Possibilities for your Spring Break reading enjoyment:
Never Knowing
by Chevy Stevens
At thirty-three Sara Gallagher is finally happy. Her antique furniture restoration business is taking off and she’s engaged to a wonderful man. But there’s one big question that still haunts her — who are her birth parents? Sara is finally ready to find out.
Sara’s birth mother rejects her—again. Then she discovers her biological father is an infamous killer who’s been hunting women every summer for almost forty years. Sara tries to come to terms with her horrifying parentage — and her fears that she’s inherited more than his looks — with her therapist, Nadine, who we first met in “Still Missing.” But soon Sara realizes the only thing worse than finding out your father is a killer is him finding out about you.
Some questions are better left unanswered.
“Never knowing” is a complex and compelling portrayal of one woman’s quest to understand where she comes from. That is, if she can survive…

Someone Knows My Name
by Lawrence Hill
Abducted from Africa as a child and enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata Diallo thinks only of freedom—and of the knowledge she needs to get home. Sold to an indigo trader who recognizes her intelligence, Aminata is torn from her husband and child and thrown into the chaos of the Revolutionary War. In Manhattan, Aminata helps pen the Book of Negroes, a list of blacks rewarded for service to the king with safe passage to Nova Scotia. There Aminata finds a life of hardship and stinging prejudice. When the British abolitionists come looking for “adventurers” to create a new colony in Sierra Leone, Aminata assists in moving 1,200 Nova Scotians to Africa and aiding the abolitionist cause by revealing the realities of slavery to the British public. This captivating story of one woman’s remarkable experience spans six decades and three continents and brings to life a crucial chapter in world history.
 
The Scavenger’s Daughters
by Kay Bratt
Having survived torture and imprisonment during China’s Cultural Revolution, Benfu escaped to find love with his compassionate and beautiful Calla Lily. Together they build a fulfilling life around the most menial of jobs—Benfu’s work collecting trash. As he sorts through the discards of others, he regularly discovers abandoned children. With unwavering determination, he and Calli spend decades creating a family of hand-picked daughters that help heal the sorrow and brighten their modest home. But all is not perfect and when crisis threatens to separate their family, Benfu—or possibly his band of headstrong daughters—must find a way to overcome the biggest hardship yet.
Inspired by a true story, and set against the backdrop of a country in transition, The Scavenger’s Daughters is a sweeping present day saga of triumph in the face of hardship, and the unbreakable bonds of family against all odds.

What Happened to Hannah
by Mary Kay McComas
As a teenager, Hannah Benson ran away from home in order to save herself. Now, twenty years later, the past comes calling and delivers life-changing news: her mother and sister have passed away, leaving Hannah the guardian of her fifteen-year-old niece.
Returning home to bitter memories and devastating secrets, Hannah must overcome her painful past to pave a future with her niece, the last best chance at a family for both of them. She begins to create a new, happier life with her niece and rekindles a relationship with Grady Steadman, one of the few people she’s ever called a friend.
But she can’t forget what she cannot forgive, or lay to rest those ghosts that will not die. Will love and trust--and the truth--give her the strength to stand her ground and fight for what she deserves?  
 
Some Wildflower in My Heart
by Jamie Langston Turner
Margaret Tuttle’s story is one of love unsought, for she had been perfectly content with the well-ordered and conveniently predictable life that she had arranged for herself. At fifty years old, Margaret is intelligent, quick-witted, and comfortably married, yet emotionally barren. Birdie Freeman is everything Margaret is not: homely, humble, and generous. And it is Birdie who manages, through nothing but acts of love, to dredge up Margaret’s memories of things better left buried. Eventually Margaret learns that Birdie’s past is also full of pain, and that while Birdie chose to respond with faith, love, and forgiveness, Margaret chose another path. Her realization brings Margaret to the place of reconciliation with the God who offers a love beyond measure.

Sheri Holmes
Director of Library/Media Services
Ellinwood School/Community Libraries