Berthoud Community Library District

It's 1894, the year of Essie's thirtieth birthday, and she decides the Lord has more important things to do than provide her a husband. If she wants one, she needs to catch him herself. So she writes down the names of all the eligible bachelors in her small Texas town, makes a list of their attributes and drawbacks, closes her eyes, twirls her finger, and picks one. But convincing the lucky "husband-to-be" will be a bit more of a problem.

Elianna is a young girl crushed by guilt. After her only brother is killed while in her care, Elianna tries to earn forgiveness by working for her father's textile trade and caring for her family. When another tragedy places Elianna in sole charge of the business, her talent for design brings enormous success, but never the absolution she longs for. As her world unravels, she breaks off her betrothal to the only man she will ever love. Then illness...

Lottie just knows that her boyfriend is going to propose during lunch at one of London's fanciest restaurants. But when his big question involves a trip abroad, not a trip down the aisle, she's completely crushed. So when Ben, an old flame, calls her out of the blue and reminds Lottie of their pact to get married if they were both single at thirty, she jumps at the chance. No formal dates -- just a quick march to the altar and a honeymoon on Ikonos,...

"Smart, warm, uplifting, the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes the only way to survive is to open her heart. Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. That, combined with her unusual appearance (scarred cheek, tendency to wear the same clothes year in, year out), means that Eleanor...

When they meet as girls on a beach in Nantucket, Maggie McIntyre and Emily Porter become fast friends--though Emily's well-heeled mother would prefer that she associate with the upscale daughters of bankers and statesmen rather than a child of the local seamstress. Even as Emily falls for Maggie's brother, Ben, and the young women's paths diverge, the duo remain close friends. Then the unthinkable happens: a lifelong friendship is pushed to its breaking...

Having survived an attack that left her scarred and her father dead, Alice Chesterfield is never free from the fear and memories of the man who is responsible. Texas seems to be an answer to Alice's prayers, and when she has the opportunity to relocate to a ranch near Dallas, Robert Barnett captures her attention. He doesn't worry about the obstacles that stand in their way-- and he hardly seems to notice the scar she bears. When devastating information...

Set among the elegant brownstones of New York City and opulent country houses like gracious Bellomont on the Hudson, the novel creates a satiric portrayal of what Wharton herself called "a society of irresponsible pleasure-seekers" with a precision comparable to that of Proust. And her brilliant and complex characterization of the doomed Lily Bart, whose stunning beauty and dependence on marriage for economic survival reduce her to a decorative object,...

Marisa Rosso can't understand why everyone else is getting on with their lives as she still struggles to get over the death of her beloved grandfather, back home in Italy. Everyone loses grandparents, right? Why is she taking it so badly? Retreating further and further from normal life, she moves to the end of the earth--the remote tidal island of Mount Polbearne, at the foot of Cornwall, hoping for peace and solitude, whilst carrying on her job as...

Her belief in the power of beauty shattered when her fiancâe dumps her for a plain woman, a pregnant Darcy flees to London and struggles to rebuild her glamorous life before realizing that her past methods no longer work.

As elderly women, sisters Twiss and Milly live alone in the house where they grew up in Spring Green, Wis. They spend their days tending to injured birds and roaming their land, lost in memories. For Milly, there is the constant reminder of what could have been. Twiss spent her childhood happily trailing behind their golf-pro father, but Milly dreamed about a family and children that never happened. There was hope for a young Milly, until an accident...