[Manabi]

This month's Kindle First Reads selections are out, they are:

Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah [Genre: Contemporary Fiction]

In this gorgeously stunning debut, a mysterious child teaches two strangers how to love and trust again.

After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises.

The girl calls herself Ursa, and she claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles. With concerns about the child’s home situation, Jo reluctantly agrees to let her stay—just until she learns more about Ursa’s past.

Jo enlists the help of her reclusive neighbor, Gabriel Nash, to solve the mystery of the charming child. But the more time they spend together, the more questions they have. How does a young girl not only read but understand Shakespeare? Why do good things keep happening in her presence? And why aren’t Jo and Gabe checking the missing children’s website anymore?

Though the three have formed an incredible bond, they know difficult choices must be made. As the summer nears an end and Ursa gets closer to her fifth miracle, her dangerous past closes in. When it finally catches up to them, all of their painful secrets will be forced into the open, and their fates will be left to the stars.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

Where the Forest Meets the Stars by debut novelist Glendy Vanderah has absolutely stolen my heart. It’s as simple as that. With gorgeous prose, a quirky cast of characters you can’t help but root for, an underlying sense of mystery that will keep you guessing from the first page to the last, and just the slightest possibility of magic, this novel has something for everyone. But what really enraptured me is that at its core, this is a novel about love in many different forms and varieties. Some will shatter your heart into a million pieces, and others will mend it back together. Because really, what better story is there than a love story?

Where the Forest Meets the Stars is one of those rare novels that makes me laugh and cry no matter how many times I’ve read it, and always leaves me with a lingering feeling of hope and happiness. Vanderah has made me a believer in the magic of everyday miracles, and for that, I’m truly grateful. I have no doubt that this story will stick with me for a very, very long time. — Alicia Clancy, Editor

The Perfect Child by Lucinda Berry [Genre: Domestic Suspense]

A page-turning debut of suspense about a young couple desperate to have a child of their own—and the unsettling consequences of getting what they always wanted.

Christopher and Hannah are a happily married surgeon and nurse with picture-perfect lives. All that’s missing is a child. When Janie, an abandoned six-year-old, turns up at their hospital, Christopher forms an instant connection with her, and he convinces Hannah they should take her home as their own.

But Janie is no ordinary child, and her damaged psyche proves to be more than her new parents were expecting. Janie is fiercely devoted to Christopher, but she acts out in increasingly disturbing ways, directing all her rage at Hannah. Unable to bond with Janie, Hannah is drowning under the pressure, and Christopher refuses to see Janie’s true nature.

Hannah knows that Janie is manipulating Christopher and isolating him from her, despite Hannah’s attempts to bring them all together. But as Janie’s behavior threatens to tear Christopher and Hannah apart, the truth behind Janie’s past may be enough to push them all over the edge.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

For eager adoptive parents Chris and Hannah Bauer, getting the child they always wanted is a dream come true. But be careful what you wish for. What they always wanted comes with chilling consequences.

When abandoned child Janie is brought into the hospital where Chris and Hannah work, it’s obvious she’s experienced severe trauma, and they know raising her will be hard. Yet they can’t help but fall in love with her. But once they bring her home, things quickly start to go south. As the pair slowly starts to uncover pieces of Janie’s past, the child’s behavior grows more disturbing.

I was spellbound as I started to unravel the mystery of Janie and watch a once-perfect couple struggle to keep their marriage alive. I love when a book leaves me in chills, and The Perfect Child did not disappoint. - Megha Parekh, Editor

The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan by Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller [Genre: Memoir]

An emotional and sweeping memoir of love and survival—and of a committed and desperate family uprooted and divided by the violent, changing landscape of Afghanistan in the early 1980s.

Before the Soviet invasion of 1980, Enjeela Ahmadi remembers her home—Kabul, Afghanistan—as peaceful, prosperous, and filled with people from all walks of life. But after her mother, unsettled by growing political unrest, leaves for medical treatment in India, the civil war intensifies, changing young Enjeela’s life forever. Amid the rumble of invading Soviet tanks, Enjeela and her family are thrust into chaos and fear when it becomes clear that her mother will not be coming home.

Thus begins an epic, reckless, and terrifying five-year journey of escape for Enjeela, her siblings, and their father to reconnect with her mother. In navigating the dangers ahead of them, and in looking back at the wilderness of her homeland, Enjeela discovers the spiritual and physical strength to find hope in the most desperate of circumstances.

A heart-stopping memoir of a girl shaken by the brutalities of war and empowered by the will to survive, The Broken Circle brilliantly illustrates that family is not defined by the borders of a country but by the bonds of the heart.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

As a young American girl growing up in the eighties, my daily pleasures included climbing trees, playing with my neighborhood friends, and lively family discussion around the dinner table. The same was true for Afghan Enjeela Ahmadi—until a series of personal and global events cut her childhood short.

Against the backdrop of mounting political tensions in Kabul, Enjeela’s family is separated when her mother leaves for a medical procedure in New Delhi, taking two of Enjeela’s sisters with her. As the civil war intensifies, and with Enjeela’s brother evading capture by the secret police, her family left in Kabul is targeted for harassment. Her father, growing fearful for the four children still under his roof, makes the decision to attempt to join his wife in India. The Broken Circle is Enjeela’s story of escape, endurance, determination, and pluck as she and three of her siblings flee the war in Afghanistan and embark on a five-year journey, traveling by taxi, bus, car, donkey, and foot across South Asia to reunite with her mother and sisters.

Told from the point of view of a child, this memoir stands out as one of few that have been written about the experiences of living during the time of Afghanistan’s nascent development as a modern country. Today, some in the Western world might think of Kabul as a backward warren of intolerance, corruption, poverty, and cruelty. In Enjeela’s heart and mind, though, Afghanistan was home—a place that worked for all its people, where children climbed trees and families gathered around the table at dinner to laugh and share. — Erin Calligan Mooney, Editor

The Fever King by Victoria Lee [Genre: Young Adult]

In the former United States, sixteen-year-old Noam Álvaro wakes up in a hospital bed, the sole survivor of the viral magic that killed his family and made him a technopath. His ability to control technology attracts the attention of the minister of defense and thrusts him into the magical elite of the nation of Carolinia.

The son of undocumented immigrants, Noam has spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees fleeing magical outbreaks—refugees Carolinia routinely deports with vicious efficiency. Sensing a way to make change, Noam accepts the minister’s offer to teach him the science behind his magic, secretly planning to use it against the government. But then he meets the minister’s son—cruel, dangerous, and achingly beautiful—and the way forward becomes less clear.

Caught between his purpose and his heart, Noam must decide who he can trust and how far he’s willing to go in pursuit of the greater good.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

The world of Victoria Lee’s debut novel works like an unforgettable prism for our own. The story is set in a near-future North America, not quite the United States anymore, but a place that we recognize all too well. Refugees are denied basic rights. Children of immigrants live in fear. Power serves only itself. And yet...there’s magic in this imagined Carolinia, a kaleidoscopic array of wondrous abilities enjoyed and exploited only by those who survive magic’s initial viral attack.

And there’s beauty, too. In the strength of sixteen-year-old protagonist Noam Álvaro as he leaves home to accept an offer from a government minister to learn the science behind magic. In the friendships that develop between Noam and his fellow students, who also survived their own infections and now train with the magic elite. And in the love that grows between Noam and the minister’s own teenager, who is equally capable of both tender intimacy and mystifying cruelty.

Set amid this imaginative world of beauty, magic, and political turmoil, Noam struggles to reconcile his newly discovered technopathy (his magical ability to control technology) with a lifelong desire to avenge the government’s mistreatment of everyone he’s ever known and loved. And then, he discovers that almost nothing he has learned to believe is as it seems.

Part thriller, part fantasy, part dystopia, and brimming with enough action and allegory to keep adult readers riveted, The Fever King hails the introduction of a talented and very exciting new storyteller who will appeal to teens and adults alike. — Jason Kirk, Editor

What the Wind Blows by Amy Harmon [Genre: Historical Fiction]

In an unforgettable love story, a woman’s impossible journey through the ages could change everything…

Anne Gallagher grew up enchanted by her grandfather’s stories of Ireland. Heartbroken at his death, she travels to his childhood home to spread his ashes. There, overcome with memories of the man she adored and consumed by a history she never knew, she is pulled into another time.

The Ireland of 1921, teetering on the edge of war, is a dangerous place in which to awaken. But there Anne finds herself, hurt, disoriented, and under the care of Dr. Thomas Smith, guardian to a young boy who is oddly familiar. Mistaken for the boy’s long-missing mother, Anne adopts her identity, convinced the woman’s disappearance is connected to her own.

As tensions rise, Thomas joins the struggle for Ireland’s independence and Anne is drawn into the conflict beside him. Caught between history and her heart, she must decide whether she’s willing to let go of the life she knew for a love she never thought she’d find. But in the end, is the choice actually hers to make?

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

From the moment author Amy Harmon saw Lough Gill, the lake that figures prominently in this heart-wrenching novel, she felt a deep connection. Her great-grandfather lived in this part of Ireland, and the landscape spoke to her, compelling her to write a story set in his time. But how? She knew little of her family’s history, and Ireland has such a complex, turbulent past. The more she immersed herself in the place and time, the more lost she felt.

When I learned this from Amy, I couldn’t help but think that her experience of feeling lost in history echoes that of Anne Gallagher, the main character in What the Wind Knows. When Anne wakes in Ireland in 1916, she has no idea how she got there or how to get back to her life in twenty-first-century New York. The more she tries to unravel her family’s past, the more entangled she becomes. And when her heart gets caught between two different times, it’s nearly impossible to see her way clear. If she stays, she may alter history. But if she goes, she’ll leave behind those she dearly loves.

I won’t say how, but ultimately Anne finds her way. And clearly Amy found her way, too, because she’s written a love story unlike any other, one that truly transcends time and place. — Jodi Warshaw, Editor

It's Not Hansel and Gretel (It’s Not a Fairy Tale Book 2) by Josh Funk (Author), Edwardian Taylor (Illustrator) [Genre: Children's Picture Book]

Hansel and Gretel will not listen to their storyteller. For one thing, who leaves a trail of bread crumbs lying around, when there are people starving? Not Hansel, that’s for sure! And that sweet old lady who lives in a house made of cookies and candy? There’s no way she’s an evil witch! As for Gretel, well, she’s about to set the record straight—after all, who says the story can’t be called Gretel and Hansel? It’s time for these wacky siblings to take their fairy tale into their own hands. So sit back and enjoy the gingerbread!

With laugh-out-loud dialogue and bold, playful art (including hidden search-and-find fairy-tale creatures), this Hansel and Gretel retelling will have kids giggling right up to the delicious ending!

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

While there have been many fairy-tale mash-ups published over the years, I can tell you that none are quite like It’s Not Hansel and Gretel. No, this is not your mama’s “Hansel and Gretel.”

When I first read the story, I was immediately drawn in by the playful dynamic between the narrator and our two heroes, Gretel and Hansel, who keep interrupting and refusing to do what they’re told. The characters in this book truly burst to life off the pages. Hansel is a bit of a crybaby, while Gretel is ready to take charge. The narrator just wants the kids to listen and play along. And both kids are quite inventive when they get the opportunity to tell the story on their own. Did I mention that there’s a unicorn in this book? As it turns out, our narrator was wrong about a few things. With hilarious dialogue and just enough reference to the original story, this book makes a fun read-aloud for the whole family (silly voices optional!). — Marilyn Brigham, Editor