Publisher: Scribner
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/05/2012
ISBN-13: 9781451660463
ISBN-10: 1451660464

Set in 16th-century Iran, this novel by the author of The Blood of Flowers is based on the life of princess Pari Khan Khanoom Safavi. When Pari's father, the Shah, dies without naming an heir, the realm is plunged into civil unrest as various factions vie for power. Although Pari is a capable administrator and a canny politician, constraints placed on women (even the highest-ranking ones) mean that she must rely on Javaher, a eunuch and her closest adviser, to help her navigate a maze of courtly intrigue. If you enjoy reading about female rulers who use their diplomatic skills and political acumen to survive in treacherous environments, then you'll want to check out Equal of the Sun, which depicts a world not often explored in fiction.

Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/12/2012
ISBN-13: 9781565129238
ISBN-10: 1565129237

Upon arriving in bucolic Brownsburg, Virginia with a suitcase full of cash in hand, World War II veteran Charlie Beale decides to put down roots, buying a parcel of land and finding a job in a butcher shop. In addition to befriending his employer's five-year-old son, Sam, Charlie also falls in love with Sylvan, the star-struck young wife of the town's wealthiest citizen, Harrison "Boaty" Glass. Their illicit, ill-fated affair -- which depends on Sam's secrecy and his willingness to serve as a go-between -- threatens to tear the idyllic town apart. Like author Robert Goolrick's previous novel, the bestselling A Reliable Wife, Heading Out to Wonderful is a psychologically suspenseful tale of love gone awry, replete with gothic overtones.

Publisher: Penguin Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/14/2012
ISBN-13: 9781594203374
ISBN-10: 1594203377

Presented as the memoirs of Count Axel von Fersen (interspersed with commentary by von Fersen's sister, Sophie), The Queen's Lover recounts how the Swedish nobleman befriended and subsequently became the lover of Marie Antoinette in the years leading up to the French Revolution. For more behind-the-scenes glimpses at both the glittering splendor and shadowy intrigue of Louis XVI's court at Versailles, you might enjoy Thomas Chantal's Farewell, My Queen, which unfolds from the perspective of one of Marie Antoinette's closest confidantes, or Michelle Moran's Madame Tussaud, about the famous wax sculptor.

Publisher: PGW
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/05/2012
ISBN-13: 9780802120243
ISBN-10: 0802120245

"Never look back" might as well be the Thornhill family motto. In the decades since English convict William Thornhill earned his freedom and reinvented himself as a prosperous landowner in New South Wales, the past has stayed exactly where William wants it -- in the past. But when William's youngest daughter, Sarah, falls in love with Jack Langland, long-buried secrets come back to haunt the entire family -- secrets that have the power to destroy Sarah and Jack's happiness. Sarah Thornhill completes a loose trilogy about the early history of Australia, which includes The Secret River and The Lieutenant.

Publisher: Riverhead Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/05/2012
ISBN-13: 9781594487019
ISBN-10: 1594487014

Hired to chaperone 15-year-old budding starlet Louise Brooks in New York City during the summer of 1922, respectable Kansas housewife Cora Carlisle has her work cut out for her -- Louise is as cunning as she is charismatic, not to mention precocious, willful, and self-destructive. But Cora has her own private reasons for accepting the job, and her pursuit of her hidden agenda will change her life forever. Although The Chaperone takes place more than a decade before Amor Towles' Rules of Civility, both New York-set novels explore complicated relationships between women who test cultural boundaries in the pursuit of self-discovery while defying their era's social conventions to achieve their goals.

Publisher: Scribner
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/08/2012
ISBN-13: 9781451655384
ISBN-10: 145165538X

Having studied under American ballet master George Balanchine since the age of 11, ballerina Tanaquil "Tanny" Le Clercq is only 23 when she weds the 47-year-old choreographer, becoming both his fifth wife and his muse. But when Tanny contracts polio during a European tour, her dancing career comes to an abrupt end -- straining the couple's already complicated, turbulent relationship. Fans of Paula McClain's The Paris Wife may enjoy this biographical novel, whose narrator evokes a strong sense of time and place as she recounts her relationship with the famous man whom she loved and lost.

Publisher: W.W. Norton
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 07/27/2009
ISBN-13: 9780393069150
ISBN-10: 039306915X

For the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Anne, and Emily, the small village of Haworth on the Yorkshire moors is dreary, isolated, and unable to contain their powerful imaginations. When attractive clergyman William Weightman arrives at the parish, all three women are drawn to his good looks and his passion for reform -- but it's intelligent, independent Emily who forms a special bond with him that will later provide the inspiration for her novel Wuthering Heights. There's no shortage of books -- fiction or nonfiction -- about these famous sisters; if you'd like to read more, try Glyn Hughes' novel Brontë or Lucasta Miller's nonfiction The Brontë Myth, which seeks to reveal the real women behind the literary legends.

Publisher: Ballantine Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 02/22/2011
ISBN-13: 9780345521309
ISBN-10: 0345521307

In life, Hadley Richardson was often overshadowed by her famous husband, literary lion Ernest Hemingway. In this novel, she takes center stage to recount her relationship with the writer. Following a chance meeting and a whirlwind courtship, the couple embarks on a journey to Paris, where their circle of friends includes James Joyce, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein. If you're interested in other stories about what it's really like to live with an American icon, try T.C. Boyle's The Women, about the many loves of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, or Jay Parini's The Passages of H.M., which unfolds from the perspective of Herman Melville's wife.

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Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 02/01/2011
ISBN-13: 9780374161873
ISBN-10: 0374161879

This "powerfully imagined, poetic" (Kirkus Reviews) novel blends fact and fiction to recreate the final years of famed Irish playwright J.M. Synge through the eyes of his muse, actress Molly Allgood. Despite the fact that his controversial masterpiece, The Playboy of the Western World, incites riots when it's first performed in 1907, Synge himself is a reserved, brooding man -- with whom feisty 18-year-old Molly falls in love despite their differences in age, class, and religion. Years later, eking out an impoverished, alcoholic existence in London, Molly reflects on their relationship and its effect on her life.

First Chapter