Frank Carlson Library

Hoping for a chance at meaningful work away from his status-obsessed wife, New York executive Charlie visits West Virginia to oversee a mining project and finds a friendship with Natty, who longs to escape her own unfulfilling existence.

Five young California homemakers forge a bond of friendship that sustains them through the turbulent 1960s and beyond. Meeting weekly, the Wednesday Sisters share a love of writing, literary classics, and the Miss America Pageant--in a moving testament to the mysterious link between friends.

"At night, down-to-earth Las Vegas socialite, Stacy Troy, dreams that everyone is dead. Nosebleeds and head-splitting alarms only she can hear become a regular occurrence. In her nightmares, Stacy dismembers bodies, stuffs them into a shopping cart, then takes them two at a time to the pile where she will burn them and say her last goodbyes. Waking nightly to her own screams, Stacy is convinced she's on the brink of a mid-life crisis and begins secretly...

"In the early 1900s, housewife Hulda Klager reads a book that changes her life forever, leading her to develop over 200 new varieties of lilacs that she gives away or sells to individuals as a way of sharing beauty. Her commitment to creation--struggling against flooding rivers and the vagaries of hybrid plants--while living through family losses and challenges is a story of perseverance and generosity that culminates when, in a time of great need,...

"The day Anna McDonald's quiet, respectable life exploded started off like all the days before: Packing up the kids for school, making breakfast, listening to yet another true crime podcast. Then her husband comes downstairs with an announcement, and Anna is suddenly, shockingly alone. Reeling, desperate for distraction, Anna returns to the podcast. Other people's problems are much better than one's own -- a sunken yacht, a murdered family, a hint...