image and description from Amazon.com 

 Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his  job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his  beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that’s before he causes the tragedy  that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to  survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of  brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental  kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his  fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled  teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother’s  enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his  confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might  still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves? 

image and description from Amazon.com 

Winter Garden

by Kristin Hannah

   Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One  stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family business; the  other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous  photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, these two  estranged sisters will find themselves together again, standing  alongside their disapproving mother, Anya, who even now offers no  comfort to her daughters. On his deathbed, their father extracts a  promise: Anya will tell her daughters a story; it is one she began years  ago and never finished. This time she will tell it all the way to the  end.

The tale their mother tells them is unlike anything they’ve  heard before—a captivating, mysterious love story that spans more than  sixty years and moves from frozen, war-torn Leningrad to modern-day  Alaska. Nina’s obsession to uncover the truth will send them all on an  unexpected journey into their mother’s past, where they will discover a  secret so shocking, it shakes the foundation of their family and changes  who they believe they are.