An Ocean Apart

A forgotten secret. A shocking discovery. A sacrifice of love that will bring Connor Evans to his knees. A story of hope and redemption from #1 New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury. Airline pilot Connor Evans and his wife, Michele, seem to be the perfect couple living what looks like a perfect life. Then a plane goes down in the Pacific Ocean. One of the casualties is Kiahna Siefert, a flight attendant Connor knew well. Too well. Kiahna’s will is very clear: before her seven-year-old son, Max, can be turned over to the state, he must spend the summer with the father he’s never met, the father who doesn’t know he exists: Connor Evans. Now will the presence of one lonely child and the truth he represents destroy Connor’s family? Or is it possible for healing and hope to appear in the shape of a seven-year-old boy? “[Kingsbury’s] ability to accurately express life’s sorrows and grief through her characters’ inner dialogue rings true time and again.” —Publishers Weekly on Every Now & Then “Her emotionally charged novels often contain a strong romantic component and feature Christians at odds with their everyday world. This title is no exception. Recommend this one to readers who enjoy well-drawn characters and contemporary settings.” —Library Journal on The Baxters Take Four

'A beautiful story of friendship, new beginnings and love . . . It's a love letter to the women who left behind everything to help heal our country and establish the NHS. I could not have loved this more and thought about it long after I turned the last page.' - Kate Thompson, author of The Little Wartime Library Inspired by real life stories of the Windrush Generation and her mother’s own experiences as a nurse coming to Britain from the Caribbean, Sarah Lee’s debut novel An Ocean Apart is a must for fans of Call the Midwife. It’s 1954 and, in Barbados, Ruby Haynes spots an advertisement for young women to train as nurses for the new National Health Service in Great Britain. Her sister, Connie, takes some persuading, but soon the sisters are on their way to a new country – and a whole new world of experiences. As they start their training in Hertfordshire, they discover England isn’t quite the promised land; for every door that’s opened to them, the sisters find many slammed in their faces. And though the girls find friendships with their fellow nurses, Connie struggles with being so far from home, and keeping secret the daughter she has left behind in search of a better life for the both of them . . . 'A glorious triumph of a book full of characters that feel like real friends, so atmospheric, compelling and nostalgic, I adored it.' - Alex Brown, author of A Postcard from Italy

For six dreadful months, David Corstorphine has tried to come to terms with his young wife's death, while caring for his three motherless children. Try as he may, David is unable to return to work, and his only form of solace comes from working in the garden of his parents' estate in the Scottish countryside. Dispatched unexpectedly to New York, David's family hopes that the impromptu business trip will help him get back on his feet. But the journey proves both disastrous and heartening. David finds himself settling in comfortably among the strangers of a seaside Long Island town, and takes a job as a gardener. But it is the people he meets, the pain he confronts, and the joy he is able to once again experience that prove to be magically transformative-- and as David learns to accept his enormous loss, he is able to open his heart to love once again. Writing with deep sensitivity to human frailty, desires and joys that readers of his mother, Rosamunde Pilcher, have come to cherish, Robin Pilcher's An Ocean Apart will be embraced by generations of readers now and in years to come.

With over 400,000 books already in print, the Dear Canada series has fast become the book series for children. Each fictional diary invites readers into the world of a girl living through a particular period in Canada's past. Gillian Chan's latest addition illustrates the effect the Chinese Head Tax has on one young girl and her family. Mei-ling and her father are struggling to pay the head tax that will allow her mother and brother, who are still living in China, to come to Canada. They must have that money before the impending Exclusion Act bars any more Chinese from immigrating. What will happen if they can't come up with enough in time to reunite their family?

While most 16-year-old girls are planning their weddings, Xueyan, known as Yanyan, has no interest at all in marriage. She is fascinated by medicine. In China in 1921, women rarely attend university, let alone medical school. Still, Yanyan is determined to become a doctor. But Yanyan’s feelings about marriage change when she meets Liang Baoshu. An outstanding scholar and martial arts student, Baoshu is passionate and dangerous. He is determined to rid China of the foreigners who occupy it and restore power to the Manchu dynasty. Life with him would be an adventure. But when Yanyan realizes that being with Baoshu would also mean sacrificing her dream of becoming a doctor, she faces the most difficult decision of her life. And her choice leads to an entirely new adventure an ocean away in America—where Yanyan is the foreigner.

With over 400,000 books already in print, the Dear Canada series has fast become the book series for children. Each fictional diary invites readers into the world of a girl living through a particular period in Canada's past. Gillian Chan's latest addition illustrates the effect the Chinese Head Tax has on one young girl and her family. Mei-ling and her father are struggling to pay the head tax that will allow her mother and brother, who are still living in China, to come to Canada. They must have that money before the impending Exclusion Act bars any more Chinese from immigrating. What will happen if they can't come up with enough in time to reunite their family?

The instant New York Times Bestseller • Nominated for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction “A lyrical work of self-discovery that’s shockingly intimate and insistently universal…Not so much briefly gorgeous as permanently stunning.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard. With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years. Named a Best Book of the Year by: GQ, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Library Journal, TIME, Esquire, The Washington Post, Apple, Good Housekeeping, The New Yorker, The New York Public Library, Elle.com, The Guardian, The A.V. Club, NPR, Lithub, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal Magazine and more!

An introduction to the Vietnamese cultural and artistic experience in both Vietnam and the U.S.

For six dreadful months, David Corstorphine has tried to come to terms with his young wife's death, while caring for his three motherless children. Try as he may, David is unable to return to work, and his only form of solace comes from working in the garden of his parents' estate in the Scottish countryside. Dispatched unexpectedly to New York, David's family hopes that the impromptu business trip will help him get back on his feet. But the journey proves both disastrous and heartening. David finds himself settling in comfortably among the strangers of a seaside Long Island town, and takes a job as a gardener. But it is the people he meets, the pain he confronts, and the joy he is able to once again experience that prove to be magically transformative-- and as David learns to accept his enormous loss, he is able to open his heart to love once again.