Fitch, Janet

Marina Makarova is a woman of privilege who aches to break free of the constraints of her genteel life. Swept up on the tides of the Russian Revolution, Marina joins the marches for workers' rights, falls in love with a radical young poet, and betrays everything she holds dear, before being betrayed in turn. As her country goes through tremendous upheaval, Marina's own coming-of-age unfolds, marked by deep passion, devastating loss, and the private heroism of an ordinary woman living through extraordinary times.

Pregnant and adrift in the countryside amid the devastation of the Russian Civil War, Marina returns to a decimated Petrograd, where her work caring for war orphans inspires her emergence as a poet. -- Marina Makarova finds herself -- pregnant and adrift amid the devastation of the Russian Civil War. She finds new strength and self-reliance to fortify her in her sojourn, and to prepare her for the hardships and dilemmas still to come. Returning to Petrograd, she finds the city almost unrecognizable after two years of revolution... and the streets teeming with homeless children, victims of war. Marina takes on the challenge of caring for these civil war orphans. Despite betrayal, privation and unimaginable loss, Marina at last emerges as the poet she was always meant to be. -- adapted from jacket

A fifteen-year-old girl draws back from the false glamour of Los Angeles street life when an oft envied childhood friend becomes sexually promiscuous and overdoses on drugs.

Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes-each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned-becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.

Using simple techniques and easily-found, affordable supplies, Voltaire and friends transform the normal into Gothic. Fully illustrated photos show the before, after, and everything in between. Includes dozens of projects to try at home.