Central Skagit Library District

In 1808 Ghent, eighteen-year-old Constance runs away from an arranged marriage to a much older man and by stealing his clothes, sneaking out of the house disguised as a man, and joining Napoleon's army. For a young woman coming of age in the early 1800s, about all that's available to her is marriage. When Constance's parents arrange her a marriage with a man more than twice her age, she's powerless to resist. Four months into the marriage, she slips...

Born on a plantation but set apart from the others by her mother's position as a medicine woman, a young slave is forced to leave home at eighteen and unexpectedly finds herself in an infamously cruel jail. Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Brown was promised her freedom on her eighteenth birthday. Instead she finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil's Half-Acre, a jail where slaves are broken, tortured,...

"On a summer evening in 1931, Lilly Blackwood glimpses circus lights from the grimy window of her attic bedroom. Lilly isn't allowed to explore the meadows around Blackwood Manor. She's never even ventured beyond her narrow room. Momma insists it's for Lilly's own protection, that people would be afraid if they saw her. But on this unforgettable night, Lilly is taken outside for the first time--and sold to the circus sideshow. More than two decades...

With a strong family, the best friend a guy could ask for, and a budding romance with the girl of his dreams, life shows promise for Teodoro "T" Avila. But he takes some hard hits the summer before senior year when his nearly perfect brother, Manny, returns from a tour in Iraq with a devastating case of PTSD. In a desperate effort to save Manny from himself and pull their family back together, T's fiery sister, Xochitl, hoodwinks her brothers into...

"A boy with an uncanny ability to find lost objects must embark on his most important search yet in order to save his mother's enchanted dessert shop, the only place he's ever called home. There's only one place in the world that lonely twelve-year-old Walter Lavender Jr. feels at home: The Lavenders, his mother's unusual West Village dessert shop ... When the mysterious and magical Book at the heart of the shop vanishes and a landlord threatens closure,...

"Following the downfall of a tyrant, years have passed in prosperity for the kingdom of Ceredigion. Now, as the time comes to celebrate the new king's nuptials, the specter of a new enemy emerges to destroy all that has been painstakingly built in those years. Tryneowy Kiskaddon has grown up learning military and diplomatic strategy from her father, one of the king's closest advisors. She feels her destiny lies in defending the kingdom as a knight,...

"The stunning conclusion to Robin Hobb's Fitz and the Fool trilogy, which began with Fool's Assassin and Fool's Quest "Every new Robin Hobb novel is a cause for celebration. Along with millions of her other fans, I delight in every visit to the Six Duchies, the Rain Wilds, and the Out Islands, and can't wait to see where she'll take me next."--George R.R. Martin More than twenty years ago, the first epic fantasy novel featuring FitzChivalry Farseer...

Nick would rather write fanfiction about the feats of heroism and romantic entaglements he imagines for the very real superheroes who inhabit his city. When he meets Nova City's biggest hero (and his biggest crush), however, he resolves to become a superhero himself. If being the most popular fanfiction writer in the Extraordinaries fandom was a superpower, Nick Bell would be a hero. Instead he's just a fanboy with ADHD, posting online. After a chance...

"From the acclaimed actor and Stonewall Honor-winning author of The Best at It, Maulik Pancholy, comes a new middle grade novel about a gay Indian American boy who learns the power of using his voice. Thirteen-year-old Nikhil Shah is the beloved voice actor for Raj Reddy on the hit animated series Raj Reddy in Outer Space. But being a star on TV doesn't mean you have everything figured out behind the scenes. . . . When his mom temporarily moves them...

"A lush, thrilling debut--a publishing event already the subject of an article in The New York Times--about a year in the life of a uniquely beguiling young woman, set in the wild, alluring world of a famous downtown New York restaurant. "Let's say I was born when I came over the George Washington Bridge ..." This is how we meet unforgettable Tess, the 22-year-old at the heart of this stunning debut. Shot like a bullet from a mundane past, she's come...