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The Linnet Bird |
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| Author: |
Linda Holeman |
 Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
1400097401 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From Publishers Weekly
A historical romance with a soft-focus cover, Holeman's first adult novel (she's written a handful of young adult books, including Search of the Moon King's Daughter) opens in Calcutta but quickly flashes back to 1823 Liverpool, England, where its heroine, Linny Gow, is turned into a prostitute by her father shortly after her 11th birthday. Surrounded by poverty and brutality, Linny clings to her dead mother's assurance that she has noble blood, a distinction that solidifies her determination to escape from her sexual slavery and break into the genteel class. Holeman excels at painting the different milieus of the time-from the clammy docks where the whores ply their trade, to the stuffy drawing rooms where the ladies gossip over tea, to India, where a "fishing fleet" of poor young well-bred women go in search of... |
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Devil's Darning Needle |
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| Author: |
Linda Holeman |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0889842051 |
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| Availability: |
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Promise Song |
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| Author: |
Linda Holeman |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0613102630 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From School Library Journal
Grade 6-9. Holeman's offering is full of the suffering and hard work of frontier life. Rosetta and her sister, Flora, once lived lives of ease, but the death of their parents has left them in an English orphanage. Sent to Canada, the girls anticipate being adopted by a loving family, but the younger Flora is rapidly grabbed up, and the older girl is sent to an isolated farm. Albert and Runa need Rosetta's labor and make it clear that she is under contract to earn her keep. There's more melodrama here than required, but as time passes the main characters become less cardboard. Runa is suffering from the deaths of her babies, and while Albert's gruffness and cold heart never disappear, readers do get glimpses of a softness and humanity that he himself thinks of as weakness. A harrowing depiction of an attack... |
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Raspberry House Blues |
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| Author: |
Linda Holeman |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0613533003 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
From School Library Journal
Grade 6-10-When Poppy's divorced mother spends the summer in Greece with her boyfriend, the adopted teen decides to visit her dad and his new family in Winnipeg and search for her birth mother. The visit has its ups and downs. Her stepmother's pregnancy obliges Poppy to do much of the housework and help take care of her two-year-old half-brother. The rather bohemian lifestyle that her father and Calypso lead makes her uncomfortable, as do the town's rampant cankerworms that drop from the trees into her hair. Then she meets Becca, an elusive woman who, like Poppy, has red hair and who once gave away a baby girl for adoption. When Poppy discovers that Becca is not her mother, they part with Becca's words, "Perhaps we're always looking, hoping to find the thing we want-we think we need-in someone else." The... |
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Mercy's Birds |
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| Author: |
Linda Holeman |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0613772695 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
From School Library Journal
Gr 8 Up-Mercy, her mother Pearl, and her Aunt "Moo" have been on a downward socioeconomic slide for some time. As the novel opens, the teen is adjusting to yet another new school and to the realization that her aunt's boyfriend, who made sexual advances toward Mercy and threatened to hurt her if she told anyone, is due to return from an overseas job. Like her mother, who has become clinically depressed, and her aunt, who has retreated into an alcoholic haze, the girl begins to withdraw. A new friend and her employer keep reaching out to her and, to her credit, she hangs on to the ropes they throw. When Mercy's mother is hospitalized for her depression and her aunt's boyfriend returns, Mercy finds the strength to stand up to him. The novel deals with issues of poverty, depression, suicide, molestation, and... |
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Search of the Moon King's Daughter |
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| Author: |
Linda Holeman |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0613773675 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
From School Library Journal
Grade 6-9-Emmaline, the daughter of a village shopkeeper, leads an idyllic existence in 1830s England. When her father dies of cholera, the family is forced to move to a factory town where her mother finds work in a mill. When Emmaline is 15, her mother is injured in an industrial accident and becomes addicted to laudanum; she sells her young, deaf son into service as a chimney sweep to support her habit. Emmaline goes to London to search for him and finds work as a scullery maid. When she is not working, she relentlessly searches for her brother. She also begins to form connections with her fellow servants in the house where she works and lives. Emmaline is a strong young woman who takes things into her own hands. The supporting characters are also well drawn and three-dimensional. The narrative moves... |
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Linnet Bird |
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| Author: |
Linda Holeman |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
1400097398 |
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| Availability: |
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From Publishers Weekly
A historical romance with a soft-focus cover, Holeman's first adult novel (she's written a handful of young adult books, including Search of the Moon King's Daughter) opens in Calcutta but quickly flashes back to 1823 Liverpool, England, where its heroine, Linny Gow, is turned into a prostitute by her father shortly after her 11th birthday. Surrounded by poverty and brutality, Linny clings to her dead mother's assurance that she has noble blood, a distinction that solidifies her determination to escape from her sexual slavery and break into the genteel class. Holeman excels at painting the different milieus of the time-from the clammy docks where the whores ply their trade, to the stuffy drawing rooms where the ladies gossip over tea, to India, where a "fishing fleet" of poor young well-bred women go in search of... |
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Promise Song |
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| Author: |
Linda Holeman |
Book Review
|
| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0887763871 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 3-4 days. |
From School Library Journal
Grade 6-9. Holeman's offering is full of the suffering and hard work of frontier life. Rosetta and her sister, Flora, once lived lives of ease, but the death of their parents has left them in an English orphanage. Sent to Canada, the girls anticipate being adopted by a loving family, but the younger Flora is rapidly grabbed up, and the older girl is sent to an isolated farm. Albert and Runa need Rosetta's labor and make it clear that she is under contract to earn her keep. There's more melodrama here than required, but as time passes the main characters become less cardboard. Runa is suffering from the deaths of her babies, and while Albert's gruffness and cold heart never disappear, readers do get glimpses of a softness and humanity that he himself thinks of as weakness. A harrowing depiction of an attack... |
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Mercy's Birds |
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| Author: |
Linda Holeman |
Book Review
|
| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0887764630 |
|
| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From School Library Journal
Gr 8 Up-Mercy, her mother Pearl, and her Aunt "Moo" have been on a downward socioeconomic slide for some time. As the novel opens, the teen is adjusting to yet another new school and to the realization that her aunt's boyfriend, who made sexual advances toward Mercy and threatened to hurt her if she told anyone, is due to return from an overseas job. Like her mother, who has become clinically depressed, and her aunt, who has retreated into an alcoholic haze, the girl begins to withdraw. A new friend and her employer keep reaching out to her and, to her credit, she hangs on to the ropes they throw. When Mercy's mother is hospitalized for her depression and her aunt's boyfriend returns, Mercy finds the strength to stand up to him. The novel deals with issues of poverty, depression, suicide, molestation, and... |
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Raspberry House Blues |
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| Author: |
Linda Holeman |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0887764932 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From School Library Journal
Grade 6-10-When Poppy's divorced mother spends the summer in Greece with her boyfriend, the adopted teen decides to visit her dad and his new family in Winnipeg and search for her birth mother. The visit has its ups and downs. Her stepmother's pregnancy obliges Poppy to do much of the housework and help take care of her two-year-old half-brother. The rather bohemian lifestyle that her father and Calypso lead makes her uncomfortable, as do the town's rampant cankerworms that drop from the trees into her hair. Then she meets Becca, an elusive woman who, like Poppy, has red hair and who once gave away a baby girl for adoption. When Poppy discovers that Becca is not her mother, they part with Becca's words, "Perhaps we're always looking, hoping to find the thing we want-we think we need-in someone else." The... |
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Flying to Yellow |
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| Author: |
Linda Holeman |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0888012039 |
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| Availability: |
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Search of the Moon King's Daughter |
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| Author: |
Linda Holeman |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0887766099 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From School Library Journal
Grade 6-9-Emmaline, the daughter of a village shopkeeper, leads an idyllic existence in 1830s England. When her father dies of cholera, the family is forced to move to a factory town where her mother finds work in a mill. When Emmaline is 15, her mother is injured in an industrial accident and becomes addicted to laudanum; she sells her young, deaf son into service as a chimney sweep to support her habit. Emmaline goes to London to search for him and finds work as a scullery maid. When she is not working, she relentlessly searches for her brother. She also begins to form connections with her fellow servants in the house where she works and lives. Emmaline is a strong young woman who takes things into her own hands. The supporting characters are also well drawn and three-dimensional. The narrative moves... |
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Toxic Love |
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| Author: |
Linda Holeman |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0887766471 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
Review
“[Holeman] creates characters so familiar that it’s almost impossible not to place yourself right in the story. This is a writer who can weave such a spell that a dilemma can become your dilemma and your gut tightens with the stress.”
–The Globe and Mail
“I think it may be the best book of the year’s books for young adults.”
–Ottawa Citizen
“…these thought-provoking and perceptive narratives manage effectively to capture difficult and often awkward coming-of-age moments with clarity and compassion… Holeman successfully captures the quintessence of adolescence; her characters are skillfully drawn and believable… The narratives and rich with detail and imagery… The collections should be a part of every junior and senior... |
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