A young woman runs away from home and finds love in the most unexpected place
In Meg Rosoff’s fourth novel, a young woman in 1850s rural England runs away from home on horseback the day she’s to marry her childhood sweetheart. Pell is from a poor preacher’s family and she’s watched her mother suffer for years under the burden of caring for an ever-increasing number of children. Pell yearns to escape the inevitable repetition of such a life.
She understands horses better than people and sets off for Salisbury Fair, where horse trading takes place, in the hope of finding work and buying herself some time. But as she rides farther away from home, Pell’s feelings for her parents, her siblings, and her fiancé surprise her with their strength and alter the course of her travels. And her journey leads her to find love where she least expects it.
Rosoff’s magical voice and her novel’s ethereal setting will thrill her passionate longtime fans and garner her new ones.  Download

“A lovely book.” raved Anne Rivers Siddons about Mina, Jonatha Ceely’s luminous debut novel. “Suspenseful…evocative…meticulously researched,” praised the Boston Globe. Now Ceely returns to the tumultuous mid-nineteenth- century landscape and the world of an unforgettable Irish girl named Mina Pigot. Appealing to mind, sense, and emotion, Bread and Dreams is a sumptuous novel of love and food, loss, hunger, and hope.
In 1848, a time when sail was giving way to the swift power of steam, Mina boards the sailing ship Victoria, headed for a new life in America. Orphaned and alone, under the protection of her friend Mr. Serle, Mina is, like the Victoria, at the mercy of the winds of fate. But what awaits both Mina and her protector in New York is a world rich with opportunity and danger.
As Mr. Serle, a master chef, finds work in a bustling hotel, Mina tries the life of a salesgirl and then joins the downstairs kitchen of a wealthy family, where she soon proves her exquisite touch with food. But mysteries swirl all around the Westervelt home, and soon they engulf Mina too. As she tries to navigate the shoals and eddies of hidden affairs and powerful secrets, and as her feelings for the mysterious Mr. Serle subtly begin to shift, a remarkable series of events begins to unfold. For Mina, an extraordinary adventure begins, one that will take her far away from New York—and bring a sudden, surprising change of heart…and an unexpected gift of love and responsibility. Download