| The Indigo Girl: A Novel by Natasha BoydTaking charge of her family's plantation, 16-year-old Eliza Lucas decides to pay off her father's debts with a lucrative commodity: indigo dye. However, in 1739 South Carolina, indigo is an experimental crop and dye-making is a mysterious process known only to the estate's enslaved workers, who brought the knowledge with them from Africa. In exchange for their expertise, Eliza teaches her new assistants to read and write, which is against the law. This atmospheric novel draws on letters and archival documents to tell the story of a real-life entrepreneur and the first woman to be inducted into South Carolina's Business Hall of Fame. |
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| The Revolution of Marina M. by Janet FitchAs revolutionary fervor engulfs 1916 St. Petersburg, budding Bolshevik Marina Makarova rejects her bourgeois background and embraces radical politics. The resulting societal upheaval will affect not only Marina but also her family, friends, and lovers. This sweeping saga stars a courageous and passionate heroine who survives a turbulent era of Russian history and may appeal to fans of Simon Sebag-Montefiore's Sashenka. |
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Enchantress of Numbers
by Jennifer Chiaverini
The only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the most brilliant, revered, and scandalous of the Romantic poets, Ada was destined for fame long before her birth. Estranged from Ada’s father, who was infamously “mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” Ada’s mathematician mother is determined to save her only child from her perilous Byron heritage. Banishing fairy tales and make-believe from the nursery, Ada’s mother provides her daughter with a rigorous education grounded in mathematics and science. Any troubling spark of imagination—or worse yet, passion or poetry—is promptly extinguished. Or so her mother believes.
When Ada is introduced into London society as a highly eligible young heiress, she at last discovers the intellectual and social circles she has craved all her life. Little does she realize that her delightful new friendship with inventor Charles Babbage—brilliant, charming, and occasionally curmudgeonly—will shape her destiny.
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Mr. Dickens and His Carol
by Samantha Silva
Charles Dickens is not feeling the Christmas spirit. His newest book is an utter flop, the critics have turned against him, relatives near and far hound him for money. While his wife plans a lavish holiday party for their ever-expanding family and circle of friends, Dickens has visions of the poor house. But when his publishers try to blackmail him into writing a Christmas book to save them all from financial ruin, he refuses. And a serious bout of writer’s block sets in.
Frazzled and filled with self-doubt, Dickens seeks solace in his great palace of thinking, the city of London itself. On one of his long night walks, in a once-beloved square, he meets the mysterious Eleanor Lovejoy, who might be just the muse he needs. As Dickens’ deadlines close in, Eleanor propels him on a Scrooge-like journey that tests everything he believes about generosity, friendship, ambition, and love. The story he writes will change Christmas forever.
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| The Last Midwife by Sandra DallasThe only midwife in the isolated mining town of Swandyke, Colorado, Gracy Brookens believes with all her heart that delivering babies is her life's purpose. When a wealthy mine owner accuses her of murdering his infant son, Gracy's life and livelihood are threatened. Although Gracy knows that she's innocent, she also realizes that it may not matter -- being a witness to people's private lives makes her dangerous to those with secrets to keep. Like author Sandra Dallas' previous novel, Fallen Women, The Last Midwife employs well-researched details of life in 1880s Colorado to tell the dramatic story of a marginalized woman who confronts a small town's social elite in her pursuit of truth. |
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| Monsoon Summer by Julia GregsonAfter serving as a nurse during World War II, trainee midwife Kit Smallwood marries Anto Thekken, an Oxford-educated Indian physician, and accompanies him to Bombay, where she's accepted a position overseeing a charitable maternity hospital. An already challenging job is made more difficult by the disapproval of both her Anglo-Indian mother and her husband's traditional family. Set in a newly independent India, Monsoon Summer introduces an idealistic young woman navigating both married life and a society in transition. |
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| The Midwife of Hope River: A Novel by Patricia HarmanDuring the Great Depression, West Virginia midwife Patience Murphy delivers babies to women who can't afford a doctor. Dogged by her own scandalous history, Patience maintains a solitary lifestyle until she unexpectedly acquires an African-American apprentice, Bitsy, and a colleague, Daniel Hester, a World War I veteran to whom she slowly opens her heart. But when Patience's past eventually catches up with her, it threatens to destroy everything she's worked for. Author Patricia Harman, a certified nurse-midwife, skillfully depicts the profession of midwifery while bringing to life a rural Appalachian community of the 1930s. |
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| The Orphan Mother: A Novel by Robert HicksBorn into slavery, Mariah Reddick (first introduced in The Widow of the South) is now a free woman and a successful midwife in Franklin, Tennessee. Occupied with her work and the management of her modest property holdings, she's always steered clear of politics. Then her only child, Theopolis, is killed at a rally, prompting Mariah to seek his killers and bring them to justice. Set during Reconstruction, this novel explores a mother's grief while exposing the racial fault lines in a segregated Southern town. |
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