Survival time

Helena is a happily married young mother living in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She takes care of her two daughters, delivers home-made jams and jellies to various retailers, and enjoys the simple life she has worked hard to maintain. She is harboring a dark secret that she is determined to keep hidden. When she hears that a man has escaped from a nearby prison after killing two guards she becomes fearful that it could be her father. He is known as the “Marsh King” and has been locked up for fourteen years. Helena’s past has resurfaced and she stands to lose everything. She decides to use all of her skills to find her father and turn him in to authorities. Can she find him before he finds her? Read The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne to find out! DB.

Could You Be This Brave?

Most of us have read WWII fiction, and here's another!  The Baker's Secret is a well-written, easy to read book about a brave and determined 22-year-old woman.  In a small German-occupied village in France just before D-Day, the local Jewish baker is taken away.  The German army needs bread and Emma was the baker's apprentice.  A small resistance team is created when Emma figures out a way to distribute needed food (and hope!) to villagers while living in a home occupied by a German officer. 
Strong characters and wonderful descriptions of the countryside, the smells of bread and the villagers. This story made me think about what I would do in Emma's situation and if I could be this brave?? SW

Life in the Future

Paulette Jiles' dystopian novel, Lighthouse Island, set in an overpopulated world ravaged by drought, follows a young woman on her quest to find her way to an island haven. Orphaned as a child, Nadia Stepan finds refuge in literature after her beloved guardian is arrested. As a young woman, Nadia has little aptitude for the government PR job she's assigned to, and an affair with an supervisor's husband costs her the position and nearly her freedom. Nadia decides to flee to Lighthouse Island, an island in the Pacific Northwest that is rumored to have water and wildlife in abundance. Nadia finds an unlikely ally in James Orotov, a demolitions expert who was crippled in a blast many years before. After a fateful rooftop meeting, James aids Nadia in her flight, using his access to the system to help her avoid detection and arrest until he, too, falls into disfavor and has to flee. Booklist

Refuge

Fourteen kids in Monument, Colorado are on a school bus when a natural disaster hits.  They make it to the big superstore to wait while the bus driver goes to get help.  More disasters and the story unfolds of fourteen kids of various ages, from kindergarten to 12th grade, trying to survive the end of the world as they know it.  This is a teen crossover by Emmy Laybourne called Monument 14 and the sequel Monument 14: Sky On Fire is already out.  The third book in this series Monument 14: Savage Drift is due out this summer and I can't wait to read it!  If you like post-apocalyptic style books and are tired of the same old plague and vampire stories then this book is for you.  SG

Carry on

How do people recover from horrific events beyond their control? Jenny Rowan was kidnapped at age 8 and held captive by an abuser for 18 months. She managed to escape and live in a shopping- mall until she was discovered and put into foster care. Now she is a production editor at a news station in Washington, D.C.  Jenny is a survivor. She is a decidedly private person who keeps the past and the present at a distance she can control. When Detective Jack Collins shows up at her home and asks her to help a young girl who has been rescued from captivity, she is forced to come to terms with the nightmares of her childhood  and the choices she has made since escaping it. Others of My Kind by James Sallis is a very short story that provides insight into the resolute mindset of those who persevere. DB  

When the going gets tough...raise chickens!

Mardi Jo Link may be broke but she is determined to make it. Recently divorced with three sons and an old farmhouse in northern Michigan, she prides herself in finding unique ways to pay bills, heat the house and provide food. She and the boys enter a zucchini contest put on by a local bakery, gather firewood, cook on a campfire, raise chickens and survive the holidays-- pioneer style. Mardi’s positive attitude and her creative solutions will stir your inner strength. Bootstrapper: from broke to badass on a northern Michigan farm is funny, uplifting, and realistic. DB

Sacrifice and Love

When the Kitchen God gets caught criticizing the Jade Emperor's management of Earth's affairs, his punishment is to uncover the mysterious workings of the human heart.  To achieve this, he decides to follow one couple, Bian Yuying and Hou Jinyi -- from the Japanese occupation, through Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, and ultimately to death -- telling their story of love, compassion, and forgiveness.  Sam Meekings' Under Fishbone Clouds is a beautifully written testament to the strength and power one can derive from love in the most desperate of conditions.  HM

Living Under The Great Leader

Culled from interviews with defectors, journalist Barbara Demick calls Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea an oral history of the people. Published in 2009, her subjects' recollections span the years after Kim Il-sung's rise following WWII and the transfer of power to Kim Jong-il after his father's death. Piecing together stories and memories, Demick is able to pull aside the curtain that has kept North Korea virtually closed to foreigners for the past half-decade and illustrate the daily struggles and suffering of the people themselves, from the "glory days" of the Kim regime through the Arduous March of the 1990s, a famine that killed anywhere between 800,000 to 3.5 million people.

Nothing to Envy was awarded the 2010 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize and was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award. HM

Strength and Survival

When a dying father of three loses his wife unexpectedly, life becomes chaotic. The children are sent to live with relatives and he is left to die, alone. His mysterious recovery prompts him to reunite the family and begin again. A surprise inheritance takes them to South Carolina, to live in an old seaside home with an obsolete light house. The property needs a lot of repair work, but so do they… One Summer by David Baldacci examines a young family working to overcome loss and find love. An uplifting read!DB