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Historical Fiction April 2019
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New and Recently Released |
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| The Peacock Feast by Lisa GornickIn 1916, eccentric designer Louis Comfort Tiffany dynamites the breakwater in front of his Long Island mansion and floods the nearby beach to keep the locals from using it (to the shock of everyone on the estate). The explosion shakes both the apple crate where Prudence, the daughter of Tiffany’s prized gardener, is sleeping and the rocks where Randall, her seven-year-old brother, is playing. Nearly a century later, Prudence receives an unexpected visit at her New York apartment from Grace, a hospice nurse and the granddaughter of Randall, who Prudence never saw again after he left at age fourteen for California. The mementos Grace carries from her grandfather’s house stir Prudence’s long-repressed memories and bring her to a new understanding of the choices she made in work and love, and what she faces now in her final days. |
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| The Island of Sea Women by Lisa SeeIntroducing best friends Young-sook and Mi-ja, who train as haenyeo, divers in the all-women fishing collectives of Korea's Jeju Island. The Island of Sea Women is an epoch set over many decades, beginning during a period of Japanese colonialism in the 1930s and 1940s, followed by World War II, the Korean War and its aftermath, through the era of cell phones and wet suits for the women divers. Throughout this time, the residents of Jeju find themselves caught between warring empires. Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, and she will forever be marked by this association. Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers in their village. Little do the two friends know that after surviving hundreds of dives and developing the closest of bonds, forces outside their control will push their friendship to the breaking point. |
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American Duchess : A Novel of Consuelo Vanderbilt by Karen Harper On a cold November day in 1895, a carriage approaches St Thomas Episcopal Church on New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Massive crowds surge forward, awaiting their glimpse of heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt. Just 18, the beautiful bride has not only arrived late, but in tears, yet her marriage to the aloof Duke of Marlborough proceeds. Bullied into the wedding by her indomitable mother, Alva, Consuelo loves another. But a deal was made, trading some of the vast Vanderbilt wealth for a title and prestige, and Consuelo, bred to obey, realizes she must make the best of things. At Blenheim Palace, Consuelo is confronted with an overwhelming list of duties, including producing an “heir and a spare,” but her relationship with the duke quickly disintegrates. Consuelo finds an inner strength, charming everyone from debutantes to diplomats including Winston Churchill, as she fights for women’s suffrage. And when she takes a scandalous leap, can she hope to attain love at last…?
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Landfall by Thomas MallonSet during the tumultuous middle of the George W. Bush years, Landfall brings Thomas Mallon's cavalcade of contemporary American politics, which began with Watergate and continued with Finale, to a vivid and emotional climax. The president at the novel's center possesses a personality whose high-speed alternations between charm and petulance, resoluteness and self-pity, continually energize and mystify the panoply of characters around him. They include his acerbic, crafty mother, former First Lady Barbara Bush; his desperately correct and eager-to-please secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice; the gnomic and manipulative Donald Rumsfeld; foreign leaders from Tony Blair to Vladimir Putin; and the caustic one-woman chorus of Ann Richards, Bush's predecessor as governor of Texas. A gallery of political and media figures, from the widowed Nancy Reagan to the philandering John Edwards to the brilliantly contrarian Christopher Hitchens, bring the novel and the era to life.
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Bowlawayby Elizabeth McCracken From the day she is discovered unconscious in a New England cemetery at the turn of the twentieth century—nothing but a bowling ball, a candlepin, and fifteen pounds of gold on her person—Bertha Truitt is an enigma to everyone in Salford, Massachusetts. Her mysterious origin scandalizes and intrigues the townspeople, as does her choice to marry and start a family with Leviticus Sprague, the doctor who revived her. But Bertha is plucky, tenacious, and entrepreneurial, and the bowling alley she opens quickly becomes Salford’s most defining landmark—with Bertha its most notable resident. When Bertha dies in a freak accident, her past resurfaces in the form of a heretofore-unheard-of son, who arrives in Salford claiming he is heir apparent to Truitt Alleys. Soon it becomes clear that, even in her death, Bertha’s defining spirit and the implications of her obfuscations live on, infecting and affecting future generations through inheritance battles, murky paternities, and hidden wills.
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| Next Year in Havana by Chanel CleetonHavana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba's high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country's growing political unrest--until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary. Miami, 2017. Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa's last wish was for Marisol to scatter her ashes in the country of her birth. Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba's tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate. When more family history comes to light and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she'll need the lessons of her grandmother's past to help her understand the true meaning of courage. |
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| The Masterpiece by Fiona DavisThe setting: Grand Central Terminal, in 1928 and 1974. Starring illustrator Clara Darden, who teaches at the Grand Central School of Art, and Virginia Clay, who decades later discovers the remains of the school. When Virginia stumbles upon a striking watercolor, her eyes are opened to the elegance beneath the decay. She embarks on a quest to find the artist of the unsigned masterpiece--an impassioned chase that draws Virginia not only into the battle to save Grand Central but deep into the mystery of Clara Darden, the famed 1920s illustrator who disappeared from history in 1931. |
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| The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor 1917… It was inexplicable, impossible, but it had to be true—didn’t it? When two young cousins, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright from Cottingley, England, claim to have photographed fairies at the bottom of the garden, their parents are astonished. But when one of the great novelists of the time, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, becomes convinced of the photographs’ authenticity, the girls become a national sensation, their discovery offering hope to those longing for something to believe in amid a world ravaged by war. Frances and Elsie will hide their secret for many decades. But Frances longs for the truth to be told. One hundred years later… When Olivia Kavanagh finds an old manuscript in her late grandfather’s bookshop she becomes fascinated by the story it tells of two young girls who mystified the world. But it is the discovery of an old photograph that leads her to realize how the fairy girls’ lives intertwine with hers, connecting past to present, and blurring her understanding of what is real and what is imagined. |
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Friday, April 26 Go, Van Gogh! 6:30 p.m. Explore Van Gogh's works of art, with a focus on pieces at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Register here or at the library. Saturday, April 27 Cranbury Yard Sale at the Library 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. The library is participating in this year's annual Community Yard Sale! Books, movies, games, toys, and so much more will be available, including Mystery Bags filled with amazing swag! See you in front of the library!
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Tuesday, May 14 Great Decisions Screening & Discussion 6:30 p.m. The topic is "Nuclear Negotiations." Register here or at the library. Thursday, May 16The Beatles: Beginnings 6:30 p.m. Scotch Plains resident Paul Groom, who grew up in Liverpool, presents the story of the Beatles' rise from obscurity to international stardom. Groom attended the same high school as Paul and George; the same Sunday school as John; belonged to the youth club where John met Paul, and lived in the same village as George and John! Register here or at the library.
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Cranbury Public Library
23 North Main Street ~
Cranbury, NJ 08512 ~ Phone: 609-655-0555 ~ Contact Us
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