The Chrysanthemums

Set in the 1930's, this is the story of Elisa who raises chrysanthemums and yearns for a more meaningful outlet for her strength and latent abilities.

Elisa Allen is tending her chrysanthemums. Strong, with a handsome face she skilfully and proudly cultivates the best in the valley. Tonight, her husband is taking her to town. While she works, a squeak of heels and a plod of hoofs bring a curious vehicle, curiously drawn: a tradesman looking for directions and a job. He is met with curt replies and a hardened resistance. Then he notices her chrysanthemums. With his characteristic insight and evocative language, John Steinbeck creates a short story of a brief but striking encounter. Set in Salinas Valley, where he grew up, it dissects the myriad complexities of humanity, society and hidden longings.

She was a perfect baby, and she had a perfect name. Chrysanthemum. Chrysanthemum loved her name—until she started school. A terrific read-aloud for the classroom and libraries!

For fans of Lisa Wingate’s Before We Were Yours and Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, a deeply moving novel that follows two Korean sisters separated by World War II. Korea, 1943. Hana has lived her entire life under Japanese occupation. As a haenyeo, a female diver of the sea, she enjoys an independence that few other Koreans can still claim. Until the day Hana saves her younger sister from a Japanese soldier and is herself captured and transported to Manchuria. There she is forced to become a “comfort woman” in a Japanese military brothel. But haenyeo are women of power and strength. She will find her way home. South Korea, 2011. Emi has spent more than sixty years trying to forget the sacrifice her sister made, but she must confront the past to discover peace. Seeing the healing of her children and her country, can Emi move beyond the legacy of war to find forgiveness? Suspenseful, hopeful, and ultimately redemptive, White Chrysanthemum tells a story of two sisters whose love for each other is strong enough to triumph over the grim evils of war.

Drawing its allure from the gold of the sun and the rule of the emperors, the chrysanthemum winds its way through ancient Chinese culture into the gardens of French impressionist painters and onto the pages of American novels. The flower signifies both life and death, as parts of Europe associate it with mourning while others celebrate it for its golden rays that light the autumnal gloom. In this fascinating book, Twigs Way follows the fortunes of the flower through philosophy, art, literature, and death, recounting the stories of the men and women who became captivated by this extraordinary bloom. With a range of vibrant illustrations, including works by Hiroshige, Monet, and Mondrian, Chrysanthemum will captivate lovers of art, flowers, history, and culture.

Becoming a vampire was easier than she had ever dreamed. Ardeth Alexander surrendered her mortal life in a night of despair and desire—initiated into a new existence by the five-hundred-year-old vampire, Dimitri Rozokov. Living as a vampire was more complicated than she had ever expected. Fleeing Toronto, Ardeth and Rozokov settle in the tourist town of Banff, Alberta. While she tests her new strength against the mountains by climbing, Rozokov returns to astronomy, the science of his youth. Together they hunt the dark reaches of the park, preying on the animals they find there, upholding an unspoken agreement not to taste human blood. Yet all their activity cannot disguise their restlessness and soon their fragile happiness is shattered by bitter conflict and inevitable betrayal. Angry and unhappy, Ardeth returns to Toronto to try to recatpure the life she believed she had left behind forever. Understanding what it means to be a vampire would prove harder than she had ever imagined. What Ardeth and Rozokov do not know is that they are being hunted. A member of the yakuza, the Japanese underworld, is on their trail, seeking the fulfillment of his most secret ambition. So is his employer, Sademori Fujiwara—a vampire whose extraordinary history is revealed to Rozokov through his diary. From the seductive nights in the imperial court of the eleventh century to the horror and tragedy of the darkest days of the twentieth, Fujiwara’s story is a tale of poetry and violence, of delight and despair. In his life, Ardeth and Rozokov see the promise of the answers to the questions of love, mortality and morality that have torn them apart. Fujiwara’s power draws them back together to face those questions again—but the price that they all have to pay for the answers will be higher than any of them expected. Blood and Chrysanthemums is a tantalizing tale of modern horror, with a twist of Japanese gothic, certain to leave an indelible mark on the imagination.

A Chinese American girl puts her goldfish into a fish pond that she creates and borders with chrysanthemums in order to remind her grandmother of the fish pond she had back in China.