Depression Era

After twenty years in a loveless marriage, Evelyn Henderson will do anything to escape her stifling suburban life. She boards a train for Reno, Nevada, a former frontier town that’s booming thanks to “six-weekers”: women from all walks of life who take up residence there just long enough to secure an uncontested divorce—a right they don’t yet have in their home states.

She was the last person to see him alive. Hannah Granville knew there would never be answers to her questions. How could Father commit suicide, leaving his wife and children destitute? Did he have any inkling of their fate? How did she fail to understand his intention? Could she have saved him? Was he a coward? Too busy making a living to spend time in the past, Hannah is virtually alone in the world. Her siblings have been taken in by relatives across the country; her mother, too frail and distraught to care for herself much less her children. The only thing getting Hannah through most ...

Babe is a charismatic and widely loved man, a gambler with a gift for gab that often gets him out of tricky situations. He’s also a dreamer, something he shares with his patient and loving wife, Rosie. They both yearn for financial stability and see the land they own as insurance for future generations. But when Babe and a few comrades enlist in a scheme that improbably falls apart, he endangers the little security the family has. On the verge of losing everything, what’s a family man to do? If you’re a gambler like Babe, you double down and risk it all for one big score.

There are many theories as to why the United States and then much of the world entered into a long period of price deflation, high unemployment, and an overall significant economic downturn, which we now call the Great Depression. People always wonder why this horrendous event occurred and there is no simple answer to this question. It was a perfect storm of events that came together and brought about an inevitable plummet in the lives of millions.

When the skies dried up, Gloria thought it was temporary. When the dust storms rolled in, she thought they would pass. But now the bank man’s come to take the family farm, and Pa’s decided to up and move to California in search of work. They’ll pick fruit, he says, until they can save up enough money to buy land of their own again.

Since childhood, identical twins Leona and Fiona Dunbar have been getting in—and out—of trouble by pretending to be each other. Yet underneath, they couldn’t be more different. Outspoken Leona lives to break rules, have a good time, and scandalize their respectable hometown of Lexington. Fiona is a seemingly demure churchgoing girl who is the apple of her domineering, widowed mother Mavis’s eye. But together, the twins have fooled teachers, boyfriends, bosses, racist police—and most importantly, straitlaced Mavis.

With mysterious serial murders putting peaceful Lexington, Alabama, on edge, Jessie and Hubert Wiggins’ steadfast calm and devotion to each other reassures everyone that faith will see them through. But Jessie and Hubert have paid a terrible hidden cost to maintain their devout facade and respectable standing. Nothing can allay the guilt they feel—or stop the growing distrust between them.

When Works Progress Administration editor Millie Lang finds herself on the wrong end of a potential political scandal, she’s shipped off to Montana to work on the state’s American Guide Series—travel books intended to put the nation’s destitute writers to work. Millie arrives to an eclectic staff claiming their missed deadlines are due to sabotage, possibly from the state’s powerful Copper Kings who don’t want their long and bloody history with union organizers aired. But Millie begins to suspect that the answer might instead lie with the town’s mysterious librarian, Alice Monroe.

The current crisis is not like 2008 or even 1929. The New Depression that has emerged from the COVID pandemic is the worst economic crisis in US history. Most fired employees will remain redundant. Bankruptcies will be common, and banks will buckle under the weight of bad debts. Deflation, debt, and demography will wreck any chance of recovery, and social disorder will follow closely on the heels of market chaos. The happy talk from Wall Street and the White House is an illusion. The worst is yet to come.

Universally regarded as the ultimate adventure/fantasy film, 1933's King Kong continues to amaze audiences with its involving story, its compelling characters, its incredible special-effects, and its magnificent music. Yet for some, there is also a deeper and darker side to Kong; a film and monster whose alleged allegories have fascinated students and scholars for nearly a century. For many, Kong means many things, from the noble savage defeated by modern civilization, from the plight of the Black man to the plight of the common man, to the ascending sexual freedom of a new kind of woman ...

Detroit, mid-1930s: In a city abuzz over its unrivaled sports success, gun-loving baseball fan Dayton Dean became ensnared in the nefarious and deadly Black Legion. The secretive, Klan-like group was executing a wicked plan of terror, murdering enemies, flogging associates, and contemplating armed rebellion. The Legion boasted tens of thousands of members across the Midwest, among them politicians and prominent citizens - even, possibly, a beloved athlete.

Birdie Jennings dreams of a big life beyond her small town of Mt. Sterling, Kentucky—beyond her mundane job tying tobacco leaves at Wrights Factory, beyond her position as the baby of the family. Her life changes when she meets smooth-talking Jimmy Walker. Jimmy makes big promises for an exciting life together, and Birdie is quickly swept off her feet. But some short years after they marry, Jimmy disappears without a trace, leaving Birdie hurt and alone with their two toddlers. Out of money and out of options, Birdie moves back home with her overbearing mother.

A veteran of the Great War, Jesse Cole is grateful for the quiet life he now leads. But when his closest friend runs afoul of local criminals Frog and Squirrel Fenley, Jesse is forced to spin his moral compass and enter a violent and volatile underworld. There he encounters corrupt lawmen, hired assassins, and a dark family secret that will upend all he once knew. Complicating matters are Texas Ranger Amon Atkins—who arrives to investigate the Fenleys just as their empire is threatened by a deadly new competitor—and the green-eyed, raven-haired Adaline, a love Jesse thought he’d lost forever.

Aaron Platt has spent every day of his life breaking his back to scrape a living from the rocky, played-out fields of the Adirondack farm he inherited from his sadistic father. One winter morning, he follows footprints in the snow to his barn and discovers a man freezing to death in a horse stall. What unfolds between the two men, past and present, is a brisk, gritty depiction of crime and punishment. But their harrowing story is more than that, exposing the shocking hypocrisy of the people who live in the nearby bucolic town.

First Place Winner, Fall 2023 Book Fest Award: Family Saga Every wedding seems like the beginning of a fairy tale, but sometimes the prince is actually a frog, or the big bad wolf. When Mary McGinn lost her husband, she was the mother of twelve children, and her oldest sons worked to provide for the family. She was always grateful for the sacrifices her children had made for the sake of their family, but now she needed to go back to work so that they could go on and live their lives. But finding work in depression-stricken Maine would not be easy for anyone in 1935, perhaps even more so for...

Veteran bootlegger. Prolific bank robber. Kidnapper extraordinaire. Ruthless criminal mastermind. With a nickname as hardcore as George “Machine Gun” Kelly's, it should come as no surprise that such terms are frequently associated with him. Eighty-six years may have come and gone since his death, but this Depression-era mobster's name and legacy are still as relevant as ever. You will learn about Machine Gun Kelly like never before.

Pretty Boy Floyd was a perplexing character as abhorred as he was revered. To the feds, Pretty Boy Floyd was a venomous, manipulative scoundrel who was egregiously lionized as an antihero with a heart of gold. A career bank robber supposedly associated with up to 40 bank robberies, his face would soon be plastered on the 1934 poster of the FBI's Most Wanted alongside John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Alvin Karper.

The Great Depression was a time of desperation in America - parents struggled to feed their children and unemployment was at a record high. Adding to the lawlessness of the decade, thugs with guns and corrupt law-enforcement officers ran rampant. But amidst this panic, there was one surefire way to make money, one used by criminals and resourceful civilians alike: kidnapping. The Kidnap Years is a thoughtfully reported pause-resister that chronicles the sweep of abductions that afflicted all corners of the country as desperate people were pushed to do the unthinkable.

Katie Gallagher isn’t looking for love—at least not for herself. Her dad is dead, and she feels responsible. Her mother and sister are alone in St. Louis, and Katie wants to find a man who’ll love and care for them and make them a family again. Zeb Harlow has no time for a wife. His home life is in shambles, his mother and brother are in danger, and he sees no way out. When tragedy strikes their small rural community, concern escalates to terror. Zeb and Katie band together to locate the guilty parties before another crime can occur. Will their joint effort be in vain? Will the ...

Eden solía pensar que Josh era el único que podía salvarla. Él, con su amable sonrisa, su trato cuidadoso y su corazón sincero, era lo mejor que había en su vida en mucho tiempo, pero no podía ser quien la rescatara. Porque eso era algo que tenía que hacer la propia Eden sola. En el instituto, Josh y ella jamás tuvieron oportunidad de tener una relación sana. Eden cargaba con las consecuencias de un suceso devastador, mientras Josh lidiaba con el alcoholismo de su padre.