The typical antebellum narrative gives readers the sometimes horrific and sometimes lovely realities of the black and white plantation society. In Kathleen Grissom’s debut novel The Kitchen House lines get a little more blurred.

The story is dually narrated by Lavinia, an orphaned Irish indentured servant (an oft forgot part of the eighteenth century labor force) and Belle, the master’s illegitimate slave daughter. Lavinia develops deep bonds to her new slave family, but soon is forced into a white world. The straddling of two worlds brings characters into both physical and psychological battles that will keep you flipping fast.

A few weeks ago, customer Gidge told us about a book that another indie bookseller in St. Simon’s Island can’t get enough of: The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng. Always seeking out books that don’t stay on the shelf, I ordered a couple of copies, took it home, and read it. It’s true: this is one I can’t wait to hand sell. In the right hands, it will be a powerful read.

Our shelves are filled with unique and powerful WWII stories (Suite Francaise, Sarah’s Key, Guernsey Literary…) and yet this one has managed to tell a new story. The Eastern Front is certainly less familiar to most of us than the oft-covered Western Front and perhaps that’s what drew me in.

Our narrator Philip is a half-Chinese, half-British Malay islander. When Philip’s British family leaves to spend a few months in England, Philip stays behind and develops a strong bond with his Japanese sensei, Endo-San. As the war breaks out and the Japanese take over the island, Philip is caught in a tangled web of wartime loyalties. In the end, we’re left with a character that’s both a hero and a villain.

Rain offers readers an appreciation of the complexities of a multi-cultural society at war. It poignantly unpacks both the strength and frailty of family in a setting you’ll want to drink in.

Around graduation time every year, I like to read a classic book on personal development. My mom seems to have read them all, so I turn to her for suggestions: Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, etc.

This year, she passed me a very dog-eared and underlined copy of Viktor Frankl’s  Man’s Search for Meaning (first released in 1947). Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist, first tells of his struggle to find a reason to live while imprisoned in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. He then describes his pyschotherapy philosophy that grew out of this experience– logotherapy.

Logotherapy, in contrast to many of the psychological methods of the time, is future oriented. Unlike Freud and his contemporaries, who looked at one’s past as the source of pyschological issues, Frankl argues that lack of meaning produces psychological tensions. The mechanized era that produced an abundance of leisure time often leaves people lacking meaning in their daily existence.

Drawing from examples from  the concentration camps and as therapist in the suicidal wing of a mental hospital, Frankl motivates his patients and readers to find purpose, even in desperate situations. This, he says, restores human dignity and leads to ultimate fulfillment.

It’s the perfect little book for graduates who are in the process of discovering their calling in life.

I don’t read much in the mystery genre. Plot alone just doesn’t do it for me. I read for the characters. And I guess at some point I read too many mysteries with too much plot and not enough human character development.

But John Hart brought it together for me in his latest paperback The Last Child. The North Carolina attorney-turned author had me by page 10 with his portrayal of the Merrimon family. A year and one day ago, 12-year-old Johnny Merrimon’s twin sister went missing. Soon after his father flew the coop, supposedly too guilt-ridden to hang around. But Johnny, he’s a Huck Finn-type survivor, desperate to find what the police have missed.

Like Johnny, you’ll be strung along on a thread of hope that his sister Alissa will be found alive. And I imagine, you’ll be shocked to read the truth. Give yourself a small chunk of time to read this one cover to cover. You won’t want to put  it down.