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Historical Fiction August 2019 Calling All Patrons . . . Do you have a book you would love to recommend to other patrons? We would like to hear from you! Please click on the link below and fill out the form. (Your title should be part of the Avon Lake Library collection.) The review may be posted in the library for patrons who are looking for book suggestions.
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| Star Path: People of Cahokia by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal GearHow do you say no to a god?
Cahokia recovers from a year of chaos following a near civil war and the god incarnate, Morning Star, has declared that his human sister Night Shadow Star and her slave Fire Cat must make a dangerous journey to far off Cofitachequi. For an old threat has arisen on the other side of the great eastern mountains - their brother, Walking Smoke, a madman who is convinced that he is the true deity destined to rule Cahokia.
Night Shadow Star is also ruled by the Underworld Lord, Piasa, but this power dangles a chance of happiness in front of Night Shadow Star and Fire Cat - if they succeed with his agenda, they might become nameless, clanless, and worthless. And thus free.
But the treacherous Tenasee River that they must travel holds its own perils. And at the end of the journey, Walking Smoke prepares to spring his trap. |
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| The Last Collection: A Novel of Elsa Schiaparelli and Coco Chanel by Jeanne MackinParis, 1938. Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli are fighting for recognition as the most successful and influential fashion designer in France, and their rivalry is already legendary. They oppose each other at every turn, in both their politics and their designs: Chanel's are classic, elegant, and practical; Schiaparelli's bold, experimental, and surreal.
When Lily Sutter, a recently widowed young American teacher, visits her brother, Charlie, in Paris, he insists on buying her a couture dress--a Chanel. Lily, however, prefers a Schiaparelli. Charlie's beautiful and socially prominent girlfriend soon begins wearing Schiaparelli's designs as well, and much of Paris follows in her footsteps.
Schiaparelli offers budding artist Lily a job at her store, and Lily finds herself increasingly involved with Schiaparelli and Chanel's personal war. Their fierce competition reaches new and dangerous heights as the Nazis and the looming threat of World War II bear down on Paris. |
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| Deep River by Karl MarlantesBorn into a farm family in late nineteenth-century Finland, the three Koski siblings—Ilmari, Matti, and Aino—are brought up on the virtue of maintaining their sisu in the face of increasing hardship, especially after their nationalist father is arrested by imperial Russian authorities, never to be seen again.
Lured by the prospects of the Homestead Act, Ilmari and Matti set sail for America, and the politicized young Aino, haunted by the specter of betrayal after her Marxist cell is disastrously exposed, follows soon after. Not far from the majestic Columbia River and in the shadow of Douglas firs a hundred meters high, the brothers have established themselves among a logging community in southern Washington, and it is here, in the New World, that each sibling comes into their own—Ilmari as the family’s spiritual rock; Matti as a fearless logger and the embodiment of the entrepreneurial spirit; and Aino as a fiercely independent woman and union activist who, time and again, sacrifices for the political beliefs that have sustained her through it all. |
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| The North Water by Ian McGuire1859. A man joins a whaling ship bound for the Arctic Circle. Having left the British Army with his reputation in tatters, Patrick Sumner has little option but to accept the position of ship's surgeon on this ill-fated voyage. But when, deep into the journey, a cabin boy is discovered brutally killed, Sumner finds himself forced to act. Soon he will face an evil even greater than he had encountered at the siege of Delhi, in the shape of Henry Drax: harpooner, murderer, monster . . . |
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The Far Side of the World
by Patrick O'Brian
The war of 1812 continues, and Jack Aubrey sets course for Cape Horn on a mission after his own heart: intercepting a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade. Stephen Maturin has fish of his own to fry in the world of secret intelligence. Disaster in various guises awaits them in the Great South Sea and in the far reaches of the Pacific: typhoons, castaways, shipwrecks, murder, and criminal insanity.
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Moby-Dick
by Herman Melville
"It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."
So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.
This edition of Moby-Dick, which reproduces the definitive text of the novel, includes invaluable explanatory notes, along with maps, illustrations, and a glossary of nautical terms.
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A Battle Won
by Sean Russell
Winter 1793-the Reign of Terror rips through revolutionary France. In Plymouth, England, Master and Commander Charles Hayden is given orders to return to the ill-fated HMS Themis as the British fight the French for control of the strategically located island of Corsica.
But within hours out of port, Hayden's uncanny knack for attracting the attention of the French navy sees Themis thrown back into action. When she lands in Corsica and her men join forces with native insurgents, Hayden finds himself at the vanguard of a brutal clash of empires.
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Contact your librarian for more great books! |
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Avon Lake Public Library 32649 Electric Blvd. Avon Lake, Ohio 44012 440-933-8128alpl.org |
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