Britton Summer Reading Club

All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

John Grady Cole, 16, leaves Texas for Mexico in 1950 and becomes an essential vaquero in a hacienda's program.

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

Taylor Greer hits the road wanting only to get as far away from Kentucky as possible, ending up in Arizona with a three-year-old Cherokee girl she has inherited from a woman in a bar.

Better to Rest by Dana Stabenow

Alaska state trooper Sergeant Liam Campbell, the sole law enforcement representative in the small fishing village of Newenham, becomes involved in a decades-old mystery when a downed World War II Army plane is found mysteriously frozen into a glacier.

The Buckskin Line by Elmer Kelton

In 1861, Rusty Shannon, whose family was killed by a Comanche war party 20 years earlier, rides out from the family homestead to join a company of Texas volunteers dedicated to protecting settlers against Indian raids.

Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros

During her family's annual car trip from Chicago to Mexico City, Lala Reyes listens to stories about her family, including her grandmother, the descendant of a renowned dynasty of shawl makers, whose magnificent striped (or caramelo) shawl has come into Lala's possession, in a multi-generational saga of a Mexican-American family.

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

Modern times come to a conservative Southern town in 1906 when the proprietor of the general store elopes with a woman half his age, and worse yet, a Yankee.

Crow Lake by Mary Lawson

In the rural farm country of northern Ontario, the lives of two families - the farming Pye family, and zoologist Kate Morrison and her three brothers - are brought together and torn apart by misunderstanding, resentment, family love and tragedy.

Dark Eye by William Bernhardt

A consultant for the Las Vegas police, psychologist Susan Pulaski is called in to assist in the investigation of a brutal murder case, the death of a young woman who had been buried alive.

Eventide by Kent Haruf

A novel of small-town life in the high plains region around Holt, Colo., follows the challenges, emotional upheaval, tragedies and intertwined destinies of the local inhabitants as they cope with the changes they encounter.

Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith

Ivy Rowe wants to be a writer, but poverty and motherhood in World War I and then the Depression limit her to colorful letters describing those in her Appalachian family and community.

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

Often compared to the great Victorian family sagas, this complex tale of a Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, family from the early 1900s is often extreme, violent, beautiful and moving. The processes of human love and betrayal, faith and suffering are described in a full-bodied and theatrical prose.

The Fallen Man by Tony Hillerman

Investigating the discovery of a skeleton at one of the holiest places in Navajo religion, Jim Chee and the newly retired Joe Leaphorn realize that the body is that of a missing person from one of Joe's long-unsolved past cases.

In the Bleak Midwinter by J. Spencer-Fleming

Clare Fergusson, the first female priest of an Episcopal church in Millers Kill, N.Y., finds herself immersed in murder when a newborn baby is abandoned and a young mother is brutally slain.

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

At the beginning of the 20th century, Tita, the youngest of three daughters, is expected to serve her mother for the rest of her life, but in order to show her love for Pedro, who is engaged to her sister, Tita cooks for him

Lucky You by Carl Hiassen

The latest winner of the Florida lottery, JoLayne Lucks faces an unexpected problem in collecting her winnings when Bodean Gazzer and his sidekick steal her ticket, planning to collect the millions to help their white supremacist group prevent a NATO invasion of the U.S.

The Midwife's Tale by Gretchen M. Laskas

Serving as midwives to the residents of a small mining town in pre-war Appalachia, Elizabeth and her mother share in the intimate details of the lives of every family in the region, but none of their neighbors know their own secrets and desires.

One For the Money by Janet Evanovich

Out of work and out of money, Stephanie Plum becomes a bounty hunter. Her first assignment is to track down a former vice cop on the run for murder.

Swan by Frances Mayes

When the body of her mother, a suicide 19 years earlier, is mysteriously exhumed, Ginger Mason returns to her small Georgia hometown and is reunited with her reclusive brother as dark secrets about their family begin to surface.

The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig

Hired as a housekeeper to work on the early 1900s Montana homestead of widower Oliver Milliron, the irreverent Rose, along with her brother, Morris, endeavor to educate the widower's sons while witnessing local efforts on a massive irrigation project.

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

Rowan Mayfair, a neurosurgeon with special powers and the descendant of a dynasty of witches, is drawn to Michael Curry, gifted with strange powers after a near-fatal accident, as they seek to unlock the secret of their talents.

At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon

A portrait of the mysteries and miracles of everyday life introduces the small North Carolina town of Mitford and its colorful inhabitants, including Tim, a bachelor rector, who is falling in love with his neighbor.

Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman

Hired to follow her friend's fiancee, unemployed journalist Tess Monaghan discovers that the woman is a kleptomaniac and may be having an affair, and when a murder takes place, her friend is implicated.

The Beach House by Mary Alice Monroe

Returning to her childhood home in the Lowcountry at the request of her mother, Caretta Rutledge, who had thought she had forever buried her Southern roots and her troubled family, unexpectedly begins to reconnect with her friends and family. As she fixes up the family beach house, she learns that in order to live life to the fullest, she must forgive and forget the past.

Bleeding Hearts by Susan Wittig Albert

While conducting a discreet investigation into allegations of improper behavior on the part of high school football coach Tim Duffy, China Bayles uncovers a mystery surrounding a young woman's death.

Christy by Catherine Marshall

Christy, 19, goes to a mission in Cutter Gap, Ky., in 1912, and begins teaching in the local school.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazer

After Inman escapes from a war hospital in 1864 and starts walking to Cold Mountain, while Ada struggles to save her mountain farm with the help of Ruby, an illiterate but efficient farmer.

Deafening by Frances Itani

Left profoundly deaf from scarlet fever, Grania O'Neill grows up protected from the hearing world and learning sign language, but her life changes when she falls in love with Jim Lloyd, a hearing man, on the eve of the Great War.

Every Fixed Star by Jane Kirkpatrick

Following the events of A Name of Her Own, Marie Dorion relocates her family and continues her efforts to keep her children fed and clothed, a challenge that tests her faith and is further complicated by the abrupt end of a relationship and her son's disappearance.

Gap Creek by Robert Morgan

The story of a young woman's struggles in early 20th century Appalachia.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jay Gatsby still adores Daisy Buchanan, even though she has married someone else, and he risks everything to lure her back.

The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans

After a terrible accident, Grace retreats into silence and her horse, Pilgrim, is driven mad by pain. Her mother gambles that The Whisperer, who can calm wild horses with softly whispered secrets, can heal both Pilgrim and Grace.

The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan

Kwan, a 17-year-old half-sister from China, turns young Olivia's world upside-down with her stories of ghosts of another time, tales that have a profound impact on Olivia's life and imagination, until she discovers a way to reconcile the ghosts of the past with her dreams of the future.

Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky

Hired by the head of Chicago's biggest bank to find his son's missing girlfriend, private investigator V.I. Warshawski soon finds herself up against the worst of the city's white-collar criminals in a fight to save the life of an innocent young woman.

Islands by Anne Rivers Siddons

Finding the family she has always longed for through her marriage, Anny vows with her new friends that they will live together in old age, a promise that is tested in the wake of painful challenges.

Lady Luck's Map of Vegas by Barbara Samuel

Forty-year-old India finds her life turned upside down by the arrival of her flamboyant mother, Eldora, who insists that the two of them hit the road to Las Vegas, searching for India's twin sister, Gypsy, a reclusive artist, along the way.

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

Returning to the Heart Lake School for Girls as a Latin teacher to start a new life with her daughter, Jane is haunted by past tragedy and terrifying memories when she begins receiving menacing messages.

Mexico by James A. Michener

Norman Clay, a New York journalist born in Mexico, returns to tell the story of two rival matadors in 1961, but he also includes vast amounts of Mexican history from the past 1,500 years.

Montana 1948 by Larry Watson

Story of the events of the summer of the author's 12th year, which altered his view of his family and the world forever.

Montana Sky by Nora Roberts

To inherit part of their father's estate, three sisters -the children of three separate marriages and each unknown to the others - must put aside their mutual bitterness and live together on their father's isolated, mysteriously violent Montana ranch.

O! Pioneers by Willa Cather

A Swedish farmer's daughter encourages the family members to help keep her father's dream alive after his death.

A Painted House by John Grisham

Racial tension, a forbidden love affair and murder are seen through the eyes of a seven-year-old boy in a 1950s Southern cotton-farming community.

The Paperboy by Pete Dexter

Ward James, a reporter, returns to his family's home in northern Florida to investigate the murder of the county's legendary sheriff, Thurmond Call. Ward enlists his younger brother Jack to help him uncover the truth of who is really responsible for the sheriff's death.

Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

In the 1930s one Mexican state has outlawed the Church, naming it a source of greed and debauchery. The priests have been rounded up and shot by firing squad - save one, the whisky priest. On the run, and in a blur of alcohol and fear, this outlaw meets a dentist, a banana farmer and a village woman he knew six years earlier. Always, an adamant lieutenant is only a few hours behind, determined to liberate his country from the evils of the church.

The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

Interweaves the events of Tom Wingo's summer in New York, his relationship to Susan Lowenstein, his sister's beautiful psychiatrist, and the complex history of the South Carolinian Wingo family, from World War II through Vietnam.

River of Hidden Dreams by Connie May Fowler

Modernity fuses with myth in a love saga in which Sadie Hunter, a free-spirited Floridian boat pilot, steers through the stubborn orneriness that is the legacy left by her Plains Indian grandmother and mulatto mother.

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

The story of three women living in Toronto explores the paradox of woman as villain.

The Rosewood Casket by Sharyn McCrumb

As Randall Stargill's four sons prepare to bury their late father, Randall's former sweetheart, Nora Bonesteel, brings a small box to be buried with him, a box containing a child's bones, in a mystery complicated by the efforts of a real-estate developer to obtain the Stargill homestead.

Runaway Mistress by Robyn Carr

When she stumbles upon the dead body of her wealthy boyfriend's wife while in Las Vegas, Jennifer Chaise, armed with a bag full of money, escapes to a nearby town, where she takes a job as a waitress and meets the man of her dreams, forcing her to make a difficult and deadly decision.

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx

Quoyle retreats to Newfoundland with his daughters after the death of his unfaithful wife. There, as his family begins anew, Quoyle deals with his personal fears.

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

After returning from internment and trying to get his land back, Kabuo Miyomoto is arrested and tried for the murder of Carl Heine.

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

Daisy Goodwill Flett, whose mother died during Daisy's birth in 1905, moves from Canada to Indiana with her stonecutter father and lives an ordinary life against the backdrop of 20th-century events.

Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina

In the Battle of Blair Mountain, W. Va, in the early 20th century, coal miners fight for unionization under the leadership of Rondal Lloyd and Carrie Bishop, a nurse who helps him before and after her husband's death.

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

Larry Cook, an Iowan farmer who has worked a thousand-acre plot owned by his family for generations, abruptly decides to leave his farm to his three daughters and retire. His two eldest daughters are pleased with the decision, but his youngest daughter has been cut out by her father and is angry. As the daughters' activity on the land progresses, they notice a change in their father. Events begin to unfold that will threaten and destroy the family and their farm.

Turtle Moon by Alice Hoffman

After Lucy Rosen and her son Keith move to Verity, Fla., Keith runs away with the baby of a murdered woman, and Lucy and Officer Julian Cash pursue him.

The Alienist by Caleb Carr

In 1896, the New York reform police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt asks an upper class police reporter and a psychologist to investigate the serial killer of boy prostitutes, but crime bosses oppose their questions.

Aztec by Gary Jennings

Mixtli lives on the outskirts of Tenochtitlan where he becomes an involuntary chronicler of his people's past for the invading Spaniards.

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston

Joe Smallwood, an impoverished boy intent on making a name for himself, and Sheilagh Fielding, a journalist who pens his rise to power, confront their own frailties, secrets and mutual love, in a novel of 20th-century Newfoundland.

Contract with God Trilogy by Will Eisner

Frimme Hersh breaks his contract with God and ends up as a Depression-era slumlord, while Jacob Shtarkah strives to help an old friend trapped in Nazi Germany and struggles with poverty and the corruption of the residents of Dropsie Avenue.

The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes

As he lies dying, the rich landowner and newspaper publisher of Mexico, Artemio Cruz, recalls his life and his participation in the Mexican Revolution.

Divine Ryans by Wayne Johnston

Born into a screwy Irish-Canadian family, nine-year-old Draper Doyle Ryan faces visitations by his deceased father, hockey expectations and his own dawning sexuality with humor and charm.

Esperanza's Box of Saints by María Amparo Escandón

With her favorite saint to guide her, Esperanza Diaz, a beautiful young widow, leaves her humble Mexican village on a search for her missing 12-year-old daughter and learns the nature of sin and forgiveness.

Familiar Heat by May Hood

A community of Cuban exiles off the coast of Florida finds newlywed Faye Parry en route to the bank, where she inadvertently interrupts a robbery and is abducted, sending her into a world that completely changes her.

Fifth Business by Robertson Davies

A retiring Canadian history professor reveals the true nature of his eerie, mystical influence on those around him.

Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels

After witnessing the murder of his parents and being rescued by Athos, a Greek geologist who smuggles him out of Poland, Jakob Beer looks back on his life as a fugitive.

A Good House by Bonnie Burnard

A chronicle of the fortunes of the Chambers family of Stonebrook, Ont., begins in 1949 and follows Bill, his wife Sylvia, and their three children through life's tragedies and triumphs over the next 50 years.

In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje

In 1923, Patrick Lewis arrives in Toronto and becomes one of the many individuals searching for Ambrose Small, a millionaire who has disappeared.

The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy

Now adults, members of a tight-knit Canadian Chinese family recall their childhood days in Vancouver, B.C., during the 1930s and 1940s. A candid, yet affectionate portrait is drawn of family life and the collective Chinese community. Themes of tenderness and brutality, racism and loyalty, humor and heartbreak are woven into their experiences of that time and place.

Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson

In a novel set in Canada, on the Haisla reservation of Kitamaat, a young Native American woman's visions facilitate a journey of self-discovery that will take her into the heart of her troubled society.

Moonbird Boy by Abigail Padgett

Child abuse investigator Bo Bradley takes up the search for the family of a Native American boy, a quest that leads her to a multi-national company, where she uncovers a conspiracy of greed and murder.

The Night of the Radishes by Sandra Benítez

Haunted by a series of family tragedies, Annie Rush embarks on a search for her long-lost brother, traveling from Minnesota to Mexico on a quest that tests her marriage and forces her to reevaluate her life.

No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod

After being orphaned, Alexander MacDonald comes to Cape Breton Island yearning for family connections, and finds himself working in the mines with his wild older brother and caring for another brother, who is dying.

Rain Line by Anne W. Pierce

After a tragic car accident that kills her boyfriend but spares her, Leo Baye comes to terms with her guilt over her own survival while trying to resume her normal life.

The Strange Files of Fremont Jones by Dianne Day

In 1905, Caroline Fremont Jones leaves Boston for San Francisco to avoid an arranged marriage, and when she creates a secretarial business, she falls in love with her first client, a lawyer.

A Stranger in the Kingdom by Howard Frank Mosher

Jim Kinnison, 13, discovers the intolerance of small towns in 1952 when the new Presbyterian minister turns out to be African-American.

Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks

Four narrators - bus driver Dolores, upright Bill, shrewd Mitchell and teenaged Nichole - address agonizing questions as they describe an accident that killed 14 children and the effects of the tragedy on themselves and their town.

The Tortilla Curtain by T. Coraghessan Boyle

The lives of two different couples - wealthy Los Angeles liberals Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher, and Candido and America Rincon, a pair of Mexican illegals - suddenly collide in a story that unfolds from the shifting viewpoints of the various characters.

Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven

Three American adventurers decide to invest their resources in a dangerous search for a lost gold mine in the mountains of Mexico.

The Tree People by Naomi Stokes

Referring to her people's ancient lore and rituals in order to track down a vicious killer, Jordan Tidewater, the first female sheriff of the Salish Reservation, finds a clue in an ancient, cut-down cedar tree.

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, struggles to surmount the forces that threaten to destroy him as he copes with alcoholism, a failing marriage and family secrets during one fateful celebration of the Day of the Dead, in a novel set in 1930s Mexico.

The Underpainter by Jane Urquhart

As he begins a series of paintings in Rochester, N.Y., 75-year-old painter Austin Fraser looks back on the people of his life, including the waitress who became his model and mistress.

The Wives of Bath by Susan Elizabeth Swan

A dark, gothic story of the first year of boarding school for Mary "Mouse" Bradford, a 14-year-old hunchback, in 1963 reveals a web of sexuality, rebellion, experimentation and murder.