Turning the Tide by Kirkpatrick & Abrahams

Carlos Lehder Rivas, the kingpin of Colombia’s most murderous cocaine empire. A powerful international businessman and self-proclaimed revolutionary. He made the mistake that would end his career: He invited an American college professor to be his guest on the island of Norman’s Cay… Richard Novak, father of five and lover of the sea, came to Norman’s Cay to study the hammer-head sharks up close. But the college professor soon found himself locked in combat with a global arch criminal who had stared down the police agencies of major superpowers… Norman’s Cay, island paradise of the Bahamas, that, thanks to Carlos Lehder, became the nerve center of the Medellin Cartel, complete with gun towers and a DC-3 landing strip. Here is the amazing true story of how Richard Novak helped bring Lehder to his downfall—armed only with a .357 Magnum, his underwater sabotage skills, and the lone courage of his convictions.

Elaine 7
Cai 7
Jane 7
Pauline 7
Rebecca 8
Janet 6
Trude 7
Sally 7
Christine 7
June 7

Rebecca H
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Second Hand Heart by Catherine Ryan Hyde

 Vida is 19 and has never had much of a life. Struggling along with a life-threatening heart condition, her whole life has been one long preparation for death. But suddenly she is presented with a donor heart, and just in time. Now she gets to do something she never imagined she’d have to do: live.

Richard is a 36-year-old man who’s just lost his beloved wife, Lorrie, in a car accident. Still in shock and not even having begun the process of grieving, he is invited to the hospital to meet the young woman who received his wife’s donor heart.

Vida takes one look at Richard and feels she’s loved him all her life. And tells him so. Richard assumes she’s just a foolish young girl. And maybe she is. Or maybe there’s truth behind the theory of cellular memory, and maybe it really is possible for a heart to remember, at least for a time, on its own.

Second Hand Heart is both a story of having to learn to live for the first time, and having to learn to live all over again.

Christine 8
Jane 6
Janet 6
June 7
Trude 6
Pauline 7
Sally 6
Cai 6
Elaine 6
Rebecca 7
 

Pauline C
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The Return by Hisham Matar

 

The Return is at once a universal and an intensely personal tale. It is an exquisite meditation on how history and politics can bear down on an individual life. And yet Hisham Matar’s memoir isn’t just about the burden of the past, but the consolation of love, literature and art. It is the story of what it is to be human.

Hisham Matar was nineteen when his father was kidnapped and taken to prison in Libya. He would never see him again. Twenty-two years later, the fall of Gaddafi meant he was finally able to return to his homeland. In this moving memoir, the author takes us on an illuminating journey, both physical and psychological; a journey to find his father and rediscover his country.

Elaine 5
Rebecca 7
Christine 7
Trude 6
June 4
Janet 4
Jane 4
Sally 7
Cai 5
Pauline 6

Christine P
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