Pam Jenoff
Jenoff uncovers a fascinating, little-known aspect of World War II history in this novel, told through the eyes of two young women. Sadie, a Jew, is forced to descend into the sewers beneath Kraków to survive the Nazi occupation of Poland. Ella, meanwhile, lives an outwardly easy life, albeit with a sadness all her own. When the girls encounter one another via a quick glance through a sewer grate, a forbidden friendship begins, one that will sustain and challenge them amid swirling danger. The Woman with the Blue Star tells an unforgettable story of coming of age during tumultuous times.
The Finder of Forgotten Things
Sarah Loudin Thomas
Thomas brings Appalachian history to life through the eyes of ordinary people struggling to find God amid turmoil. People like Sullivan Harris, who arrives in a small West Virginia town as a fraudster running from the consequences of his choices. Or Gainey Floyd, the local postmistress, who isn’t buying his tricks. As the town’s working people fall victim to one of America’s worst (and least-remembered) cases of industrial abuse—the digging of the deadly Hawks Nest Tunnel—both characters are challenged to make a difference. The Finder of Forgotten Things affirms the heroic spirit that God can bring forth in each of us.
Patti Callahan
Callahan, author of the 2018 novel Becoming Mrs. Lewis, returns to C. S. Lewis’s world, this time as seen through the eyes of Megs, a brilliant math scholar at Oxford. Megs’s terminally ill brother, George, is desperate to know the secrets behind his favorite new book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. This spurs Megs to seek out Lewis himself and get some answers. A beautiful depiction of the love between brothers and sisters, as well as a behind-the-scenes glimpse at Lewis’s own life, Once Upon a Wardrobe conjures an old-world setting as magical as a winter’s day in the Narnia creator’s parlor.
