Staff Picks
Herbal Medicine fiction
- Ariel H.
- Friday, April 23, 2021
Collection
As we cultivate our gardens and spruce up the place, why not entertain yourself with some herbal medicinal reads? Fiction, of course!
Let's take a break from the dust, dirt, and heat. Time to grab a glass of ice cold lemonade, tea, or infused water and add just a hint of herbal fun to the mix.
Thyme of Death
A Mystery Introducing China Bayles
Published in 1992
When China's friend Jo dies of an apparent suicide, China looks behind the quaint facade of Pecan Springs and takes a suspicious look at everyone.
Witches of East End
Published in 2011
Joanna and her daughters Freya and Ingrid live in North Hampton, out on the tip of Long Island. All three women lead seemingly quiet, uneventful existences. But they are harboring a mighty secret-- they are powerful witches banned from using their magic. When mysterious, violent attacks begin to plague the town and a young girl disappears over the Fourth of July weekend, they realize it's time to uncover who and what dark forces are working against them.
The Wild Girl
Published in 2015
"Dortchen Wild lives in the small German kingdom of Hesse-Cassel in the early 19th century. She finds herself irresistibly drawn to the boy next door, the handsome but very poor fairy tale scholar Wilhelm Grimm. It is a time of tyranny and terror: Napoleon Bonaparte wants to conquer all of Europe, and Hesse-Cassel is one of the first kingdoms to fall. Forced to live under oppressive French rule, Wilhelm and his brothers quietly rebel by preserving old half-forgotten tales that had once been told by the firesides of houses grand and small over the land. As Dortchen tells Wilhelm some of the most powerful and compelling stories in what will one day become his and Jacob's famous fairy tale collection, their love blossoms"--Amazon.com.
The Physician
Published in 2012
Eleventh-century England and Persia are the backgrounds of this story of an orphan named Rob Cole, who is apprenticed to a travelling barber-surgeon and, discovering in himself a gift for healing, decides to study medicine with the legendary Avicenna.
Practical Magic
Published in 2003
For more than two hundred years, the Owens women had been blamed for everything that went wrong in their Massachusetts town. And Gillian and Sally endured that fate as well; as children, the sisters were outsiders. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, but all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape. One would do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they shared brought them back, almost as if by magic ...
The Birth House
Published in 2009
The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the first daughter to be born in five generations of the Rare family. As a child in an isolated village in Nova Scotia, she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for healing and a kitchen filled with herbs and folk remedies. During the turbulent first years of World War I, Dora becomes the midwife's apprentice. Together, they help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labors, breech births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling sex lives.But when Gilbert Thomas, a brash medical doctor, comes to Scots Bay with promises of fast, painless childbirth, some of the women begin to question Miss Babineau's methods?and after Miss Babineau's death, Dora is left to carry on alone. In the face of fierce opposition, she must summon all of her strength to protect the birthing traditions and wisdom that have been passed down to her.Filled with details that are as compelling as they are surprising?childbirth in the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion, the prescribing of vibratory treatments to cure hysteria and a mysterious elixir called Beaver Brew?Ami McKay has created an arresting and unforgettable portrait of the struggles that women faced to have control of their own bodies and to keep the best parts of tradition alive in the world of modern medicine.
Madapple
Published in 2008
A girl who has been brought up in near isolation is thrown into a twisted web of family secrets and religious fundamentalism when her mother dies and she goes to live with relatives she never knew she had.
Briar's Book
Published in 2000
Briar, a young mage-in-training, and his teacher Rosethorn must use their magic to fight a deadly plague that is ravaging Summersea.
The Harvester.
Published in 2015
A Gripping Romance in a Natural Setting. 'To my way of thinking and working, the greatest service a piece of fiction can do any reader is to leave him with a higher ideal of life than he had when he began. If in one small degree it shows him where he can be...gentler, saner, cleaner, kindlier...it is a wonder-working book. If it opens his eyes to one beauty in nature he never saw for himself and leads him one step toward the God of the Universe, it is a beneficial book...' In Gene Stratton-Porter's novel, The Harvester, a noble and kindly man harvests wild plants for medicines. When meets the woman of his dreams, he pursues her with all his heart.
The Hummingbird's Daughter
A Novel
Published in 2005
This historical novel is based on Urrea's real great-aunt Teresita, who had healing powers and was acclaimed as a saint. Urrea has researched historical accounts and family records for years to get an accurate story.