Central Kansas Library System

"Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College--Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky. Now the real training begins, and Violet's already wondering how she'll get through. It's not just that it's grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it's designed to stretch the riders' capacity for pain beyond endurance....

Published in 1920, and taking its title from a line of the Rupert Brooke poem Tiare Tahiti, the book examines the lives and morality of post-World War I youth. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive Princeton University student who dabbles in literature. The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status-seeking.--

Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag." In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard. Her father distrusted the medical establishment, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse....

A year after the university mourned the death of one of its students, Craig Clements-Rabbitt, who was driving the car in the wreck that got his sorority girlfriend Nicole killed, is trying to put his life back together when rumors surface that Nicole is still alive.

Meet Syd Redding, a gruff, ambitious working-class young man and pre-med student. Syd passes the stultifying hours of 1978 in his ethics class fantasizing about the destruction of the Kesslers, his boss's well-to-do Ohio family, a threesome "moneyed and beautiful and installed high in the city's society." As he steps onto the doorstep of their grand mansion in the estate section of their city, Syd has no detailed plan in mind, only vague, delicious...

"Imogen Scott may be hopelessly heterosexual, but she's got the World's Greatest Ally title locked down. She's never missed a Pride Alliance meeting. She knows more about queer media discourse than her very queer little sister. She even has two queer best friends. There's Gretchen, a fellow high school senior, who helps keep Imogen's biases in check. And then there's Lili--newly out and newly thriving with a cool new squad of queer college friends....

Twenty-year-old Emily meets Justin, a young Army reservist, and their deep love built on the foundation of faith blossoms into plans for marriage, while Emily's parents must learn to set aside their opposing views on the war in Iraq.

It's the debate of the ages; this time, held in a seemingly insignificant venue, but the outcome, as always, will be life-changing. A Christian college freshman, Josh Wheaton, and his atheist philosophy professor hold court on the existence of God. To pass the course, Josh must prove to the class that God is alive and well. This dare could cost him his relationships, his career, even his future, but Josh stands up for his faith and takes on the challenge....

"Taryn Moore is young, beautiful, and brilliant--so why would she kill herself? When Detective Frankie Loomis arrives on the scene to investigate the girl's fatal plunge from her apartment balcony, Frankie knows in her gut there's more to the story. Her instincts are confirmed when surprise information is revealed that could have been reason enough for Taryn's suicide--or a motive for murder. To English professor Jack Dorian, Taryn was the ultimate...

Working at a homeless shelter, Laurel Estabrook encounters Bobbie Crocker, a man with a history of mental illness and a box of secret photos, but when Bobbie dies suddenly, Laurel embarks on an obsessive search for the truth behind the photos.