Alan Brennert – författare

Bestseller Alan Brennert''s spellbinding story about a family of dreamers and their lives within the legendary Palisades Amusement ParkGrowing up in the 1930s, there is no more magical place than Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey—especially for seven-year-old Antoinette, who horrifies her mother by insisting on the unladylike nickname Toni, and her brother, Jack. Toni helps her parents, Eddie and Adele Stopka, at the stand where they sell homemade French fries amid the roar of the Cyclone roller coaster. There is also the lure of the world''s biggest salt-water pool, complete with divers whose astonishing stunts inspire Toni, despite her mother''s insistence that girls can''t be high divers.But a family of dreamers doesn''t always share the same dreams, and then the world intrudes: There''s the Great Depression, and Pearl Harbor, which hits home in ways that will split the family apart; and perils like fire and race riots in the park. Both Eddie and Jack face the dangers of war, while Adele has ambitions of her own—and Toni is determined to take on a very different kind of danger in impossible feats as a high diver. Yet they are all drawn back to each other—and to Palisades Park—until the park closes forever in 1971.Evocative and moving, with the trademark brilliance at transforming historical events into irresistible fiction that made Alan Brennert''s Moloka''i and Honolulu into reading group favorites, Palisades Park takes us back to a time when life seemed simpler—except, of course, it wasn''t.

Alan Brennert''s novels set in Hawai''i are spellbinding. A "master of historical fiction" (San Francisco Chronicle), Brennert''s storytelling is brimming with warmth, humor, compassion, and vividly realized characters. Moloka''iRachel Kalama, a spirited seven-year-old Hawaiian girl, dreams of visiting far-off land like her father, a merchant seaman. Then one day a rose-colored mark appears on her skin, and those dreams are stolen from her. Taken from her home and family, Rachel is sent to Kalaupapa, the quarantined leprosy settlement on the island of Moloka''i. Here her life is supposed to end—but instead she discovers it is just beginning. HonoluluTraveling to Hawaii as a "picture bride" in 1914, Regret finds not the affluent young husband and chance at education she''d been promised, but a poor embittered laborer who takes his frustrations out on his new wife. As she makes her own way in this strange land, with the help of three fellow picture brides, she prospers along with her adopted city. But paradise has its dark side, whether it''s the struggle for survival in Honolulu''s tenements or a crime that will become the most infamous in the island''s history.

NOW A LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER | NAMED A BEST/MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK BY: USA Today • BookRiot • BookBub • LibraryReads • OC Register • Never Ending VoyageThe highly anticipated sequel to Alan Brennert’s acclaimed book club favorite, and national bestseller, Moloka''i"A novel of illumination and affection." —USA Today Alan Brennert’s beloved novel Moloka''i, currently has over 600,000 copies in print. This companion tale tells the story of Ruth, the daughter that Rachel Kalama—quarantined for most of her life at the isolated leprosy settlement of Kalaupapa—was forced to give up at birth.The book follows young Ruth from her arrival at the Kapi''olani Home for Girls in Honolulu, to her adoption by a Japanese couple who raise her on a strawberry and grape farm in California, her marriage and unjust internment at Manzanar Relocation Camp during World War II—and then, after the war, to the life-altering day when she receives a letter from a woman who says she is Ruth’s birth mother, Rachel.Daughter of Moloka''i expands upon Ruth and Rachel’s 22-year relationship, only hinted at in Moloka''i. It’s a richly emotional tale of two women—different in some ways, similar in others—who never expected to meet, much less come to love, one another. And for Ruth it is a story of discovery, the unfolding of a past she knew nothing about. Told in vivid, evocative prose that conjures up the beauty and history of both Hawaiian and Japanese cultures, it’s the powerful and poignant tale that readers of Moloka''i have been awaiting for fifteen years.

In Alan Brennert’s “Skin Deep,” we see for the first time the events of September 15, 1946 from the viewpoint of someone living on the West Coast of the United States. Trina Nelson is a pretty, popular sixteen-year-old high school student whose idyllic life took a turn for the tragic because of the Wild Cards virus. Now, she wants nothing more than to live out her days in the shadowy anonymity of the Jokertown on the Santa Monica Pier. But life, it turns out, has still another wild card to deal Trina…At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Young Rachel Kalama, growing up in idyllic Honolulu in the 1890s, is part of a big, loving Hawaiian family, and dreams of seeing the far-off lands that her father, a merchant seaman, often visits. But at the age of seven, Rachel and her dreams are shattered by the discovery that she has leprosy. Forcibly removed from her family, she is sent to Kalaupapa, the isolated leper colony on the island of Moloka''i.In her exile she finds a family of friends to replace the family she''s lost: a native healer, Haleola, who becomes her adopted "auntie" and makes Rachel aware of the rich culture and mythology of her people; Sister Mary Catherine Voorhies, one of the Franciscan sisters who care for young girls at Kalaupapa; and the beautiful, worldly Leilani, who harbors a surprising secret. At Kalaupapa she also meets the man she will one day marry.True to historical accounts, Moloka''i is the story of an extraordinary human drama, the full scope and pathos of which has never been told before in fiction. But Rachel''s life, though shadowed by disease, isolation, and tragedy, is also one of joy, courage, and dignity. This is a story about life, not death; hope, not despair. It is not about the failings of flesh, but the strength of the human spirit.

A classic novel from the bestselling author of Moloka''i and HonoluluBefore Alan Brennert became a bestselling author of historical novels, he wrote this lyrical fantasy in the vein of The Time Traveler''s Wife. Part love story, part deeply affecting character study, it is a literary tour de force chronicling the parallel lives of two men who were once the same man--until, as the poet Robert Frost wrote, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood/And sorry I could not travel both/And be one traveler..."Thirteen years ago, Richard Cochrane left his small New England town to pursue his dreams of an acting career. But on some other level of reality there is also a Rick Cochrane, who chose instead to set aside his dreams, marry the woman he loved, and raise a family. Today, neither man is happy with the choice he made--but as their lives, once separated by time and chance, now draw closer together, Richard and Rick are offered another a last chance to discover "the road not taken."Time and Chance displays the same vivid sense of time and place--and the vibrant, memorable characters drawn with compassion, warmth, and humor--that have made the author''s historical novels national bestsellers and reading group favorites.At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

From the bestselling author of the "dazzling historical saga" (The Washington Post), Moloka''i, comes the irresistible story of a young immigrant bride in a ramshackle town that becomes a great modern city "In Korea in those days, newborn girls were not deemed important enough to be graced with formal names, but were instead given nicknames, which often reflected the parents'' feelings on the birth of a daughter: I knew a girl named Anger, and another called Pity. As for me, my parents named me Regret."Honolulu is the rich, unforgettable story of a young "picture bride" who journeys to Hawai''i in 1914 in search of a better life.Instead of the affluent young husband and chance at an education that she has been promised, she is quickly married off to a poor, embittered laborer who takes his frustrations out on his new wife. Renaming herself Jin, she makes her own way in this strange land, finding both opportunity and prejudice. With the help of three of her fellow picture brides, Jin prospers along with her adopted city, now growing from a small territorial capital into the great multicultural city it is today. But paradise has its dark side, whether it''s the daily struggle for survival in Honolulu''s tenements, or a crime that will become the most infamous in the islands'' history...With its passionate knowledge of people and places in Hawai''i far off the tourist track, Honolulu is most of all the spellbinding tale of four women in a new world, united by dreams, disappointment, sacrifices, and friendship.