Archive | Large Print Books

Atul Gawande

In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending.

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession’s ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person’s last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.

Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortalasserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end.

Jacklyn Brady

Halloween is approaching, and the co-owners of Zydeco Cakes, Rita Lucero and her former mother-in-law, Miss Frankie, have scored a sweet treat—a fantastic catering opportunity that could lead to a rich future for their bakery. But their good news is quickly rattled by a bump in the night when Miss Frankie’s neighbor, Bernice, barrels into her kitchen toting a Bible and a gun, and serves up a story about a ghost at her window.

Bernice swears she just saw the ghost of her moonshiner uncle who disappeared in the swamp fifteen years ago. And when her cousin soon goes missing in the same swamp, Bernice is certain someone’s playing a nasty trick, and convinces Rita and Miss Frankie to help her investigate. They’ll just need to watch their steps, as these ladies are liable to get mired in a very swampy mystery…
Monk gets on Board. Hy Conrad. Of all the things that make Adrian Monk uneasy, change ranks high on the list. So when Natalie completes her P.I. license—and technically becomes Monk’s boss—it’s not easy for him to accept. Nor can he accept Natalie attending a business seminar at sea without him, even if it means spending a week with her on a cruise ship.

Between choppy waters and obnoxious kids, Monk finds himself in a perfect storm of anxiety. Luckily, Mariah, the cruise director, is always able to smooth things over…until someone pulls the man overboard alarm, the ship drops anchor—and the crew fishes Mariah’s dead body out of the water.

Finding alcohol in Mariah’s system, the ship’s doctor declares her death an accident, but Monk isn’t convinced. He knows that Mariah and the captain were having an affair. Could someone have pushed her overboard?

When the captain hires Monk and Natalie to look into a mysterious rash of vandalism onboard, Monk steers the investigation toward murder…

Steven Axelrod

Henry Kennis, Nantucket island s poetry-writing police chief who will remind readers of Robert B. Parker s Jesse Stone and Spenser, works a second challenging case in Nantucket Five-spot. At the height of the summer tourist season, a threat to bomb the annual Boston Pops Concert could destroy the island s economy, along with its cachet as a safe, if mostly summer-time, haven for America s ruling class. The threat of terrorism brings The Department of Homeland Security to the island, along with prospects for a rekindled love affair Henry s lost love works for the DHS now.

The terrorism aspects of the attack prove to be a red herring. The truth lies much closer to home. At first suspicion falls on local carpenter Billy Delavane, but Henry investigates the case and proves that Billy is being framed. Then it turns out that Henry s new suspect is also being framed for the bizarre and almost undetectable crime of framing someone else. Every piece of evidence works three ways in the investigation of a crime rooted in betrayed friendship, in delity, and the quiet poisonous feuds of small town life. Henry traces the origin of the attacks back almost twenty years and uncovers an obsessive revenge conspiracy that he must unravel now alone, discredited and on the run before further disaster strikes.

Cheryl St. John

Annie Sweetwater Wasn’t Like Other Girls. All her life everyone she’d ever known had told her so. Except Luke Carpenter, who never let her limp blind him to seeing her as she really was: a woman grown, full of dreams, desires and hopes for a future—with him! Luke couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t loved her. To her family, she was a Dresden doll in a wheelchair.

To Luke, she was his Sweet Annie, a woman of surprising gifts, with a heart as open as the wide Western sky. And he’d risk anything to make her his bride!

Thomas Perry

After two decades protecting innocent victims on the run, and a year after getting shot on a job that took a dangerous turn for the worse, Jane McKinnon, née Whitefield, has settled into the quiet life of a suburban housewife in Amherst, New York—or so she thinks.

One morning as she comes back from a long run, Jane is met by an unusual sight: all eight clan mothers, the female leaders of the Seneca clans, parked in her driveway in two black cars. A childhood friend of Jane’s from the reservation, Jimmy, is wanted by the police for the murder of a local white man. But instead of turning himself in, he’s fled, and no one knows where he is hiding out. At the clan mothers’ request, Jane retraces a walking trip she and Jimmy took together when they were fourteen in hopes that he has gone the same way again. But it soon becomes clear that the police aren’t the only ones after him. As the chase intensifies, the number of people caught up in this twisted plot multiplies, and Jane is the only one who can protect those endangered by it. A String of Beads is an addictive, fast-paced thriller about how abandoning the past can sometimes be the hardest thing to do, even when your life—and the life of those you love—depends on it.

Mary McNear

Preparing for her final year of college, Daisy is crazy busy now that she’s back at Butternut Lake. She’s helping her mother, Caroline, run their coffee shop and trying to build a relationship with the absentee father who’s suddenly reappeared. She never expected to fall in love with Will, the bad-boy from high school who works at the local garage. With every passing day she and Will grow closer to each other . . . and closer to the day they will have to say goodbye. As summer’s end looms, Will and Daisy face heartbreaking choices that might tear them apart.

Caroline already has her hands full trying to make ends meet at the coffee shop without having her no-good ex suddenly show up. Now that Jack is back, he’s determined to reconnect with the family he walked out on twenty years ago. But with the bank pounding on her door and Jack’s presence reminding her of the passion they once shared, Caroline’s resolve begins to crumble. As Daisy’s departure looms and her financial worries grow, Caroline just may discover the support she needs . . . in the last place she ever imagined.

Charles Martin

Charlie Finn had to grow up fast, living alone by age sixteen. Highly intelligent, he earned a life-changing scholarship to Harvard, where he learned how to survive and thrive on the outskirts of privileged society. That skill served him well in the cutthroat business world, as it does in more lucrative but dangerous ventures he now operates off the coast of Miami. Charlie tries to separate relationships from work. But when his choices produce devastating consequences, he sets out to right wrongs, traveling to Central America where he will meet those who have paid for his actions, including a woman and her young daughter. Will their fated encounter present Charlie with a way to seek the redemption he thought was impossible–and free his heart to love one woman as he never knew he could?

Jeff Lindsay

After seven national bestsellers and eight seasons as one of the most successful shows on television, New York Times bestselling author Jeff Lindsay bids a thrilling farewell to his uniquely twisted and beloved serial killer, Dexter Morgan. Dexter Is Dead is the definitive conclusion of the character who has become a global icon.

Dexter Morgan has burned the candle at both ends for many years. Blood spatter analyst . . . husband . . . father . . . serial killer. And now, for the first time, his world has truly collapsed. Dexter is arrested on charges of murder. He has lost everything—including his wife, his kids, and the loyalty of his sister. Now completely alone, Dexter faces a murder charge (for a crime . . . ironically . . . he did not actually commit). His only chance for freedom lies with his brother, Brian, who has a dark plan to prove Dexter’s innocence. But the stakes are deadly, and the epic showdown that lies in Dexter’s path may lead, once and for all, to his demise. Jeff Lindsay’s trademark devilish wit and cutting satire have never been sharper. Dexter Is Dead marks the end of a beloved series, but is also Dexter’s most satisfying and suspenseful outing yet.

Mary Wood

Three women’s struggle against hardship and heartache during the Second World War.
Alice, an upper-class Londoner, is recruited into the Special Operations Executive and sent to Paris where she meets Gertrude, an ex-prostitute working for the Resistance Movement. Together they discover that they have a connection to the same man, Ralph D’Olivier, and vow to unravel the mystery of his death.

After narrowly escaping capture by the Germans, Alice is lifted out of France and taken to a hospital for wounded officers where she meets Lil, a working-class northern girl, working as a nurse. Though worlds apart, Alice and Lil form a friendship, and Alice discovers Lil is also linked to Ralph D’Olivier.

Soon, the war irrevocably changes each of these women and they are thrust into a world of heartache and strife beyond anything they have had to endure before. Can they clear Ralph’s name and find a lasting love and happiness for themselves?

Tracy Johnson

‘I dragged my heels all the way to the mill. ‘I can’t do it!’ I sulked. Mother sighed and shook her head. My heart sank. Of course, I’d seen the mill hundreds of times before, but now it was different – now, I was going in. I’d never seen a place so depressing; I wanted to cry.’
With tales from hardworking Audrey and mischievous Maureen to high-spirited Doris and dedicated Marjorie, The Mill Girls is an evocative story of hardship and friendship from when cotton was still king.
Through the eyes of these northern mill girls, we are offered a fascinating glimpse into the lives of ordinary women who rallied together, nattered over the beamers and, despite the difficult conditions, weaved, packed and laughed to keep the cotton mills spinning.