National Network for Equitable Library Service

Spring 2010. Harriet works in local radio in London, England. Her husband, Michael, stuck in New York, travels to Toronto to stay with an old flame. Their teenage son Jack takes an unexpected risk and finds himself in trouble. Meanwhile, a Pakistani migrant worker named Yacub is stranded in a labour camp in Dubai, and Emily, a young TV researcher, loses her father to a sudden heart attack. Two years later, their lives intersect dramatically.

On the small fictional island of Sweetland, just south of Newfoundland, a former lighthouse keeper becomes the last man standing when he refuses to accept a government resettlement package, much to everyone's exasperation.

Susan Hostetler leaves her Amish life behind and starts a new life among the English, but when a pregnant woman asks Susan to help her find an Amish family to adopt her baby, she finds herself drawn back to her Amish roots.

Stones from the River is a daring, dramatic and complex novel of life in Germany. It is set in Burgdorf, a small fictional German town, between 1915 and 1951. The protagonist is Trudi Montag, a Zwerg -- the German word for dwarf woman. As a dwarf she is set apart, the outsider whose physical "otherness" has a corollary in her refusal to be a part of Burgdorf's silent complicity during and after World War II. Trudi establishes her status and power, not through beauty, marriage, or motherhood, but rather as the town's librarian and relentless collector of stories.