The Last April

Spontaneous, fifteen-year-old Gretchen vows to help heal the nation from the recently ended Civil War. On the morning of President Lincoln’s death, Gretchen finds an amnesiac Confederate in her garden and believes this is her chance for civic goodwill.But reconciliation is not as simple as Gretchen assumed. When her mother returns from the market with news that a Confederate murdered the president, Gretchen wonders if she caught the killer. Tensions between her aunt and mother rise as Gretchen nurses her Confederate prisoner, revealing secrets from their past that make Gretchen question everything she knows about loyalty, honor, and trust. The Last April is an entertaining, thoughtful novella of Ohio after the Civil War, meant to encourage readers to reflect on themes of fear and hope in uncertain political times.

A leather jacket rests by Lake Michigan like a black colt sits, a lump in the grass, waiting for a mare that never returns. Nicole Zehner is a young poet who has already learned that small observations and different experiences can often lead to big conclusions and the same understanding. In her first compilation of poetry divided into five parts, Nicole shares reflections that invite others to step into creative lyrical stories that ponder the connections between the cosmic and commonplace as well as the complex emotions resulting from change. Through poems that reflect on diverse topics and themes like a dark winter’s night, Catholic school, the pursuit of beauty, and an eclipse during the month of the sun, Nicole invites others to enter a world that brilliantly intertwines the everyday with the grandness of the universe. The Last Day of April shares a poignant volume of poems as a young woman contemplates life, love, and the world around her.

During a snowy, 1947 March afternoon, sophomore Dane Halden watches from an empty study hall window as his friends, April and Adam, make out in Adam’s car during lunch hour. Alone with his thoughts, Dane speaks of both. This is: The Last Time He Saw April. Until— The story returns to the summer of 1946, setting the stage for April and Adam’s romance. After many loving days, weeks and months—Together Forever, their most whispered endearment—April moves to Connecticut to live with relatives. The end? Conceivably ... After high school, April marries twice, moves to New York and inherits a successful music business. Her one child, Jonathan, becomes a rock megastar. Paralleling April’s life, Adam joins the USAF, meets and marries his English love, Jillian, after being stationed at RAF Sealand, near Chester. Like many GI marriages, theirs’ sadly ends in divorce. After university, Adam becomes a professor at a Minnesota college. Fate takes charge. In 1964 April and Adam meet in New York. Are their feelings still alive? Did they renew their relationship? If so, are they happy? Are friends truly friends? What about the boy in the window? All comes to light while visiting this narrative.

Phyllida Cresswell has defi nite ideas about love, and her current boyfriend is certainly not marriage material. So when the chance of a nursing job abroad comes up, she takes it. When things don't go smoothly in Madeira, however, Phyllida finds herself stranded. Fortunately, the dashing Pieter van Sittardt is on hand to rescue her. Pieter, Phyllida discovers, is a man she could definitely love. In fact, she'd be happy to marry him. All he has to do is ask....