Paulette Jiles

National Book Award Finalist—Fiction It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence. In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows. Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.” Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forging a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land. Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember—strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become—in the eyes of the law—a kidnapper himself. Exquisitely rendered and morally complex, News of the World is a brilliant work of historical fiction that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.

A Novel

News of the World

"In March 1865, the long and bitter War between the States is winding down. Till now, twenty-three-year-old Simon Boudlin has evaded military duty thanks to his slight stature, youthful appearance, and utter lack of compunction about bending the truth. But following a barroom brawl in Victoria, Texas, Simon finds himself conscripted, however belatedly, into the Confederate Army. Luckily his talent with a fiddle gets him a comparatively easy position in a regimental band. Weeks later, on the eve of the Confederate surrender, Simon and his bandmates are called to play for officers and their families from both sides of the conflict. There the quick-thinking, audacious fiddler can't help but notice the lovely Doris Mary Dillon, an indentured girl from Ireland, who is governess to a Union colonel's daughter. After the surrender, Simon and Doris go their separate ways. He will travel around Texas seeking fame and fortune as a musician. She must accompany the colonel's family to finish her three years of service. But Simon cannot forget the fair Irish maiden, and vows that someday he will find her again"--Provided by publisher.

Simon the Fiddler

A Novel of Murder, Loss, and Vengeance

Chenneville

For the Colleys of southeastern Missouri, the War between the States is a plague that threatens devastation, despite the family’s avowed neutrality. For eighteen-year-old Adair Colley, it is a nightmare that tears apart her family and forces her and her sisters to flee. The treachery of a fellow traveler, however, brings about her arrest, and she is caged with the criminal and deranged in a filthy women’s prison. But young Adair finds that love can live even in a place of horror and despair. Her interrogator, a Union major, falls in love with her and vows to return for her when the fighting is over. Before he leaves for battle, he bestows upon her a precious gift: freedom. Now an escaped "enemy woman," Adair must make her harrowing way south buoyed by a promise . . . seeking a home and a family that may be nothing more than a memory.

Enemy Women

At the end of the Civil War, Britt Johnson, a freed black man, travels with his family from Kentucky to start a new life in Texas. But this wild country holds dangers of its own. When his wife and children are captured during an Indian raid, Britt vows to bring them home or die trying. But his determination and courage quickly land him in the thick of a battle he wants no part of--the struggle between the U.S. government and the Kiowa and Comanche tribes, whose land, freedom and culture are threatened. Paulette Jiles, winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award, the Governor General's Award and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, returns with a story that is grounded in history but that echoes the classic myths. Powerful and nuanced, by turns as beautiful and unforgiving as the frontier itself, The Colour of Lightning is an ambitious and striking novel that confirms Jiles as one of Canada's finest writers.

The Color of Lightning

Witnessing the rise and loss of her family's oil business in the wake of her father's gambling problems, proud young Jeanine accompanies the other women in her family to an abandoned farm when her father dies under dubious circumstances. By the author of Enemy Women. 100,000 first printing.

Stormy Weather

Paulette Jiles, the bestselling author of the highly praised novels The Color of Lightning, Stormy Weather, and Enemy Women, pushes into new territory with Lighthouse Island—a captivating and atmospheric story set in the far future—a literary dystopian tale resonant with love and hope. In the coming centuries the world's population has exploded. The earth is crowded with cities, animals are nearly all extinct, and drought is so widespread that water is rationed. There are no maps, no borders, no numbered years, and no freedom, except for an elite few. It is a harsh world for an orphan like Nadia Stepan. Growing up, she dreams of a green vacation spot called Lighthouse Island, in a place called the Pacific Northwest. When an opportunity for escape arises, Nadia embarks on a dangerous and sometimes comic adventure. Along the way she meets a man who changes the course of her life: James Orotov, a mapmaker and demolition expert. Together, they evade arrest and head north toward a place of wild beauty that lies beyond the megapolis—Lighthouse Island.

Lighthouse Island

a novel

The color of lightning

Sojourns Among the Cree and Ojibway

North Spirit

With the spark and zest of a gin fizz, Jiles invites readers along on an unforgettable rail trip as her hatted heroine, a Katharine Hepburn type, is leaving America, escaping to Canada and hoping to find her Spencer Tracy somewhere in the Dome Car between Vancouver and points east.

A Manual of Etiquette for Ladies Crossing Canada by Train

Sitting in the Club Car Drinking Rum and Karma-kola

La novela que inspiró la película protagonizada por Tom Hanks. Concluida la guerra de Secesión, el capitán Jefferson Kyle Kidd se dedica a viajar por el norte de Texas leyendo artículos de prensa a un público ávido por conocer las noticias del mundo. Les habla de presidentes y reinas, de luchas gloriosas, devastadoras catástrofes y apasionantes aventuras que tienen lugar en cualquier rincón del orbe. El capitán Kidd, un viudo entrado en años que ha vivido tres guerras y combatido en dos, disfruta de su solitaria y desarraigada existencia cuando le ofrecen una moneda de oro por devolver a una niña huérfana que había sido capturada por los kiowas a sus parientes en San Antonio. El viaje al sur a través de cuatrocientas millas de inhóspito territorio va a ser difícil y peligroso. Johanna, que ha olvidado incluso su lengua, piensa en escapar apenas se le presente oportunidad y elude comportarse de modo «civilizado». No obstante, a medida que progresan en su travesía, los dos extraños supervivientes comienzan poco a poco a confiar el uno en el otro, forjando un vínculo entre ellos que, en tierra hostil, supone la diferencia entre la vida y la muerte. New York Times Bestseller «Noticias del gran mundo, nominada al National Book Award, ha sido comparada con la novela Valor de ley, de Charles Portis, y la película Centauros del desierto, de John Ford (el viaje de un hombre para «rescatar» a una niña blanca raptada por los indios). Kidd, el protagonista, ama seleccionar y agrupar artículos, oír los ahogados gritos de sorpresa de la gente y constatar el inmenso poder de la comunicación. Durante las horas de lectura de Noticias del gran mundo, ese poder se restaura como por arte de magia.» JANET MASLIN, NEW YORK TIMES «Los seguidores de Jiles y amantes de la novela histórica no deben perderse este western. El desenlace dejará completamente satisfechos a quienes quieran conocer el destino de sus queridos personajes.» WENDY W. PAIGE

Noticias del gran mundo

The American debut of the widely admired Canadian writer is a compilation drawn from a wide range of writings in prose and poetry.

Blackwater

Denounced as a confederate spy during the American Civil War, Adair Colley is thrown in jail, where she falls in love with her Union interrogator, who helps her to escape. Braving uncounted dangers with courage and wit, Adair struggles to reunite her family and find love again as a free woman.

The Golden Hawks want a clubhouse of their own. But where can they find one in their new housing development on the edge of the city? First they try to make their clubhouse in Joe's bedroom, but their parents get angry when the kids hammer holes in the wall. Then they scare themselves silly looking for scrap wood in an empty--and spooky--apartment building. Finally they try to make money so they can build a clubhouse. Will the Golden Hawks ever have a place to call their own? First published in 1978, The Golden Hawks is an honest and touching look at life on the edge of a Canadian city. A volume in the Where We Live series.

The Golden Hawks

When the horrors of war penetrate the family farm, Adair sets out to find her father. Imprisoned as a Confederate spy en route, she finds love with her Union interrogator, who allows her to escape. Now - against the odds - she must reunite her family and find her love again.

Follows Adair, the daughter of modest farmers in the Missouri Ozarks, who is wrongly accused of enemy collaboration by the Union militia, as she falls in love with her interrogator and embarks on a perilous journey to find her family.

When Jeanine Stoddard's father, the owner of an oil rig, dies suddenly, he leaves behind four women who have no place to go but the abandoned family farm. In dark and affecting prose, Jiles illuminates the hardship, sacrifice and strength of an ordinary family caught short by circumstances beyond their control.

A Collection

Song to the Rising Sun

The author draws on memories from her own youth as she describes her meeting with Jim Johnson, a retired army officer, at a horse-trading show in Missouri, and their subsequent journey through the southern states in search of Jiles' extended family

Paulette Jiles

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