Kirjahaku

“A family secret, a DNA test, a journey as rich and colorful as the early-day circus itself. Through Cecily Larson’s hidden life, Ellen Baker tenderly examines personal determination, lost love, family ties, and our innate need to discover our own truth.” — Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours and Before and AfterOrphan Train meets Before We Were Yours meets Water for Elephants in this compelling multigenerational novel of survival, love, and the families we make.In 1924, four-year-old Cecily Larson’s mother reluctantly drops her off at an orphanage in Chicago, promising to be back once she’s made enough money to support both Cecily and herself. But she never returns, and shortly after high-spirited Cecily turns seven, she is sold to a traveling circus to perform as the “little sister” to glamorous bareback rider Isabelle DuMonde. With Isabelle and the rest of the circus, Cecily finally feels she’s found the family she craves. But as the years go by, the cracks in her little world begin to show. And when teenage Cecily meets and falls in love with a young roustabout named Lucky, she finds her life thrown onto an entirely unexpected—and dangerous—course.In 2015, Cecily is now 94 and living a quiet life in Minnesota, with her daughter, granddaughter, and great-grandson. But when her family decides to surprise her with an at-home DNA test, the unexpected results not only bring to light the tragic love story that Cecily has kept hidden for decades but also throw into question everything about the family she’s raised and claimed as her own for nearly seventy years. Cecily and everyone in her life must now decide who they really are and what family—and forgiveness—really mean.Sweeping through a long period of contemporary history, The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson is an immersive, compelling, and entertaining family drama centered around one remarkable woman and her determination to survive.

A special paperback edition with colored sprayed edges of this compelling multigenerational novel of survival, love, and the families we make.“A family secret, a DNA test, a journey as rich and colorful as the early-day circus itself. Through Cecily Larson’s hidden life, Ellen Baker tenderly examines personal determination, lost love, family ties, and our innate need to discover our own truth.” — Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling authorIn 1924, four-year-old Cecily Larson’s mother reluctantly drops her off at an orphanage in Chicago, promising to be back once she’s made enough money to support both Cecily and herself. But she never returns, and shortly after high-spirited Cecily turns seven, she is sold to a traveling circus to perform as the “little sister” to glamorous bareback rider Isabelle DuMonde. With Isabelle and the rest of the circus, Cecily finally feels she’s found the family she craves. But as the years go by, the cracks in her little world begin to show. And when teenage Cecily meets and falls in love with a young roustabout named Lucky, she finds her life thrown onto an entirely unexpected—and dangerous—course.In 2015, Cecily is now 94 and living a quiet life in Minnesota, with her daughter, granddaughter, and great-grandson. But when her family decides to surprise her with an at-home DNA test, the unexpected results not only bring to light the tragic love story that Cecily has kept hidden for decades but also throw into question everything about the family she’s raised and claimed as her own for nearly seventy years. Cecily and everyone in her life must now decide who they really are and what family—and forgiveness—really mean.Sweeping through a long period of contemporary history, The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson is an immersive, compelling, and entertaining family drama centered around one remarkable woman and her determination to survive.

Apples Never Fall meets Maine in this captivating novel of family secrets, summer celebrations, and putting things back together again after they’ve all fallen apart— from the acclaimed author of The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson. Lindy has the summer of a lifetime planned at her family’s beloved cottage in Summerland Cove, Maine, where she’s spent summers all her life and where she and her husband David met as teenagers. She’s slated big events three weekends in a row: David’s fiftieth birthday party, her parents’ fiftieth anniversary party, and her oldest daughter Hailey’s wedding. But when David doesn’t show up for his own party, everything about the life they’ve created together is thrown into question, as the shattered family sets out looking for him. Has he been in an accident? God forbid, been the victim of a crime? Or is it something more cliché—a midlife crisis, an affair? Surely, he’ll show up for his beloved daughter’s wedding—won’t he? The agonizing days tick by and still no David. Lindy’s four nearly grown children are panicked. Lindy struggles to remain calm, even as long-buried details of the family’s past begin to surface, offering distressing clues. Meanwhile, her mother seems to be harboring secrets of her own, her father has grown alarmingly absent-minded, and Hailey wrestles with whether she should get married at all—even if her father does turn up. A richly drawn novel of mothers, marriages, and one endearingly messy family, Summerland Cove beautifully evokes the crisp air and rocky beaches of coastal Maine, while poignantly revealing how complicated histories can shape the present in unexpected ways.

Set in the conformist 1950s and reaching back to span two world wars, Ellen Baker's superb novel is the story of a newlywed who falls in love with a grand abandoned house and begins to unravel dark secrets woven through the generations of a family. Like Whitney Otto's How to Make an American Quilt in its intimate portrayal of women's lives, and reminiscent of novels by Elizabeth Berg and Anne Tyler, Keeping the House is a rich tapestry of a novel that introduces a wonderful new fiction writer. When Dolly Magnuson moves to Pine Rapids, Wisconsin, in 1950, she discovers all too soon that making marriage work is harder than it looks in the pages of the Ladies' Home Journal. Dolly tries to adapt to her new life by keeping the house, supporting her husband's career, and fretting about dinner menus. She even gives up her dream of flying an airplane, trying instead to fit in at the stuffy Ladies Aid quilting circle. Soon, though, her loneliness and restless imagination are seized by the vacant house on the hill. As Dolly's life and marriage become increasingly difficult, she begins to lose herself in piecing together the story of three generations of Mickelson men and women: Wilma Mickelson, who came to Pine Rapids as a new bride in 1896 and fell in love with a man who was not her husband; her oldest son, Jack, who fought as a Marine in the trenches of World War I; and Jack's son, JJ, a troubled veteran of World War II, who returns home to discover Dolly in his grandparents' house. As the crisis in Dolly's marriage escalates, she not only escapes into JJ's stories of his family's past but finds in them parallels to her own life. As Keeping the House moves back and forth in time, it eloquently explores themes of wartime heroism and passionate love, of the struggles of men's struggles with fatherhood and war and of women's conflicts with issues of conformity, identity, forbidden dreams, and love. Beautifully written and atmospheric, Keeping the House illuminates the courage it takes to shape and reshape a life, and the difficulty of ever knowing the truth about another person's desires. Keeping the House is an unforgettable novel about small-town life and big matters of the heart. Advance praise for Keeping the House"Ellen Baker's first novel is a wonder Keeping the House is a great big juicy family saga, a romantic page-turner with genuine characters written with a perfect sense of history, time, and place. Her portrayal of the American housewife is hilarious and heartbreaking. I couldn't have liked it more "-Fannie Flagg, author of Can't Wait to Get to Heaven "Ellen Baker's first novel, Keeping the House, is a quilt that grids a small Midwestern town in the middle of the last century. Under this writer's deft hands, each square is a story, a mystery, an indiscretion, a tale of the great house and grand family who once ruled there. Even more, it captures the roles of women then: both the living embodiments of demure ideals, and those who couldn't fit the pattern. Edith Wharton's novels of domestic despair and display come to mind with each page."-Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean "A born storyteller, Ellen Baker has written an enthralling family saga filled with three generations of memorable characters and capturing the dreams and frustrations of twentieth-century women in wonderful, spot-on historical detail."-Faith Sullivan, author of Gardenias and The Cape Ann "Ellen Baker has written the novel I've been waiting to read for a very long time. It's the book you want to curl up with, the book you rush home to, the book you wish you'd written. In Keeping the House, she serves up the complexities of family relationships, the anguish of victims of wars, the innermost thoughts of women, and the social mores of the past. Seasoned with mysteries that kept me devouring pages, this is one huge gourmet feast of a book for readers to savor. I look forward to every delicious book this author writes."-Bev Marshall, author of Walking Through Shadows and Right as Rain

Ett övergivet barn, en cirkus, en förbjuden kärlek som trotsar allt.År 1924 lämnas fyraåriga Cecily Larson på ett barnhem i Chicago. Kort efter att Cecily fyllt sju år säljs hon till en kringresande cirkus för att uppträda som lillasyster till den glamorösa barbackaryttaren Isabelle DuMonde. Med Isabelle och resten av cirkusen får Cecily på vissa sätt den familj hon längtat efter. Men allteftersom åren går börjar sprickorna i hennes lilla värld träda fram. Och när Cecily som tonåring träffar en ung man vid namn Lucky blir hon förälskad. Men snart leds hon ut på en oväntad – och farlig – kurs.År 2015 är Cecily nittiofyra år gammal och lever ett lugnt liv i Minnesota tillsammans med sin dotter, sina barnbarn och barnbarnsbarn. Hennes familj bestämmer sig för att överraska henne med ett dna-test, och det oväntade resultatet avslöjar inte bara tragiska hemligheter som Cecily dolt i decennier. Det får henne även att ifrågasätta den familj som hon fostrat som sin egen i nästan sjuttio år. Cecily och alla i hennes liv måste nu bestämma sig för vilka de verkligen är och vad familj – och förlåtelse – egentligen betyder.Cecily Larsons hemliga liv är en svepande och fängslande generationsroman för alla som älskade Niceville, Innan ni tog oss och Water for Elephants.“Griper tag direkt. (…) Jag hoppas innerligt att det blir en film.” Titti Schultz, Go’kväll"En stark och rörande roman om kärlek, familjeband och hur livet kan ta oväntade vägar." Julia Fors, BTJ-häftetEllen Baker har tidigare arbetat som bokhandlare och eventkoordinator i en bokhandel. Hon är bosatt i Maine, USA.

Ett övergivet barn, en cirkus, en förbjuden kärlek som trotsar allt. År 1924 lämnas fyraåriga Cecily Larson på ett barnhem i Chicago. Kort efter att Cecily fyllt sju år säljs hon till en kringresande cirkus för att uppträda som lillasyster till den glamorösa barbackaryttaren Isabelle DuMonde. Med Isabelle och resten av cirkusen får Cecily på vissa sätt den familj hon längtat efter. Men allteftersom åren går börjar sprickorna i hennes lilla värld träda fram. Och när Cecily som tonåring träffar en ung man vid namn Lucky blir hon förälskad. Men snart leds hon ut på en oväntad – och farlig – kurs. År 2015 är Cecily nittiofyra år gammal och lever ett lugnt liv i Minnesota tillsammans med sin dotter, sina barnbarn och barnbarnsbarn. Hennes familj bestämmer sig för att överraska henne med ett dna-test, och det oväntade resultatet avslöjar inte bara tragiska hemligheter som Cecily dolt i decennier. Det får henne även att ifrågasätta den familj som hon fostrat som sin egen i nästan sjuttio år. Cecily och alla i hennes liv måste nu bestämma sig för vilka de verkligen är och vad familj – och förlåtelse – egentligen betyder. Cecily Larsons hemliga liv är en svepande och fängslande generationsroman för alla som älskade Niceville, Innan ni tog oss och Water for Elephants. “Griper tag direkt. (…) Jag hoppas innerligt att det blir en film.” Titti Schultz, Go’kväll "En stark och rörande roman om kärlek, familjeband och hur livet kan ta oväntade vägar." Julia Fors, BTJ-häftet Ellen Baker har tidigare arbetat som bokhandlare och eventkoordinator i en bokhandel. Hon är bosatt i Maine, USA.