighbor, and by the return of her prodigal sister, Sydney.

The Sugar Queen (2008):

Quiet, awkward Josey Cirrini's peaceful life (caring for her elderly mother, enjoying romance novels, and indulging in her secret passion for sweets) is turned upside down when Della Lee Baker, a sassy, confident, and bold waitress fleeing an abusive boyfriend, decides to hide out in Josey's home. As Josey dares to step outside herself, she discovers a world where the color red has astonishing power, passion can make eggs fry in their cartons, and romance can blossom at any time - even for her. 

The Girl Who Chased the Moon (2009):

Emily Benedict came to Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her mother's life. But the moment Emily enters the house where her mother grew up and meets the grandfather she never knew--a reclusive, real-life gentle giant--she realizes that mysteries aren't solved in Mullaby, they're a way of life.

The Peach Keeper (2011):

Willa Jackson of Walls of Water, North Carolina, has lately learned that an old classmate--socialite do-gooder Paxton Osgood--of the very prominent Osgood family, has restored her family's Blue Ridge Madam home to its former glory, with plans to open a top-flight inn. But when a skeleton, found buried beneath the lone peach tree on the property is found, Willa and Paxton must confront the dangerous passions and tragic betrayals that once bound their families.

Lost Lake (2014):

Seeking solace in a Georgia lakeside cottage with her eccentric 8-year-old daughter, recently widowed Kate wonders if the area's almost-magical ability for sparking romances has been imagined before experiencing a poignant renewal.

Sisters

This month, our Reader's Fiction Display located in the lower level of the library features novels about sisters - by choice or by birth:

The Wedding Quilt: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel by Jennifer Chiaverini:

Meditating on the weddings she has attended in Elm Creek Manor throughout the years on the morning of her daughter, Caroline's, wedding day, Sarah McClure evaluates the symbolic features on a painstakingly made wedding quilt designed to display the signatures of beloved guests.

I See You Everywhere by Julia Glass:

Follows the intertwined lives of two sisters--Louisa Jardine, the conscientious older sister who yearns for a good marriage, an artistic career, and a family; and her younger sister Clem, an iconoclastic, daring rebel--over the course of twenty-five years.

The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally:

Joining the war effort as nurses in 1915, two spirited Australian sisters, carrying a guilty secret, become the friends they never were at home and find themselves courageous in the face of extreme danger as they serve alongside remarkable women during the first World War.

The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine:

A modern tale inspired by Sense and Sensibility finds financially strapped literary sisters Miranda and Annie moving in with divorcée Betty in a run-down Connecticut beach cottage, where they find love among the suburban aristocracy.

A Novel of Sisters, Secrets and Atonement



New York Times bestselling author Karen White delivers a novel of two generations of sisters and secrets set in the stunning South Carolina Lowcountry. 

The Time Between

Eleanor Murray will always remember her childhood on Edisto Island, where her late father, a local shrimper, shared her passion for music. Now her memories of him are all that tempers the guilt she feels over the accident that put her sister in a wheelchair and the feelings she harbors for her sister’s husband.

To help support her sister, Eleanor works at a Charleston investment firm during the day, but she escapes into her music, playing piano at a neighborhood bar. Until the night her enigmatic boss walks in and offers her a part-time job caring for his elderly aunt, Helena, back on Edisto. For Eleanor, it’s a chance to revisit the place where she was her happiest and to share her love of music with grieving Helena, whose sister recently died under mysterious circumstances.

An island lush with sweetgrass and salt marshes, Edisto has been a peaceful refuge for Helena, who escaped with her sister from war-torn Hungary in 1944. The sisters were well-known on the island, where they volunteered in their church and community. But now Eleanor will finally learn the truth about their past: secrets that will help heal her relationship with her own sister and set Eleanor free.

"In The Time Between, author Karen White moves smoothly between narrators as well as different time periods, crafting an intriguing and romantic family drama that will appeal to fans of Sarah Jio and Dorothea Benton Frank." (Booklist Reviews)

Books on sisters

Readers and book clubs - looking for books about sisters and sisterhood? In the new book, The Gilly Salt Sisters, two sisters on Cape Cod fight over an eligibile bachelor.  In another work of domestic fiction, The Bird Sisters, two elderly sisters tend to injured birds and reminisce about the past.  For a higher-octane pick, try the suspenseful thriller Come and Find Me, in which a female computer expert must end her self-imposed exile in order to rescue her kidnapped sister.  Meanwhile, those who like their sister stories with an Asian flavor can try Catherine Chung's Forgotten Country or Lisa See's Shanghai Girls.  Stop by Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library for more great book suggestions on this (and other) topics.

Local Read: Witches of East End

The bestselling author of the young adult series Blue Bloods, Melissa de la Cruz, now turns her hand to writing fiction for adults in Witches of East End, the first of a planned series set not too far from here, in the fictional South Fork community of North Hampton. In this newly-published book, two sisters are reincarnated witches who were killed in the Salem witch trials. When they innocently break the witching community's ban on magic, a modern day Salem ensues (with a few sexy encounters along the way). With such a dedicated fan following, this new series premiere is sure to be in high demand; reserve your copy today.

Caught Reading: The Weird Sisters

Recently, there's been a lot of positive feedback at the staff desk about the newly-published book The Weird Sisters by debut author Eleanor Brown. Readers agree that it's a good, quick read about sisterhood, adulthood, destiny, and returning to the nest, all peppered with Shakespeare references that you don't need to be an English professor to understand. Here's the publisher's official summary: "The Andreas family is one of readers. Their father, a renowned Shakespeare professor who speaks almost entirely in verse, has named his three daughters after famous Shakespearean women. When the sisters return to their childhood home to care for their ailing mother, and to lick their wounds and bury their secrets, they are horrified to find the others there. But the sisters soon discover that everything they've been running from might offer more than they ever expected." Sound interesting? Reserve your copy today!

New Award Winner: Three Sisters

Three Sisters by Feiyu Bi has won the prestigious Man Asian Literary Prize for Asian literature translated into English. The book is set in rural China during the Cultural Revolution and follows three of seven sisters as they struggle against their destinies. The author will receive a prize in the amount of $30,000, with each of the two translators receiving an additional $5,000. Check out this new award-winner today!