Bücher der Reihe Reading Group Gold

After an unthinkable tragedy happens, an unbelievable miracle begins. . . Three-year-old Sherry is the adored only child of Simon and Karen Barrett. But when Sherry is critically injured in a hit-and-run accident, the fault lines in the Barretts's marriage begin to show. As her parents' marriage falls apart, it is discovered that Sherry has miraculous healing powers. Meanwhile, the guilt-stricken driver of the truck attempts suicide--but is unable to die. Henry Denton instead finds himself in a place of darkness, somewhere between this world and the next, invisible to all but a group of mysterious and downtrodden men. Haunted by his shame, Henry struggles to understand this mysterious limbo.As word of Sherry's powers spread, her parents must decide how best to shelter their daughter and help the many sick and dying who are drawn to her side. At the same time, a larger battle is brewing-- one that has been raging for two thousand years, and one that might yet claim the lives of Sherry and her family.Robert J. Wiersema's brilliant debut novel sheds light on the inner lives of characters struggling against tragedy, who find each other and themselves in the darkness. Before I Wake reveals the power of forgiveness, and the true nature, and cost, of miracles.

It is 1989 and Daria Gradov is an elderly grandmother living in the rural West. But she is not who she claims to be-the widow of a Russian immigrant of modest means. In actuality she began her life as the Grand Duchess Tatiana, known as Tania to her parents, Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra. At the heart of the story is young Tania, who lives a life of incomparable luxury in pre-Revolutionary Russia. When her younger brother is diagnosed with hemophilia and the key to his survival lies in the mysterious power of the illiterate monk Rasputin, it is merely an omen of much worse things to come. Soon war breaks out and revolution sweeps the family from power and into claustrophobic imprisonment in Siberia. Into Tania's world comes a young soldier whose life she helps to save and who becomes her partner in daring plans to rescue the imperial family from certain death.

A rich, luminous novel of three remarkable women connected across a century by a family secret and by the fierce brilliance of their love Samantha's mother has been dead almost a year when the box arrives on her doorstep. In it, she finds recipe cards, keepsakes, letters-relics of her mother Iris's past. But as Sam sifts through these family treasures, she uncovers evidence that her grandmother, Violet, had a much more difficult childhood then she could have ever imagined. And Sam, a struggling new mother herself, begins to see her own burdens in a completely different light. Moving from the tempered calm of contemporary Madison, Wisconsin to the seedy underbelly of early twentieth century New York, we come face to face with a haunting piece of America's past: From 1854 to 1929 orphan trains from New York transported 150,000 to 200,000 destitute, orphaned or abandoned children across the country to find homes on farms in the Midwest. Rae Meadows takes us on our own journey of discovery in Mercy Train (originally published as Mothers & Daughters), an affecting and wonderfully woven novel about three generations of motherhood, family, and the surprising sacrifices we make for the people we love.

Family secrets reverberate for generations in one of the "Best Novels of 2011" (Kirkus Reviews)Growing up without a mother in hardscrabble Kentucky in the 1920s, Bertie Fischer and her older sister, Mabel, have only each other-with perhaps a sweetheart for Bertie waiting in the wings. But on the day that Bertie graduates from eighth grade, good intentions go terribly wrong, setting off a chain of misunderstandings that will change the lives of the next three generations.What happens when nothing turns out as you planned? From the Depression through the second world war and Vietnam, and smaller events both tragic and joyful, Bertie and Mabel forge unexpected identities that are shaped by a past that no one ever talks about. Gorgeously written, with extraordinary insight and emotional truth, Nancy Jensen's brilliant first novel, The Sisters, illuminates the far-reaching power of family and family secrets.