Carly Schriever

In 2001, Kabul is suddenly a place of possibility as people fling off years of repressive Taliban rule. This hopeful chaos brings together American aid worker Liv Stoellner and Farida Basra, an educated Pakistani woman still adjusting to her arranged marriage to Gul, the son of an Afghan strongman whose family spent years of exile in Pakistan before returning to Kabul. Both Liv and her husband take positions at an NGO that helps Afghan women recover from the Taliban years. But for Farida and Gul, the move to Kabul is fraught, severing all ties with Farida’s family and her former world....

Fourteen-year-old Rachel Marsh is nanny to John and Abigail Adams' children and witnesses firsthand how tension builds in the feisty New England town in the two years before it erupts in the Boston Massacre. Friends become foes and families divide as British troops arrive in 1768 to force the outspoken Bostonians to toe the line and obey the British government.

In a culture where constant offense and polarization dominate so many interactions, here is good news about a more productive way to disagree: God desires for us to become better at loving others . . . not better at debating. Grace in the Gray helps us see the grace and good that’s often hidden by our own limited perspectives and assumptions.

Based loosely on Louisa May Alcott's own upbringing, Little Women follows the lives of four sisters - Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March. Each girl has a vision of what their ideal future will bring, though ultimately experiencing, as most young do, something completely different. Little Women, originally written as two volumes, was a great commercial success and is considered one of the most widely read American novels.