The Book of Longings

Summary

"An epic masterpiece that is a triumph of insight and storytelling." (Associated Press) “A true masterpiece.” (Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed) Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2020 by O, the Oprah Magazine, Good Morning America/ABC-TV, Good Housekeeping, Bustle, Time, Marie Claire, and The Millions. An extraordinary story set in the first century about a woman who finds her voice and her destiny, from the celebrated number one New York Times best-selling author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with 18-year-old Jesus changes everything. Their marriage evolves with love and conflict, humor and pathos in Nazareth, where Ana makes a home with Jesus, his brothers, and their mother, Mary. Ana’s pent-up longings intensify amid the turbulent resistance to Rome’s occupation of Israel, partially led by her brother, Judas. She is sustained by her fearless aunt Yaltha, who harbors a compelling secret. When Ana commits a brazen act that puts her in peril, she flees to Alexandria, where startling revelations and greater dangers unfold, and she finds refuge in unexpected surroundings. Ana determines her fate during a stunning convergence of events considered among the most impactful in human history.  Grounded in meticulous research and written with a reverential approach to Jesus’s life that focuses on his humanity, The Book of Longings is an inspiring, unforgettable account of one woman’s bold struggle to realize the passion and potential inside her, while living in a time, place and culture devised to silence her. It is a triumph of storytelling both timely and timeless, from a masterful writer at the height of her powers.

©2020 Sue Monk Kidd (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Treasure

Summary

A Sunday Times best seller. The ninth gripping thriller in the classic Dirk Pitt series, where the adventurer finds himself in a deadly battle against the darkest forces of international terrorism. On behalf of a grateful nation I wish to thank you for this astonishing gift.... The President of the United States had reason to be grateful. Dirk Pitt had unearthed the greatest storehouse of knowledge in the ancient world: the Alexandria Library. The trail began in a lonely fjord in Greenland. It ended on the banks of the Rio Grande. In between Pitt had frustrated an assassination, rescued a hijacked liner, survived a deadly gun battle and halted an invasion. A gripping, action-packed story by a master of the craft.

©2019 Clive Cussler (P)2019 Hachette Audio UK

Rewind

Summary

When Pyresouls released, it was a brutal new virtual reality game with a twist: The first to beat the game would win billions of dollars. But after the Burgon Beast couldn’t be defeated, Pyresouls turned very real and unleashed an apocalypse of undead, monsters, and a system of levels and stats onto the world. For many years since, Jacob Windsor has fought with sword and shield to survive Post-Collapse Earth where only ancient, guilt-soaked weaponry can harm the monsters from Pyresouls. While defending his bunker with some of the last refugees of humanity, yet another friend loses his life to secure one final hope: an enigmatic artifact capable of sending one person through time. In a cruel twist of fate, Jacob becomes humanity’s best chance for survival. He takes the plunge into the past of the terrifying, fractured realm of Pyresouls, where every player is out for blood and the monsters are more vicious than anything on Post-Collapse Earth. Armed with knowledge of game mechanics, secret loot, and enemy weaknesses, along with well-honed swordsmanship from years of battle, Jacob has every possible advantage against the competition. But the choices he makes have long-reaching ripple effects on the timeline. Can Jacob beat the clock while grinding out Levels and manage to avert the apocalypse, or will his every action darken the timeline even further? This post-apocalyptic gamelit series includes battle, levelling, and gear-enhancing mechanics inspired by the Dark Souls games.

©2020 James T. Callum (P)2021 Podium Audio

The Invention of Wings

Summary

From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world - and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love. As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements. Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.

©2014 Sue Monk Kidd (P)2014 Penguin Audio

Traveling with Pomegranates

Summary

In this intimate dual memoir, Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter, Ann, offer distinct perspectives as a 50-something and a 20-something, each on a quest to redefine herself and to rediscover each other. Between 1998 and 2000, Sue and Ann travel throughout Greece and France. Sue, coming to grips with aging, caught in a creative vacuum, longing to reconnect with her grown daughter, struggles to enlarge a vision of swarming bees into a novel. Ann, just graduated from college, heartbroken and benumbed by the classic question about what to do with her life, grapples with a painful depression. As this modern-day Demeter and Persephone chronicle the richly symbolic and personal meaning of an array of inspiring figures and sites, they also each give voice to that most protean of connections: the bond of mother and daughter. A wise and involving book about feminine thresholds, spiritual growth, and renewal, Traveling with Pomegranates is both a revealing self-portrait by a beloved author and her daughter, a writer in the making, and a momentous story that will resonate with women everywhere.

©2009 Sue Monk Kidd (P)2009 Penguin