February Book

Sisters First
by: Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Bush

Born into a political dynasty, Jenna and Barbara Bush grew up in the public eye. As small children, they watched their grandfather become president; just twelve years later they stood by their father's side when he took the same oath. They spent their college years being trailed by the Secret Service and chased by the paparazzi, with every teenage mistake making national headlines. But the tabloids didn't tell the whole story of these two young women forging their own identities under extraordinary circumstances. In this book they take readers on a revealing, thoughtful, and deeply personal tour behind the scenes of their lives, with never-before-told stories about their family, their adventures, their loves and losses, and the special sisterly bond that fulfills them. 

January Book

The Spirit of Christmas Stories of the Season
By: Jennie Hansen, Betsy Brannon Green, 
and Michele Ashman Bell

Rekindle the spirit of Christmas with this touching trio of timeless stories told by some of the finest LDS storytellers-each with a heartwarming message for the Season.

Will Sophie really be able to get what she needs by spending the holidays alone?

Will Miss Eugenia be able to give a struggling family the Christmas they want?

Has five-year-old Janie’s visit from Santa really been cancelled because she was bad?

Take a journey into the minds and hearts of three engaging characters who each need to believe in their version of Christmas-and discover that believing in people is what the spirit of Christmas is all about.

December Book

Long Way Gone

By: Charles Martin 

At the age of eighteen, musician and songwriter Cooper O’Connor took everything his father held dear and drove 1,200 miles from home to Nashville, his life riding on a six-string guitar and the bold wager that he had talent. But his wager soon proved foolish.

Five years after losing everything, he falls in love with Daley Cross, an angelic voice in need of a song. But just as he realizes his love for Daley, Cooper faces a tragedy that threatens his life as well as his career. With nowhere else to go, he returns home to the remote Colorado mountains, searching for answers about his father and his faith.

When Daley shows up on his street corner twenty years later, he wonders if it’s too late to tell her the truth about his past—and if he is ready to face it himself.

A radical retelling of the prodigal son story, Long Way Gone takes us from tent revivals to the Ryman Auditorium to the tender relationship between a broken man and the father who never stopped calling him home.

November 2018 Book

Listening For Lions
By: Gloria Whelan

Africa is the only home Rachel Sheridan has ever known. But when her missionary parents are struck with influenza, she is left vulnerable to her family’s malicious neighbors. Surrounded by greed and lies, Rachel is entangled in a criminal scheme and sent to England, where she's forced into a life of deception.

Like the lion, she must be patient and strong, awaiting the moment when she can take control of her own fate—and find her way home again at last. 

Named one of New York Public Library's One Hundred Titles for Reading and Sharing, this tale of a strong young heroine “in the tradition of Frances Hodgson Burnett” (School Library Journal), by award-winning master of historical fiction Gloria Whelan, is a perfect read for schools and classrooms, as well as for fans of A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park.

October 2018 Book

The Other Side of the Bridge
by: Camron Wright

Two strangers, opposite coasts, and a bridge that silently beckons.

Katie Connelly has lived in San Francisco all her life. Her late father made his career as an ironworker on the Golden Gate Bridge, and the many stories of him trying to save jumpers still haunt her. When she's asked to write a history about the bridge, her research uncovers a secret journal hidden in her father's desk, pages of familiar advice penned by the hand of a stranger. The scribbled words tell of a promise ring and a distant love, clues that Katie hopes may answer her own unresolved sorrow.

Across the country, Dave Riley, a marketing executive in New York, encounters sorrows of his own. As he grasps at straws after tragedy strikes his family, a once whimsical daydream quickly turns into an obsession: he must ride his motorcycle across the Golden Gate Bridge on the Fourth of July.

Does the bridge hold answers for both Katie and Dave? Or will it only add to their heartache? The puzzling words left behind in a long-forgotten journal hold the key to the truth they will discover on the Other Side of the Bridge.

September Book

Wizard For Hire
By: Obert Skye

Fourteen-year-old Ozzy lives near Portland, Oregon, and is desperate for help. His scientist parents have been kidnapped after discovering a formula that enables mind control. Their work was so top secret Ozzy is afraid to go to the police, but without help, he fears he'll never find his parents. Then he stumbles across a classified ad in the local newspaper that says "Wizard for Hire. Call 555-SPEL." Ozzy has read about wizards in books like Harry Potter, but wizards couldn't actually exist today, could they? After Ozzy meets the wizard Labyrinth--aka Rin--he's even more skeptical.

Sure, Rin dresses like a wizard, but the short robe and high-top tennis shoes seem unorthodox, as does Rin's habit of writing notes on his shoes and eating breakfast for every meal. Plus, Rin doesn't even cast any magic spells, which means that the unexplained coincidences that start happening around Ozzy are just that--coincidences.

With the help of a robotic-talking raven invented by Ozzy's father, a kind and curious girl at school who decides to help Ozzy, and, of course, a self-proclaimed wizard who may or may not have a magical wand, Ozzy begins an unforgettable quest that will lead him closer to the answers he desperately seeks about his missing parents.

May Book

A Fall of Marigolds
By: Susan Meissner

A beautiful scarf connects two women touched by tragedy in this compelling, emotional novel from the author of A Bridge Across the Ocean. 

September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries…and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she’s made. Will what she learns devastate her or free her? 

September 2011. On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, widow Taryn Michaels has convinced herself that she is living fully, working in a charming specialty fabric store and raising her daughter alone. Then a long-lost photograph appears in a national magazine, and she is forced to relive the terrible day her husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Towers…the same day a stranger reached out and saved her. Will a chance reconnection and a century-old scarf open Taryn’s eyes to the larger forces at work in her life?