Helen Plum Library

Belle discusses her homelife and personality

The China Lake missile range in the Mojave Desert was created during the Second World War, and has always been shrouded in secrecy. But people who make missiles and other weapons are regular working people, with domestic routines and everyday dilemmas, and four of them were the Piper family. Her dad designed the Sidewinder. Once, when a missile nose needed to be taken offsite for final testing, her mother loaded it into the trunk of the family car,...

In her diary, twelve-year-old Amber describes moving to Hawaii in 1941 and experiencing the horror of the bombing of Pearl Harbor

"Tiernan de Haas doesn't care about anything anymore. The only child of a film producer and his starlet wife, she's grown up with wealth and privilege but not love or guidance. Shipped off to boarding schools from an early age, it was impossible to escape the loneliness and carve out a life of her own. And when they suddenly pass away, she knows she should be devastated. But has anything really changed? She's always been alone, hasn't she? Jake Van...

"A man ahead of his time, Japanese college professor Masao Takashimaya of Kyoto had a passion for modern ideas that was as strong as his wife's belief in ancient traditions. His eighteen-year-old daughter, Hiroko, torn between her mother's traditions and her father's wishes, boarded the SS Nagoya Maru to come to California for an education and to make her father proud. It was August 1941. From the ship, she went to the Palo Alto home of her uncle,...

When Marilyn Kleinman is caught making out with the rabbi's son in front of the whole congregation, her parents ship her off to her great-aunt Ada for the summer. If anyone can save their daughter's reputation, it's Philadelphia's strict premier matchmaker. Either that or Marilyn can kiss college goodbye. To Marilyn's surprise, Ada's not the humorless septuagenarian her mother described. Not with that platinum-blonde hair, Hermès scarf, and Cadillac...

Naftalina is an extraordinary family saga that moves between Italy at the beginning of the 20th century and Argentina at the beginning of the 21st, but also an exciting reflection on family, resignation and sacrifice.The year is 2001 and Argentina is mired in a serious economic crisis. Rocío, a nineteen-year-old girl, loses her grandmother Vilma and, after the funeral, moves into the house that she has left for her. In this environment marked by...

Raeliana McMillan thought her fake engagement to Duke Noah Wynknight was helping her escape death. Instead, she finds that he's a different kind of danger