Akron Public Library

When Maud, an aging grandmother who is slowly losing her memory, is convinced that her best friend Elizabeth is missing and in terrible danger, she becomes obsessed with saving her beloved friend despite the fact that no one believes her.

It's 1936 and the Great Depression has taken its toll. Eighty-six-year-old Hennie Comfort has lived in Middle Swan, Colorado, up in the high country of the snow-covered Rocky Mountains, since before it was Colorado. When she first meets seventeen-year-old Nit Spindle, Hennie is drawn to the young grieving girl. Nit and her husband have come to this small mining town in search of work, but the loneliness and loss Nit feels are almost too much to bear....

Teresa "Toots" Amelia Loudenberry has crammed a great deal of living--not to mention eight much-loved husbands--into her varied and rewarding life. Newly single, Toots is ready to taste life again, and fate has just handed her the perfect opportunity. The owner of the gossip rag where Toots's daughter works is about to lose the paper to his gambling debts. Eager to find a way to keep her daughter employed among the movers and shakers of Hollywood,...

Step into the charming world of "Cranford" by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. This delightful novel invites you to a quaint English village, where the lives of its eccentric and endearing inhabitants are interwoven in a tapestry of humor, heartwarming moments, and social observations. Set in the early 19th century, the narrative unfolds through the eyes of Mary Smith, an outsider welcomed into the close-knit community. As she navigates the idiosyncrasies...

When Hatteras Island old-timer Iola Anne Poole passes away at ninety-one, the struggling young mother in her rental cottage finds herself charged with cleaning out Iola's rambling Victorian house. Running from a messy, dangerous past, Tandi Jo Reese never expects to find more than a temporary hiding place within Iola's walls. But all that changes when she discovers eighty-one carefully decorated prayer boxes. Hidden in the boxes is the story of a...

Miss Julia's own home is not immune to shock waves--the arrival of Latisha, housekeeper Lillian's five-year-old pistol of a great-granddaughter, sets off sparks in Miss Julia's household. But what could shake them all up even more is if anyone finds out the most troubling gossip of all--more tall tales about Miss Julia's late husband. Can Miss Julia turn the town's attention away from herself before she becomes the center of scandal? Can her cool-as-a-cucumber...

Teresa "Toots" Loudenberry has a knack for finding adventure. But ever since Sophie convinced her friends to start holding regular seances, life in Los Angeles is getting a little too dramatic even for Toots' tastes. When Ida receives a message suggesting that her late husband was murdered, Toots decides it's time the Godmothers left L.A. for her hometown of Charleston...Meanwhile, Mavis has been acting suspiciously and refuses to divulge what she's...

A grandmother in her sixties emerges from a mental fog to find she's trapped in her worst nightmare. Rose Dennis wakes up in a hospital gown, her brain in a fog, only to discover that she's been committed to an Alzheimer's Unit in a nursing home. With no memory of how she ended up in this position, Rose is sure that something is very wrong. When she overhears one of the administrators saying about her that she's "not making it through the week," Rose...

"Joan Sample is not living the life she expected. Now a widow and an empty-nester, she has become by her own admission something of a recluse. But after another birthday spent alone, she is finally inclined to listen to her sister, who has been begging Joan to reengage with the world. With her support, Joan gathers the courage to take some long-awaited steps: hiring someone to tame her overgrown garden, joining a grief support group, and even renting...

At eighty-four, Leota Reinhardt is alone, all of her efforts to reconcile with her adult children hadn't worked in the past, until she meets her estranged grandaughter, Annie, and confides to her the silent sacrifice she had made as a young mother of two, while her husband was gone during World War II.