| The fox wife by Yangsze ChooSteeped in Japanese folklore, this lush and intricately plotted novel is set in 1908 Manchuria, where teacher-turned-P.I. Bao Gong investigates the identity of a local woman found dead in the snow, while rumours spread in the community about shape-shifting fox spirits. The story of a mysterious, vengeance-seeking young woman named Snow unfolds in parallel, until the narratives converge in unanticipated and historically significant ways. |
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| Wolves of winter by Dan JonesIn this sequel to Essex Dogs, which first introduced readers to the titular mercenary crew, the Dogs are still licking their wounds after the battle of Crécy when the siege of Calais begins. King Edward is determined to take the city no matter the cost, plunging the Dogs and their comrades into a long, cold, bitter fight to survive the winter. |
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Maude Horton's glorious revenge
by Lizzie Pook
In Victorian London, when she discovers her sister's death aboard the Makepeace was no accident and that the ship's scientist Edison Stowe was responsible, Maude Horton, to find the truth, begins shadowing Edison, enacting the ultimate revenge to get justice for her sister.
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| The road from Belhaven by Margot LiveseyGrowing up on her grandparents' poor but picturesque farm in 19th-century Scotland, orphan Lizzie Craig discovers she has the second sight. When, at age 16, she follows her suitor Louis to Glasglow, her life grows complex in ways that her gift, inexplicably, failed to warn her about. For fans of: the heroines in Edith Wharton novels. |
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| Twilight territory by Andrew X. PhamIn World War II-era Vietnam, Le Tuyet is a single mother living in a remote fishing village after her divorce, which ended the life of luxury she once had in Saigon. With the arrival of the Japanese occupation force comes conflicted officer Yamazaki Takeshi, whose immediate connection with Tuyet will change both of their lives forever, for better or worse. |
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Glorious exploits
by Ferdia Lennon
It's 412 BC, and Athens' invasion of Sicily has failed catastrophically. Thousands of Athenian soldiers are held captive in the quarries of Syracuse. Lampo and Gelon are local potters, young men with no work and barely two obols to rub together. With not much to fill their time, they take to visiting the nearby quarry, where they discover prisoners who will, in desperation, recite lines from the plays of Euripides in return for scraps of bread and a scattering of olives. And so an idea is born: the men will put on Medea in the quarry, because after all, you can hate the Athenians for invading your territory, but still love their poetry. But as the performance draws near and the audacity of their enterprise dawns on them, it becomes difficult to distinguish between enemies and friends.
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The book of days
by Francesca Kay
Anno Domini 1546. In a manor house in England a young woman feels the walls are closing round her, while her dying husband is obsessed by his vision of a chapel where prayers will be said for his immortal soul. As the days go by and the chapel takes shape, the outside world starts to intrude. And as the old ways are replaced by the new, the people of the village sense a dangerous freedom.
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| The American daughters by Maurice Carlos RuffinAfter her mother dies of a fever, Ady, a young enslaved woman in antebellum New Orleans, keeps the family dream of freedom alive despite her grief. Ady finds a mother figure in Lenore, a free woman of colour, and through her is introduced to an underground network known only as "the Daughters," who work to undermine the nascent Confederacy from the inside. |
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The lost child
by Kathleen McGurl
1912. As the steamship Carpathia takes the survivors of the Titanic to New York, Lucy desperately searches the decks for her baby, thrust into the arms of another woman as a lifeboat left, and now nowhere to be found. Madeleine is helping her journalist husband to interview the survivors, and when she meets Lucy, she promises she will do anything she can to help her find her lost child. 2022. When archivist Jackie finds a notebook containing the stories of women saved by the Carpathia amongst an auction lot, she learns the story of the missing baby. Desperate to start a family of her own, she feels compelled to dig further. And her search will lead her to a century-old mystery.
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The wartime book club
by Kate Thompson
Jersey, 1943. Once a warm and neighbourly community, now German soldiers patrol the cobbled streets, imposing a harsh rule on the people of the island. Grace La Mottee, the island's only librarian, is ordered to destroy books which threaten the new regime. Instead, she hides the stories away in secret. Along with her headstrong best friend, postwoman Bea Rose, she wants to fight back. So she forms the wartime book club: a lifeline, offering fearful islanders the joy and escapism of reading. But as the occupation drags on, the women's quiet acts of bravery become more perilous and more important than ever before. And, when tensions turn to violence, they are forced to face the true, terrible cost of resistance.
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| Ours by Phillip B. WilliamsIn this sweeping and atmospheric debut novel by poet Phillip B. Williams, formerly enslaved people find refuge in the titular Missouri town, created in the 1830s by a remarkable free Black woman and hidden from outsiders. As time goes by, residents begin to question the rules they must follow to keep Ours safe (especially the prohibition on leaving town), and wonder if they are truly free. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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