Ruby Hope Valley is a delightful and heartwarming book of love, faith, and friendship. Betty Anne, a lonely Christian woman in her fifties, who lives in the town of Ruby Hope Valley, carries a hidden secret in her heart, until she meets a young Amish girl whom she befriends after joining an Amish quilting group. They become lifelong friends and share many experiences of happiness and sorrow. Betty Anne becomes a true friend of Sara Jane and her Amish family as they struggle with Kidney disease, adoption, death and an emotional homecoming.
Hope Valley is the story of two women, one Jewish-Israeli and one Palestinian-Israeli, who come together to form the unlikeliest of friendships. Tikvah and Ruby meet one summer day right before the outbreak of the 2nd intifada, in the Galilean valley that separates the segregated villages in which they live. The valley Ruby's father had called Hope came to symbolize the political enmity that has defined the history of two nations in this troubled land and which has led to parallel cultures with little meaningful interaction between them. Tikvah, a fifty-two-year old artist from Long Island, is the daughter of Holocaust survivors and was raised in a loveless and lifeless household. Ruby, a world-renowned Palestinian-Israeli artist, returns to her childhood village from a life abroad to be treated for her worsening cancer. At first, Ruby pursues Tikvah's friendship to get into Tikvah's house and retrieve the diary Ruby's father had left behind when his family was expelled from that same house in the 1948 war. But as their friendship grows, they not only open up to each other's narratives and humanity, but uncover secrets from their own lives. Tikvah's and Ruby's stories show both the strength and fragility of family ties, the power that trauma and fear has in shaping our lives, the strength we muster to face death and suffering, the vicissitudes of marriage and the glorious meaning of friendship. Their lives tap into the primal need for connection, as well as the rich and transformative bonds that can be formed from synchronistic encounters. In Hope Valley we meet two strong women from nations in conflict, who circle each other and, in recognizing each other's pain, offer us hope that fear and resentment can grow into love.
You will never see your body the same again. Hope hates her body. She always has. The fact that she’s a graphic artist who manipulates images of women’s bodies for a living only makes matters worse. Hope’s teenage niece, Lana, has a physique Photoshop can’t touch. But in her dance world, finesse in motion requires mastery of body, which, for Lana, spirals into obsession. Looking into the mirror, Hope and Lana have in mind a continually altering ideal of beauty defined always as thinner than they are in the moment. Hope turns to her preternaturally trim friend, Lilith, for help. Comedy ensues as Hope mimics Lilith’s alpha female style, storming through life solving her problems and losing weight—that is until her new inauthentic persona leads to catastrophe. At her lowest, Hope meets Joy, a quirky mentor offering ancient truths of physical health and spiritual peace that will change Hope’s and Lana’s lives forever.
Tiller and Sairy live a quiet life in Ruby Holler; their children have long since left home and things are peaceful. But when they decide to adopt two children from the local orphanage to take on a giant adventure, they form an unlikely foursome. And Tiller and Sairy have to deal with some pretty unconventional behaviour on the part of the children, who don't believe they could ever be 'wanted'.A wonderful, magical story that combines quirky action and adventure with family, loyalty and learning to belong. Winner of the Carnegie Medal.
When brothers Ethan and Hosea Grosh left Pennsylvania in 1849, they joined throngs of men from all over the world intent on finding a fortune in the California Gold Rush. Their search for wealth took them from San Francisco into the gold country and then over the Sierra into Nevada’s Gold Canyon, where they placer-mined for gold and discovered a deposit of silver. The letters they sent back to their family offer vivid commentaries on the turbulent western frontier, the diverse society of the Gold Rush camps, and the heartbreaking labor and frustration of mining. Their lively descriptions of Gold Canyon provide one of the earliest accounts of life in what would soon become the fabulously wealthy Comstock Mining District. The Groshes’ letters are rich in color and important historical details. Generously annotated and with an introduction that provides a context for the brothers’ career and the setting in which they tried to make their fortune, these documents powerfully depict the often harsh realities of Gold Rush life and society.
