Books
Fiction & Visionary
A MYSTICAL FRIENDSHIP IN LETTERS: My Year with Henry David Thoreau [Mellen Press]
by Cynthia Fraser Graves
"I walk past a display of books set out on the aisle of [the bookstore] and notice the book nearest me has a cover photo of Henry David Thoreau. ...I pause in front of the book to look fondly at this hero of mine. Perhaps I pick the book up, I don't remember; what is very clear is that I hear someone say out loud and clearly, 'Write to me!'" -Cynthia Fraser Graves ("Prelude One: In the Labyrinth")
DUSK ON ROUTE 1
by Cynthia Fraser Graves
​It's Christmas Eve on the coast of Maine and someone has gone missing. Pamela Iverson, a grief stricken widow new to the small town of Wells, is lost as a powerful nor'easter approaches. A rescue attempt is mounted by a crew of townsfolk in need of rescue themselves. Snow flying, waves crashing, time stands still as inexplicable events unfold, changing them all forever.
Nonfiction
by Cheryl Grant Gillespie
The story of a resolute woman who over the course of three years worked zealously to get her son, a fighter pilot shot down during a bombing raid, out of a prisoner of war camp during the Vietnam War. Minnie Lee Gartley, a history teacher who lived in Maine and stayed in Dunedin, Florida during the school year, joined letter writing campaigns, gave speeches, testified in front of congressional hearings, traveled with prominent peace organization members to meet with other women from Southeast Asia, and ultimately went on a risky journey to Hanoi. This story caused a controversy when it happened and still stirs debate today. What would you do for a child of yours in danger?
Translated by Theodore P. Fraser and Daniel J. Chisholm, III
In 1941 a twenty-one-year-old war widow, Jacqueline Pery d’Alincourt, joined the French Resistance in Paris through the agency of Témoinage Chrétien, the primary movement of the spiritual resistance against Nazism. Working for the BCRA (the Gaullist Free French Intelligence Bureau in London), appointed to staff and working as a decoder while assuming other dangerous duties, Jacqueline was arrested in 1942 and deported to Ravensbrück, the notorious womens’ concentration camp. This is her story.
Memoir
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GRACIE & ALBERT
by Cheryl Grant Gillespie
A portrait of a young couple in 1948 rural Maine. Gracie is struggling with four months of treatment for mental illness in a public psychiatric hospital. Dealing with the guilt of having his wife involuntarily committed, Albert is holding himself and their two young sons together as best he can. Gracie & Albert speaks to conditions at the mid-Twentieth Century mental health institution, primitive by today's standards, and an outside community rife with intolerance and devoid of support for patients' families. Based on the experiences of the author's mother and father and actual records from Augusta State Mental Hospital.
NEVER COUNT CROW
by Cynthia Fraser Graves
"Just behind the scrim of ordinary life, the notice rippled in the air. I heard the whispered warning; it was received and noted, recorded in lines of poetry that became insistent and mystifying. When does a person's death begin in a palpable way? The appointment is made, the clock is running. Although we are unaware of its progress, Death will not be denied. It is the remarkable person who, rising to a day full of plans and events, takes time to scan the skies, seeing the dark cloud forming on the horizon." Never Count Crow is one family's experience of a sudden death in their midst and the events surrounding it.
SPEAK FOR ME, MOM: A Murder, a Trial, and a Mother's Enduring Love
by Christine Wolf
Christine Wolf's raw and unfiltered firsthand account of the heart-wrenching journey that began on the night of her son's murder. The narrative delves into the painstaking homicide investigation, the arrest of the murder suspect, the grueling trial, and the aftermath of a crime that left an indelible mark on the many lives it touched. This is a poignant tale that unveils the steep toll exacted by youth violence in America and the intricate and often perplexing maze of the U.S. court system. It is an exploration of traumatic grief, and one mother's quest to discover meaning amidst an unfathomable loss.
Children's
MAUDE AND THE MERRY CHRISTMAS TREE
by Cynthia Fraser Graves
Illustrated by Nancy Bariluk-Smith
How do tinfoil, a Christmas tree, and a red bird come together in a story that takes place deep in the Maine woods? The answer to that riddle lies in the pages of this book. Maude and the Merry Christmas Tree tells the tale of a young girl growing up in a small Maine town during the 1950s.Maude and the Merry Christmas Tree is the first telling of Maude’s many exploits that combine adventure, bravery, and friendship. Come along with Maude into Christmas Tree Woods.
Maude and the Holy Oak
by Cynthia Fraser Graves
Illustrated by Nancy Bariluk-Smith
Have you ever talked to a hawk? Heard a tree sing? Maude has. A curious and bright girl, Maude is invited to meet a 200-year-old oak tree and befriend a hawk and she says, “Yes!” When Holy Oak offers a sturdy limb to ride into the sky, Maude jumps on. Up, up we go, high, with Maude into the branches of the old oak where she learns that her new friends, Holy Oak and Hawk, have been watching her grow up, and that Grandfather once played beneath this very tree when he was a boy. This story is one of friendship, and connection with a living landscape.