My Lovely Wife – Samantha Downing
Our love story is simple. I met a gorgeous woman. We fell in love. We had kids. We moved to the suburbs. We told each other our biggest dreams, and our darkest secrets. And then we got bored.
We look like a normal couple. We’re your neighbors, the parents of your kid’s friend, the acquaintances you keep meaning to get dinner with.
We all have secrets to keeping a marriage alive.
Ours just happens to be getting away with murder.
The Moon in the Palace – Weina Dai Randel
There is no easy path for a woman aspiring to power. . . .
A concubine at the palace learns quickly that there are many ways to capture the Emperor’s attention. Many paint their faces white and style their hair attractively, hoping to lure in the One Above All with their beauty. Some present him with fantastic gifts, such as jade pendants and scrolls of calligraphy, while others rely on their knowledge of seduction to draw his interest. But young Mei knows nothing of these womanly arts, yet she will give the Emperor a gift he can never forget.
Mei’s intelligence and curiosity, the same traits that make her an outcast among the other concubines, impress the Emperor. But just as she is in a position to seduce the most powerful man in China, divided loyalties split the palace in two, culminating in a perilous battle that Mei can only hope to survive.
My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey – Jill Bolte Taylor
Jill Taylor was a 37-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist when a blood vessel exploded in her brain. Through the eyes of a curious scientist, she watched her mind deteriorate whereby she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life. Because of her understanding of the brain, her respect for the cells in her body, and an amazing mother, Jill completely recovered.
In My Stroke of Insight, she shares her recommendations for recovery and the insight she gained into the unique functions of the two halves of her brain. When she lost the skills of her left brain, her consciousness shifted away from normal reality where she felt “at one with the universe.” Taylor helps others not only rebuild their brains from trauma, but helps those of us with normal brains better understand how we can consciously influence the neural circuitry underlying what we think, how we feel and how we react to life’s circumstances.
Elephant Dance – Tammie Matson
It’s the middle of the night in the Namibian desert when zoologist Tammie Matson wakes with a start to find two elephants standing beside her tiny tent. She makes a promise: “If you just let me survive tonight I will give up Africa. I’ll give it all up. Just don’t let them stand on me.”
It’s not a promise she will easily keep. At 29, Tammie has spent nearly half her life in Africa, her first love, working as a conservationist. But as her 30s approach, Tammie is conscious of not having ticked those boxes: no house, no kids and no husband. Broke and with her visa running out, it seems like Africa may just force her to give it up after all. On returning to Australia, Tammie lands a job at the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Sydney. There she meets Andy, a charismatic Brit, and Africa suddenly has a rival. But she’s not ready to give up on the elephants yet…
From the magic of Bushmanland, to the banks of Chobe River in Botswana, to the civil strife of Assam, India, Elephant Dance takes us to the heart of a conservationist’s fight to find a way for elephants to live peacefully in a world with too many people, too few resources and the increasing threat of climate change.
The Library of Lost Things – Laura Taylor Namey
From the moment she first learned to read, literary genius Darcy Wells has spent most of her time living in the worlds of her books. There, she can avoid the crushing reality of her mother’s hoarding and pretend her life is simply ordinary. But when a new property manager becomes more active in the upkeep of their apartment complex, the only home Darcy has ever known outside of her books suddenly hangs in the balance.
While Darcy is struggling to survive beneath the weight of her mother’s compulsive shopping, Asher Fleet, a former teen pilot with an unexpectedly shattered future, walks into the bookstore where she works…and straight into her heart. For the first time in her life, Darcy can’t seem to find the right words. Fairy tales are one thing, but real love makes her want to hide inside her carefully constructed ink-and-paper bomb shelter.
Still, after spending her whole life keeping people out, something about Asher makes Darcy want to open up. But securing her own happily-ever-after will mean she’ll need to stop hiding and start living her own truth—even if it’s messy.
Memories and Such 