Central Kansas Library System

"Xochitl is destined to wander the desert alone, speaking her troubled village's stories into its arid winds. Her only companions are the blessed stars above and enigmatic lines of poetry magically strewn across dusty dunes. Her one desire: to share her heart with a kindred spirit. One night, Xo's wish is granted--in the form of Emilia, the cold and beautiful daughter of the town's murderous conqueror. But when the two set out on a magical journey...

Amy Harney has a job as a chambermaid for the summer, but on August 25, she will take the exam to become an EMT (third time's the charm!) and finally move on with her life. In the meantime, she doesn't mind scrubbing toilets immaculately clean or tucking the sheet corners just so. In fact, she tells herself that her work is a noble act of service to the rich guests at the yacht club. Amy's profound isolation colors everything: her job, her aspirations,...

"Bobby, who is bullied by the kids at school for living in a home with a front yard that is filled with garbage, meets a young artist who teaches him to see himself as more than "Junk Boy.""-- Junk. That’s what the kids at school call Bobby Lang. Trying desperately to live under the radar at school-- and at the home he shares with his angry, neglectful father-- Bobby develops a sort of proud loneliness. The only buffer between him and the...

Eleven-year-old Maybelle Lane collects sounds. She records the Louisiana crickets chirping, Momma strumming her guitar, their broken trailer door squeaking. But the crown jewel of her collection is a sound she didn't collect herself: an old recording of her daddy's warm-sunshine laugh, saved on an old phone's voicemail. It's the only thing she has of his, and the only thing she knows about him. Until the day she hears that laugh--his laugh--pouring...

""Fair Meadows Retirement Community might as well be a country club for most of the retirees enjoying the pool, golf course, and book clubs. But for the caregivers whose family members reside upstairs in the special Memory Care Unit, vacation is over. Comforting these caregivers is exactly why the Woolgatherers group has formed. They make prayer shawls to support those affected by the heartbreaking reality of not being recognized by a loved one-people...

"Addie Holmes is Apple Creek's resident wallflower. She is kind and giving and has a lot to be grateful for. But she is full of self-doubt because her parents did not want her and gave her to her grandmother to raise. Now her life seems to be just hard work and loneliness. Wary of romance, Addie assumes no man will look beyond her glasses and her tendency to talk to her rescue donkey, Snickers -- until the day she receives a note from a secret admirer....

Eleven-year-old Raymond devises a plan to spend his summer proving to everyone how brave and confident he is, but will he really be able to change, or is it another lie he tells himself?

"Award-winning novelist Larry D. Sweazy's first published short story collection features eleven western stories, including a new short story, "A Cow Hunter's Lament." Three of the stories, "Rattlesnakes and Skunks," "Lost Mountain Pass," and "Shadow of the Crow," are origin stories for Sweazy's series characters Josiah Wolfe, Trusty Dawson, and Sonny Burton. The stories are traditional westerns with a few that have underlying mysteries, as well as...

They call Montauk the end of the world, a spit of land jutting into the Atlantic. The house was a ramshackle split-level set on a hill, and each summer thirty one people would sleep between its thin walls and shag carpets. Against the moonlight the house's octagonal roof resembled a bee's nest. It was dubbed The Hive. In 2013, John Glynn joined the share house. Packing his duffel for that first Memorial Day Weekend, he prayed for clarity. At 27, he...

"A novel about an orphaned brother and sister who must fend for themselves on a remote fishing outpost in the late 1800s"-- In the late 1800s, a brother and sister are orphaned in an isolated cove on Newfoundland's northern coastline. Their home is a stretch of rocky shore governed by the feral ocean, by a relentless pendulum of abundance and scarcity. With nothing but the family's boat and the little knowledge passed on haphazardly by their mother...