Through Black Spruce

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Mary Swan

"At the turn of the twentieth century, newly arrived to the North American countryside, William, his wife, and two daughters appear the picture of a devoted family. But when accusations of embezzlement spur William to commit an unthinkable crime, those who witnessed this affectionate, attentive father go about his routine of work and family must reconcile action with character. A doctor who has cared for the young Lillian searches for clues that might penetrate the mystery of the father's motivation. Meanwhile Rachel's teacher grapples with guilt over a moment when fate wove her into a succession of events that will haunt her dreams." "Mary Swan examines the volatile collisions between our best intentions - how a passing stranger can leave an indelible mark on our lives even as the people we know most intimately become alienated by tides of self-preservation and regret. In her nuanced, evocative descriptions a locket contains immeasurable sorrow, trees provide sanctuary and refuge to lost souls, and grief clicks into place when a man cocks the cold steel barrel of a revolver."--Jacket.

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Heather O'Neill

"Inventive, outlandish, and tender fairy tales from a bestselling author The fantastic has always been at the edges of Heather O'Neill's work. In her bestselling novels Lullabies for Little Criminals and The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, she transformed the shabbiest streets of Montreal with her beautiful, freewheeling metaphors. She described the smallest of things--a stray cat or a second-hand coat--with an intensity that made them otherworldly. In Daydreams of Angels, O'Neill's first collection of short stories, she gives free reign to her imaginative gifts. In "The Ugly Ducklings," generations of Nureyev clones live out their lives in a grand Soviet experiment. In "Dear Piglet," a teenaged cult follower writes a letter to explain the motivation behind her crime. And in another tale, a grandmother reveals where babies come from: the beach, where young mothers-to-be hunt for infants in the surf. Each of these beguiling stories twists the beloved narratives of childhood--fairy tales, storybooks, Bible stories--to uncover the deepest truths of family life"-- "Inventive, outlandish, and tender fairy tales from a bestselling author"--

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Martha McPhee

"In a sprawling house on a hill, floating in a sea of green fields, charismatic therapist Anton Furey is dying. The tribe he heads - his five children, his wife's three girls, and their uniting child Alice - has gathered in a vigil at Chardin, the farm where they grew up and Anton played out his visions of communal living. In the 1970s they had been famous for being the new American blended family, their utopian lifestyle chronicled by film crews and reporters. But as Anton grows weaker, the hurts, allegiances, and betrayals of those years boil to the surface; and the children find themselves forced to confront the knotty intimacies of the past along with the misunderstandings of the present as they struggle to make their peace with Anton - and Anton struggles to make peace with himself."--BOOK JACKET.

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Kate Grenville

Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville is an acclaimed literary masterpiece celebrating major critical honors and timeless storytelling.