Central Kansas Library System

May and Pearl, two sisters living in Shanghai in the mid-1930s, are beautiful, sophisticated, and well-educated, but their family is on the verge of bankruptcy. Hoping to improve their social standing, May and Pearl's parents arrange for their daughters to marry Gold Mountain men who have come from Los Angeles to find brides. But when the sisters leave China and arrive at Angel's Island (the Ellis Island of the West) where they are detained, interrogated,...

When a young Korean girl known as Regret leaves her homeland for a better life in Hawaii, as a "picture bride," she expects to find prosperity and a chance at education. But the rich husband she is promised turns out to be a poor plantation worker with drinking and gambling problems, and the girl now known as Jin is forced to seek her own path. Joining with her fellow picture brides to start a business, Jin must shed her naievet�e and overcome prejudice...

"Marco Calvo always knew his grandfather, affectionately called Papoo, was a good man. He was named after him, after all. A first-generation Jewish immigrant, Papoo was hard-working, smart, and caring. When Papoo peacefully passes away, he expected the funeral to be simple. However, he is caught off guard by something unusual. Among his close family and friends are mourners he doesn't recognize-Japanese-American families-and no one is quite sure who...

After years of separation, English-born Emmaline Bradford is shocked by the conditions on Geoffrey's Kansas sheep ranch and wishes to return to England immediately. But Geoffrey offers a compromise: If Emmaline promises to stay until spring, he'll pay her return fare if she decides to go back to her home country. When spring arrives, will Emmaline return to England, or will she marry Geoffrey and carve out a life with him in Kansas?

"In Urrea's exuberant new novel of Mexican-American life, 70-year-old patriarch Big Angel de la Cruz is dying, and he wants to have one last birthday blowout. Unfortunately, his 100-year-old mother, America, dies the week of his party, so funeral and birthday are celebrated one day apart. The entire contentious, riotous de la Cruz clan descends on San Diego for the events--"High rollers and college students, prison veternaos and welfare mothers, happy...

"Ellis Island, 1902: Two women band together to hold America to its promise: Give me your tired, your poor . . . your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . . A young Italian woman arrives on the shores of America, her sights set on a better life. That same day, a young American woman reports to her first day of work at the immigration center. But Ellis Island isn't a refuge for Francesca or Alma, not when ships depart every day with those...

"With only two months before Elizabeth sets sail for London to marry a British lord, she resolves to live a lifetime of adventure. Lucian Griffin, her dearest friend's brother, intends to protect Elizabeth from letting her adventures forever sully her reputation. Soon his earnest fondness gives way to deep affection."--

"Penniless, pregnant, and newly widowed immigrant Rachel Gordon doesn;t believe her situation could get any worse...until she meets her new neighbors. Shortly after the War of 1812, Rachel and her husband set out from England for a plantation in South Carolina, which he had purchased sight unseen. However, while en route, Tom Gordon fell overboard and drowned, leaving Rachel, frightened and alone, to make a home for her and her newborn. Can a battle-scarred...