📮 3 Books by Ellen Barker (.ePUB)

Ellen Barker grew up in Kansas City during a period of demographic upheaval, and she returns there in her novels. She has a bachelor’s degree in urban studies from Washington University in Saint Louis, where she developed a passion for how cities work, and don’t. She began her career as an urban planner, then spent many years working for large consulting firms, first as a writer-editor and later managing large data systems. Her volunteer work involves years of pet-assisted therapy with children in “the system,” both foster care and prison. She is the author ofEast of Troost, which introduced readers to the neighborhood whereThe Breakstakes place, andStill Needs Work, which takes place in the same area. She now lives in Los Altos, California, with her husband and their German shepherd, Boris, who is the inspiration for the dog in this novel.

♻️ Book's Info:

East of Troost

East of Troost (2022) Under the guise of a starting-over story, this novel deals with subtle racism today, overt racism in the past, and soul-searching about what to do about it in everyday living.East of Troost Under the guise of a starting-over story, this novel deals with subtle racism today, overt racism in the past, and soul-searching about what to do about it in everyday living. East of Troost ’s fictional narrator has moved back to her childhood home in a neighborhood that is now mostly Black and vastly changed by an expressway that displaced hundreds of families. It is the area located east of Troost Avenue, an invisible barrier created in the early 1900s to keep the west side of Kansas City white, “safely” cordoned off from the Black families on the east side. When the narrator moves back to her old neighborhood in pursuit of a sense of home, she deals with crime, home repair, and skepticism—what is this middle-aged white woman doing here, living alone? Supported by a wise neighbor, a stalwart dog, and the local hardware store, we see her navigate her adult world while we get glimpses of author Ellen Barker’s real life there as a teenager in the sixties, when white families were fleeing and Black families moving in—and sometimes back out when met with hatred and violence. A regional story with universal themes, East of Troost East of Troost goes to the basics of human behavior: compassion and cruelty, fear and courage, comedy and drama.

Still Needs Work

Still Needs Work (2024) Marianne gets the call while attending a conference in San Francisco: laid off, department dissolved. Two days later, she’s back home in the dicey Kansas City neighborhood she moved to after a reversal of fortune two years ago. After all this time rebuilding her life, it’s all collapsed. The daily grind is just that—a grind. Until it isn’t, until it’s gone and taken health insurance, retirement contributions, and the currency to buy food and shelter, never mind the free coffee at the office, along with it. In the aftermath of her layoff, Marianne tries all the usual routes to re-employment, but a middle-aged woman, regardless of experience, has little job cred in the tech world, especially with an address in the heartland. A contract job at a Chicago startup morphs through two acquisitions in eight weeks. And then she’s mugged in her own neighborhood, which frightens her enough to consider a permanent move away. An irreverent look at the alien denizens of the tech world, the fraught business of mergers and acquisitions, and the parallel universe of job openings, Still Needs Work Still Needs Work is a contemporary story of the working world wrapped around a very human story of one person, her dog, and her community.

The Breaks

The Breaks (2025) A contemporary literary novel about an unlikely friendship between two very different women, The Breaks will appeal to fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. A contemporary literary novel about an unlikely friendship between two very different women, The Breaks will appeal to fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. Waking up in the emergency room with a broken arm is not one of the ways Marianne imagined her first date with Carl, if it is a date, ending up. Nor was driving up to the entrance of a women’s prison a few weeks later anywhere on her radar. But here she is. At least I’m on this side of the gate. At least I’m on this side of the gate. She picks up newly released Stephanie, as a favor to a nun she barely knows, returns to her East of Troost home, and finds herself immersed in a whole new drama. East of Troost is Marianne’s childhood neighborhood, downtrodden by decades of redlining and a wide swath of destruction to make way for an expressway. Marianne moves back after a reversal of fortune limits her options. She repairs the house and deals with a couple of “incidents”—hence her acquaintance with Officer Carl. Meanwhile, Sister Colette bought the house behind her and is taking in women who, in her words, need to learn to “just live.” As Stephanie helps Marianne cope with her broken arm, she gradually comes out of her shell and teaches Marianne a thing or two about just living.

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EoT:

https://uploda.sh/riGQgrzVlzWB

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TB:

https://uploda.sh/q628a3nqqGsg

https://devuploads.com/9st9bnw9lnx8