"Paradise Park was the "colored only'" counterpart to Silver Springs, a central Florida tourist attraction famous for its crystal-clear water and glass bottom boats. Together the two parks formed one of the biggest recreational facilities in the country before Disney World. From 1949 to 1969, boats passed each other on the Silver River--blacks on one side, whites on the other. Though the patrons of both parks shared the same river, they seldom crossed the invisible line in the water"--Jacket.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A richly textured portrait . . . an intimate look at a closed Orthodox community.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK It is 1976. And the tiny upstate New York town of Kaaterskill Falls is bustling with summer people in dark coats, fedoras, and long, modest dresses. Living side by side with Yankee year-rounders, they are the disciples of Rav Elijah Kirshner. Elizabeth Shulman is a restless wife and mother of five daughters; her imagination transcends her cloistered community. Across the street Andras Melish is drawn to Kaaterskill by his adoring older sisters. Comforted, yet crippled by his sisters’ love, he cannot overcome the ambivalence he feels toward his own children and his young wife. At the top of the hill, Rav Kirshner is nearing the end of his life. As he struggles to decide which of his sons should succeed him—the pious but stolid Isaiah or the brilliant but rebellious Jeremy—his followers wrestle with their future and their past. With this community, Allegra Goodman weaves magic. The nationally bestselling author of The Family Markowitz crafts a tale of family and tradition—one that confirms this author’s place as a virtuoso of her generation.
Where the seasons last for generations, winter is a hard time suited to hard religion. The theocratic Starbridge caste consider themselves virtuous wardens in a sinners' purgatory, reading infant cries and birthmarks to judge the unpunished crimes of previous incarnations. On the battlefield, all but nobility are denied medicine and anaesthetic. Only the Antinomials have endured winter outside this oppressive social system. People without language, eaters of meat, they are being driven from their lands in the north to seek sanctuary against the very belly of their tormentors, in the slums of the great capital city of Charn. Here a Starbridge doctor and a drunken prince begin a dangerous experiment in compassion that will soon demand heavy sacrifices, just as the people brace for spring, with its flammable and suffocating sugar rain.
She almost caught him once. Now, he’s back. For three years, Investigator Cassie Dewell has been on a hunt for a serial killer known as the Lizard King whose hunting grounds are the highways and truck stops where runaways and prostitutes are most likely to vanish. Cassie almost caught him...once. Working for the Bakken County, North Dakota sheriff's department, Cassie has set what she believes is the perfect trap and she has lured him and his truck to a depot. But the plan goes horribly wrong, and the blame falls on Cassie. Disgraced, she loses her job and investigation into her role is put into motion. At the same time, Kyle Westergaard, a troubled kid whom Cassie has taken under her wing, has disappeared after telling people that he’s going off on a long-planned adventure. Kyle's grandmother begs Cassie to find him and, with nothing else to do, Cassie agrees—all the while hunting the truck driver. Now Cassie is a lone wolf. And in the same way that two streams converge into a river, Kyle's disappearance may have a more sinister meaning than anyone realizes. With no allies, no support, and only her own wits to rely on, Cassie must take down a killer who is as ruthless as he is cunning. But can she do it alone, without losing her own humanity or her own life? Paradise Valley continues the Highway Quartet series from bestselling author C. J. Box.
Newly widowed Charlotte Figg purchases a double-wide trailer sight unseen and moves to the Paradise Trailer Park with her dog Lucky. Unfortunately, neither the trailer nor Paradise are what Charlotte expected. Her trailer is a ramshackle old place in need of major repair, and the people of Paradise are harboring more secrets than Bayer has aspirin. Charlotte’s new friend Rose Tattoo learns that Charlotte played softball and convinces her to rally the women of Paradise into a team. Reluctant at first, Charlotte warms to the notion and is soon coaching the Paradise Angels. Meanwhile, Charlotte discovers that the manager of Paradise, Fergus Wrinkel, abuses his wife Suzy. Charlotte sets out to find a way to save Suzy from Fergus and in the process comes to a difficult realization about her own painful marriage.
She's the coffee-addicted, exercise-allergic and self-confessed sceptical author of The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment - now join Isabel Losada for further travels in the realms of the soul, the senses and the sheer absurdity of life, from a feng shui reading gone hilariously wrong to an ayahuasca ceremony that goes all too right.
To coincide with the celebration of Presque Isle State Park's 100-year anniversary in 2021, "Accidental Paradise: A Natural, Political, and Social History of Presque Isle" is targeted for publication by the Jefferson Educational Society in November 2020. Written by Erie historian David Frew with images coordinated and photographed by historian Jerry Skrypzak, the book marks the fifth collaboration by the two authors. Publication follows a three-year project in which Frew and Skrypzak address the geological formation of the peninsula, its natural history, and colorful political history leading to its creation as a state park. It also features the many people, events, and roles played by Erie's peninsula to the present day. Included is naval history, ecology, the Presque Isle Lighthouse, the story of famous squatter Joe Root, the Tom Ridge Environmental Center, Waldameer Park, fishing, environmental issues, the forerunners of the U.S. Coast Guard, and much more.
An ideal sanctuary and a dream come true–that’s what Margaret Lane feels as she takes in God’s gorgeous handiwork in Mount Rainier National Park. It’s 1927 and the National Park Service is in its youth when Margie, an avid naturalist, lands a coveted position alongside the park rangers living and working in the unrivaled splendor of Mount Rainier’s long shadow. But Chief Ranger Ford Brayden is still haunted by his father’s death on the mountain, and the ranger takes his work managing the park and its crowd of visitors seriously. The job of watching over an idealistic senator’s daughter with few practical survival skills seems a waste of resources. When Margie’s former fiancé sets his mind on developing the Paradise Inn and its surroundings into a tourist playground, the plans might put more than the park’s pristine beauty in danger. What will Margie and Ford sacrifice to preserve the splendor and simplicity of the wilderness they both love? Karen Barnett’s vintage national parks novels bring to vivid life President Theodore Roosevelt’s vision for protected lands, when he wrote in Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter: "There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children's children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred."
Zambezi by Tony Park, the author of Red Earth, is a full-throttle international thriller that will engross fans of Clive Cussler. Paradise is about to erupt News of the death of a research assistant, killed by a man-eating lion in Zimbabwe, reaches those closest to her. Jed Banks, a Special Forces soldier serving in Afghanistan; Professor Christine Wallis in South Africa; and Hassan bin Zayid, a hotel magnate in Zambia. The victim was respectively their daughter, protégé and lover. Driven to find out what exactly happened, Jed, accompanied by Christine, travels to the banks of the Zambezi to investigate. Not only does Jed learn some shocking truths about the daughter he thought he knew, he begins to suspect Christine is withholding crucial information. Meanwhile, Hassan's grief is dangerously volatile . . .
