Nicholas Sparks
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5 - AR Pts: 14
Lexile measure
HL 780L
Language
English
Description
Is there really such thing as a lucky charm? The hero of Nicholas Sparks's new novel believes he's found one in the form of a photograph of a smiling woman he's never met, but who he comes to believe holds the key to his destiny. The chain of events that leads to him possessing the photograph and finding the woman pictured in it is the stuff of love stories.
Author
Language
English
Description
"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Wish comes a poignant love story about risking everything for a dream--and whether it's possible to leave the past behind. Colby Mills once felt destined for a musical career, until tragedy grounded his aspirations. Now the head of a small family farm in North Carolina, he spontaneously takes a gig playing at a bar in St. Pete's Beach, Florida, seeking a rare break from his duties at home. But...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 6.1 - AR Pts: 8
Lexile measure
970L
Language
English
Description
Sparks (A Bend in the Road, etc.) logs more miles on the winding high road of romance with the story of two middle-aged people who meet by chance in the small North Carolina coastal town of Rodanthe. The impassioned but doomed romance seems to owe much to Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County. Once again, a housewife who has focused on everyone but herself indulges in a brief, intense, secret affair with a stranger who changes her life...
5) The guardian
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.1 - AR Pts: 19
Lexile measure
760L
Language
English
Description
At 29, Julie Barenson is too young to give up on love. Four years after her husband's tragic death, she is finally ready to risk giving her heart again. But to whom? Will it be to the handsome and sophisticated Richard Bonham, a rich engineer who treats her like a queen, or to the less debonair Mike Harris, a humble mechanic who is Julie's best friend in the world? In a decision that should have brought her more happiness than she's had in years,...
6) See me
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.5 - AR Pts: 22
Lexile measure
830L
Language
English
Description
Colin Hancock is giving his second chance his best shot. At twenty-eight, he's focused only on walking a straight line-getting his teaching degree, working out at the gym religiously, and avoiding all the places and people that proved so destructive in his earlier life. The last thing he's looking for is a serious relationship. But when Maria Sanchez crosses paths with him on a rainswept night in North Carolina, his plans are upended in a way that...
7) The choice
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.7 - AR Pts: 13
Lexile measure
870L
Language
English
Description
"Travis Parker has everything a man could want: a good job, loyal friends, even a waterfront home in small-town North Carolina. In full pursuit of the good life-- boating, swimming, and regular barbecues with his good-natured buddies-- he holds the vague conviction that a serious relationship with a woman would only cramp his style. That is, until Gabby Holland moves in next door. Despite his attempts to be neighborly, the appealing redhead seems...
8) The wedding
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.7 - AR Pts: 11
Lexile measure
930L
Language
English
Description
"After thirty years, Wilson Lewis is forced to face a painful truth. His wife, Jane, has fallen out of love with him, and it is entirely his fault. Despite the shining example of his in-laws, Noah and Allie Calhoun (originally recounted in The Notebook), and their fifty-year love affair, Wilson is unable to express his true feelings. He has spent too little time at home and too much at the office. Now his daughter is about to marry, and his wife is...
9) The rescue
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.4 - AR Pts: 15
Lexile measure
740L
Language
English
Description
In the face of raging fires or deadly accidents, volunteer fireman Taylor McAden feels compelled to take terrifying risks to save lives. But there is one leap of faith Taylor can't bring himself to make: he can't fall in love. For all his adult years, Taylor has sought out women who need to be rescued, women he leaves as soon as their crisis is over and the relationship starts to become truly intimate. When a raging storm hits his small Southern town,...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.6 - AR Pts: 15
Lexile measure
HL 830L
Language
English
Description
"Trevor Benson never intended to move back to New Bern, NC. But when a mortar blast outside the hospital where he worked as an orthopedic surgeon sent him home from Afghanistan with devastating injuries, the dilapidated cabin he inherited from his grandfather seemed as good a place to regroup as any. Tending to his grandfather's beloved bee hives while gearing up for a second stint in medical school, Trevor isn't prepared to fall in love with a local...
11) The longest ride
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.7 - AR Pts: 20
Language
English
Description
Ira Levinson is in trouble. Ninety-one years old and stranded and injured after a car crash, he struggles to retain consciousness until a blurry image materializes beside him: his beloved wife Ruth, who passed away nine years ago. Urging him to hang on, she forces him to remain alert by recounting the stories of their lifetime together. Ira knows that Ruth can't possibly be in the car with him, but he clings to her words and his memories, reliving...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.3 - AR Pts: 14
Lexile measure
730L
Language
English
Description
Miles Ryan's life seemed to end the day his wife was killed in a hit-and-run accident two years ago. As deputy sheriff of New Bern, North Carolina, he not only grieves for her and worries about their young son Jonah but longs to bring the unknown driver to justice. Then Miles meets Sarah Andrews, Jonah's second-grade teacher. A young woman recovering from a difficult divorce, Sarah moved to New Bern hoping to start over. Tentatively, Miles and Sarah...
13) Dear John
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.5 - AR Pts: 13
Lexile measure
850L
Language
English
Description
John, a high school dropout, enlists in the Army not knowing what else to do with his life. While in the Army he meets Savannah, they fall in love and she awaits his return from the Army. After 9/11 John feels it's his duty to re-enlist. During their long separation Savannah falls in love and marries someone else.
14) The best of me
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 6.2 - AR Pts: 15
Lexile measure
920L
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"In the spring of 1984, high school students Amanda Collier and Dawson Cole fell deeply in love. Though they were from opposite sides of the tracks, their love for each other seemed to defy the realities of life in the small town of Oriental, North Carolina. But as the summer of their senior year came to a close, unforeseen events would tear the young couple apart, setting them on radically divergent paths. Now, twenty-five years later, Amanda...
15) The notebook
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.5 - AR Pts: 8
Lexile measure
850L
Language
English
Description
A man with a faded, well-worn notebook open in his lap. A woman experiencing a morning ritual she doesn't understand. Until he begins to read to her. The Notebook is an achingly tender story about the enduring power of love, a story of miracles that will stay with you forever. Set amid the austere beauty of coastal North Carolina in 1946, The Notebook begins with the story of Noah Calhoun, a rural Southerner returned home from World War II. Noah,...
16) Two by two
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.5 - AR Pts: 26
Lexile measure
HL 810L
Language
English
Description
"At 32, Russell Green has it all: a stunning wife, a lovable six year-old daughter, a successful career as an advertising executive and an expansive home. He is living the dream, and his marriage to the bewitching Vivian is the center of that. But underneath the shiny surface of this perfect existence, fault lines are beginning to appear, and no one is more surprised than Russ when he finds every aspect of the life he took for granted turned upside...
17) The last song
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.1 - AR Pts: 17
Lexile measure
790L
Language
English
Description
Seventeen year-old Veronica “Ronnie” Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alienated from her parents, especially her father… until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie's father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet...
18) Safe haven
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.3 - AR Pts: 15
Lexile measure
830L
Language
English
Description
"When a mysterious young woman named Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Beautiful yet self-effacing, Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships: one with Alex, a widowed store owner with a kind heart and two young children; and another with her plainspoken single neighbor, Jo. Despite her reservations,...
19) Every breath
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 6.2 - AR Pts: 13
Lexile measure
890L
Language
English
Description
Hope Anderson is at a crossroads. At thirty-six, she's been dating her boyfriend, an orthopedic surgeon, for six years. With no wedding plans in sight, and her father recently diagnosed with ALS, she decides to use a week at her family's cottage in Sunset Beach, North Carolina, to ready the house for sale and mull over some difficult decisions about her future. Tru Walls has never visited North Carolina but is summoned to Sunset Beach by a letter...
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.8 - AR Pts: 8
Lexile measure
1010L
Language
English
Description
"There was a time when the world was sweeter... when the women in Beaufort, North Carolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats. Every April, when the wind smells of both the sea and lilacs, Landon Carter remembers 1958, his last year at Beaufort High. Landon had dated a girl or two, and even once sworn that he'd been in love. Certainly the last person he thought he'd fall for was Jamie, the shy, almost ethereal daughter of the town's Baptist minister......