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October 10, 2006 Shawn Nilsen wrestled her duffel bag from the backseat of the cab and dropped it on the ground while she hurried to zip her canvas work jacket against the cold.
Description: Fans of the television show "Deadliest Catch" will recognize the setting of this novel. Drake Richards is a commercial fisherman who doesn't trust women. Shawn Nilsen is a strong-willed woman who has just been jilted by her fiance. Shawn flees to Alaska and is hired by Drake's father to work on a crab fishing boat. There's plenty of tension as Drake and Shawn come to terms with their preconceived notions of one another.
Category: General Fiction, Romance  -  General  -  NON-PUBLIC DOMAIN

"It's time to go to the station, Tom."
Description: First published in two parts between 1869 and 1870, An Old Fashioned Girl follows Polly, a simple country girl, during two visits to the big city of Boston. Polly's stay with the rich and sophisticated Shaw family shows her that first impressions--namely flashy clothes and loud personalities--are what people in the city are judged by. Polly in turn teaches her city friends that simplicity and honesty are the things that really matter.
Category: General Fiction, Romance  -  General  -  NON-PUBLIC DOMAIN

The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it.
Description: Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse, first published in 1877 is Anna Sewell's only novel. The story is told in the first person (or "first horse") as an autobiographical memoir told by a highbred horse named Black Beauty--beginning with his carefree days as a foal on an English farm, to his difficult life pulling cabs in London, to his happy retirement in the country. Influential as animal-rights propaganda, this tale is also an exciting and moving children's story.
Category: General Fiction  -  General  -  PUBLIC DOMAIN

CLAD in his customary black and silver, with raven hair unpowdered and elaborately dressed, diamonds on his fingers and in his cravat, Hugh Tracy Clare Belmanoir, Duke of Andover, sat at the escritoire in the library of his town house, writing.
Description: The Black Moth, first published in 1921, is Georgette Heyer’s first novel and is also the first novel in a four-part series including These Old Shades, Devil’s Cub, and An Infamous Army. The Black Moth is set around 1751 during the Georgian era and comes disguised as an amusing but uncomplicated romance. The story appears so straightforward that you may be inclined to read it with half a mind, but that would be a mistake.
Category: none  -  General  -  PUBLIC DOMAIN

The sovereignty and goodness of GOD, together with the faithfulness of his promises displayed, being a narrative of the captivity and restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, commended by her, to all that desires to know the Lord's doings to, and dealings with her.
Description: Published in 1682 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson was one of the first books published in the New World. It became a best seller in the New World and in England and went through fifteen editions by 1800. It is a narrative of her capture and imprisonment by Native Americans during King Philip's War.
Category: Non-Fiction  -  General  -  NON-PUBLIC DOMAIN

A Journey. "Peace to the spirits of my honoured parents, respected be their remains, and immortalized their virtues!"
Description: Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress, was Fanny Burney's second novel and was first published in 1782. It is the story of Cecilia Beverly, a young and beautiful heiress whose army of suitors is made up of gentlemen, scoundrels, and many who are not what they seem. Admired by Jane Austen and many other contemporaries, it is said that the title for Pride and Prejudice is taken from the last pages of Cecilia.
Category: General Fiction, Romance  -  General  -  NON-PUBLIC DOMAIN

"ARE you for a walk," said Montraville to his companion, as they arose from table; "are you for a walk? or shall we order the chaise and proceed to Portsmouth?"
Description: First published in 1791, Charlotte Temple’s story starts out in England, where the fifteen-year-old Charlotte is attending boarding school. Charlotte’s innocence make her an easy target for her more worldly suitor, Montraville. At their supposed “last meeting” Montraville convinces Charlotte go with him to America. It is only when she arrives in America that Charlotte sees the full impact of the predicament she is in.
Category: Romance  -  General  -  NON-PUBLIC DOMAIN

Thursday, May 28th, 1914. My blessed little mother, Here I am safe, and before I unpack or do a thing I'm writing you a little line of love.
Description: Christine, originally written under the pen name Alice Cholmondeley, tells the story of a seventeen-year-old virtuoso violinist who travels to Germany in May, 1914 to study with the renowned violin teacher “Kloster”. Christine arrives in Germany just a few weeks before the beginning of the hostilities that would become World War I. Against the backdrop of impending war, Christine studies and prepares for her future. She falls in love. She experiences a precious moment in time when all is perfect. And, as the preface warns, both her dreams and her person succumb at the onset of the war.
Category: General Fiction  -  General  -  NON-PUBLIC DOMAIN

Their names were really Anna-Rose and Anna-Felicitas; but they decided, as they sat huddled together in a corner of the second-class deck of the American liner St. Luke, and watched the dirty water of the Mersey slipping past and the Liverpool landing-stage disappearing into mist, and felt that it was comfortless and cold, and knew they hadn't got a father or a mother, and remembered that they were aliens, and realized that in front of them lay a great deal of gray, uneasy, dreadfully wet sea, endless stretches of it, days and days of it, with waves on top of it to make them sick and submarines beneath it to kill them if they could, and knew that they hadn't the remotest idea, not the very remotest, what was before them when and if they did get across to the other side, and knew that they were refugees, castaways, derelicts, two wretched little Germans who were neither really Germans nor really English because they so unfortunately, so complicatedly were both,—they decided, looking very calm and determined and sitting very close together beneath the rug their English aunt had given them to put round their miserable alien legs, that what they really were, were Christopher and Columbus, because they were setting out to discover a New World.
Description: First published in 1919, Christopher and Columbus relates the journey of orphaned twins, Anna Rose and Anna Felicitas von Twinkle, on a journey of discovery across the ocean from England to America during WWI. Born of a German father and English mother and not belonging culturally to either nation, the twins travel to America in hopes of starting anew and finding relatives to take them in.
Category: General Fiction  -  General  -  PUBLIC DOMAIN

The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day—a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste.
Description: First published in 1912, this young adult novel is comprised mostly of letters from orphan Jerusha “Judy” Abbott to her anonymous benefactor whom she names “Daddy Long Legs”. The letters chronicle her departure from the orphanage through four years of college. Judy makes new friends, slowly gains knowledge and independence, but also struggles with her humble past and unfixed future. Includes 33 illustrations by the author.
Category: none  -  General  -  PUBLIC DOMAIN

Men can do nothing without the make-believe of a beginning.
Description: First published in 1876, Daniel Deronda was the last novel George Eliot published and the only one set in the contemporary time period in which it was written. It tells the story of several interconnected characters including Daniel Deronda, the ward of a wealthy gentleman, and Gwendolen Harleth, the beautiful and spoiled daughter of a widow.
Category: General Fiction  -  General  -  NON-PUBLIC DOMAIN

Rose sat all alone in the big best parlor, with her little handkerchief laid ready to catch the first tear, for she was thinking of her troubles, and a shower was expected.
Description: Eight Cousins, or The Aunt-Hill was first published in 1875. It is the story of Rose Campbell, a lonely and sickly girl who has been recently orphaned and must now reside with her maiden aunts. A series of vignettes illustrates the affection the cousins and their parents, aunts, and uncles have for each other. The tales demonstrate that family members can disagree with, and even disappoint, each other yet still hold each other in the highest regard.
Category: General Fiction  -  General  -  NON-PUBLIC DOMAIN

May 7th. I love my garden.
Description: Elizabeth and Her German Garden was first published in 1898; it was very popular and frequently reprinted during the early years of the 20th century. The story is a year's diary written by the protagonist Elizabeth about her experiences learning gardening and interacting with her friends. This book is followed by The Solitary Summer.
Category: General Fiction  -  General  -  NON-PUBLIC DOMAIN

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.
Description: First published in 1816, Emma is a comic novel about the "handsome, clever, and rich" title character and the follies surrounding her attempts at matchmaking. In her misguided schemes involving almost everyone's romantic interests but her own, Emma manages to wreak disaster and charm at the same time.
Category: General Fiction, Romance  -  General  -  NON-PUBLIC DOMAIN

The village lay under two feet of snow, with drifts at the windy corners.
Description: Ethan Frome is a 1912 novel set in New England. It is a story of a doomed love triangle between Ethan Frome, his wife and their housekeeper. Given the social conventions of the time, Ethan Frome feels he must stay, trapped in a loveless marriage, rather than pursue his true feelings. The tension builds slowly to a dramatic and classically ironic ending in one of Wharton's best stories.
Category: General Fiction  -  General  -  NON-PUBLIC DOMAIN

CAN any thing, my good Sir, be more painful to a friendly mind, than a necessity of communicating disagreeable intelligence?
Description: Evelina: Or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World was published in 1778. Evelina has been raised raised in rural seclusion until her eighteenth year. She then travels to London learns how to navigate the complex layers of 18th century society and earn the love of a distinguished nobleman. This sentimental novel of manners often satirizes the society in which it is set and is a significant precursor to later works by Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth.
Category: Romance  -  General  -  PUBLIC DOMAIN