Cranston Public Library

A collection of writings by Robertson Davies, including speeches, reminiscences, book reviews, parodies, and essays.

"A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history Kentucky, 1850. Jarrett, an enslaved groom, and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. As the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young...

In 1869 Japan, a young woman escapes the confines of her arranged marriage by painting memories of her lover on mulberry paper. She secretly wraps the painting around a ceramic pot that's bound for Europe. In France, a disenchanted young man works as a clerk at an import shop. When he opens the box from Japan, he discovers the brilliant watercolor of two lovers locked in an embrace under a plum tree. He steals the painting and hides it in his room....

Rosamunde Pilcher's The Shell Seekers is "a huge warm saga...A deeply satisfying story written with love and confidence" (Maeve Binchy in The New York Times Book Review).

The Shell Seekers was adapted twice to film (1989 and 2006).

An instant bestseller when it was first published, The Shell Seekers is an enduring classic which has touched the hearts of millions of readers worldwide. A novel

...

"While in the English countryside to archive what remains of an estate's once notable collection, Penelope, when her partner's abusive brother returns, finds herself unable to suppress the past, and clings to art as a means of understanding, of survival and of reckoning."--

"To celebrate the rise of their new queen, three goddesses of the moon created three stars, one of fire, one of ice, one of water. But then they fell from the sky, putting the fate of all worlds in danger. And now three women and three men join forces to pick up the pieces... Sasha Riggs is a reclusive artist, haunted by dreams and nightmares that she turns into extraordinary paintings. Her visions lead her to the Greek island of Corfu, where five...

"In Edwardian Suffolk, a manor house stands alone in a lost corner of the Fens: a glinting wilderness of water whose whispering reeds guard ancient secrets. Maud is a lonely child growing up without a mother, ruled by her repressive father. When he finds a painted medieval devil in a graveyard, unhallowed forces are awakened. Maud's battle has begun. She must survive a world haunted by witchcraft, the age-old legends of her beloved fen, and the even...

Hidden identities, rising political and religious tension, sensual awakening, and artistic vision come together in Vanora Bennett's luminous and absorbing historical novel of Tudor England reminiscent of the works of Phillipa Gregory, Sarah Dunant, and Tracy Chevalier. 1527. A dark curtain has fallen across Europe. Martin Luther's break with the Vatican has led to civil war and artistic censorship, forcing the renowned portraitist Hans Holbein the...

"Life is short - no one knows that better than seventeen year-old Lenni Petterssen. On the Terminal Ward, the nurses are offering their condolences already, but Lenni still has plenty of living to do. When she meets 83-year-old Margot Macrae, a fellow patient offering new friendship and enviable artistic skills, Lenni's life begins to soar in ways she'd never imagined. As their bond deepens, a world of stories opens up: of wartime love and loss, of...

"In 2009, eighty-five-year-old art professor Ludka Zeilonka gets drawn into a political firestorm when her grandson Tommy is among a group of gay Massachusetts teachers fired for allegedly silencing Christian kids in high school classrooms. The ensuing battle to reinstate the teachers raises the specter of Ludka's World War II past--a past she's spent a lifetime trying to forget ... As Ludka's influential family defends Tommy under increasingly vicious...