Superbly Written Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Clean reads
• Fiction
• Strong characterization
• Literary books

I Capture the Castle
By Dodie Smith
F SMITH
Seventeen-year-old Cassandra describes life with her family, an eccentric group of people liking in poverty in a 14th century castle.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
By Mary Ann Shaffer
F SHAFFER
As London is emerging from the shadow of World War II, writer Juliet Ashton discovers her next subject in a book club on Guernsey--a club born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi after its members are discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island.

Cold Sassy Tree
By Olive Ann Burns
F BURNS
Grandpa Blakeslee marries a young milliner just three weeks after Granny Blakeslee has gone to her reward. Young Will is boggled by this act but becomes the newlyweds' conspirator and confidant; meanwhile he does some growing up on his own.

A Sweetness to the Soul
By Jane Kirkpatrick
F KIRKPATR
After the tragic death of her siblings, Jane Herbert tries to make peace with an emotionally distant mother and finds herself involved in an unusual romance with a dreamer sixteen years her senior, as she struggles to build a family of her own.

Gilead
By Marilynne Robinson
F ROBINSON
As the Reverend John Ames approaches the hour of his own death, he writes a letter to his son chronicling three previous generations of his family, a story that stretches back to the Civil War and reveals uncomfortable family secrets.