"The world stands out on either side No wider than the heart is wide; Above the world is stretched the sky, No higher than the soul is high." ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), American poet and activist, "Renascence"
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New and Recently Released!
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| Sedition: A Novel by Katharine GrantNewly wealthy, four ambitious men meet in a London coffeehouse and concoct a plan to attract aristocratic husbands for their daughters: they'll hire famed French music teacher Monsieur Belladroit to instruct the young women in the pianoforte, a newly popular instrument, in an attempt to improve their marriage prospects. Unfortunately, the lecherous Belladroit is more interested in seduction than instruction and the ladies in question have plans of their own regarding their futures. For another witty, frequently bawdy tale of love, lust, and the marriage market set in a vividly rendered Georgian England, try Mistress of My Fate by Hallie Rubenfeld. |
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| The Shadow Queen by Sandra GullandBorn into a family of actors, Claudette leaves her parents' theater troupe to become the companion of King Louis XIV's mistress Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Madame de Montespan, also known as The Shadow Queen for her influence over the king. Serving as both confidante and spy, Claudette employs her theatrical talents to keep her mistress informed about friends and rivals alike. However, Athénaïs' increasing fascination with dark magic troubles Claudette, forcing her to question their arrangement and reevaluate her own precarious position at court. Royal intrigue writ large against an atmospheric backdrop distinguishes this 2nd book in the Sun Court Duet, after Mistress of the Sun. |
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| Night in Shanghai by Nicole MonesClassically trained and flat broke, African-American musician Thomas Greene flees segregated Baltimore in 1936 and ends up in Shanghai, where he's hired by Lin, whose father is the boss of one of the city's most powerful crime syndicates. While headlining at a swanky nightclub with his jazz ensemble, Greene meets translator and political activist Song Yuhua, whose affliations with the Communist party and Shanghai's criminal underworld complicate their mutual attraction. Meanwhile, the looming threat of Japanese invasion adds to Greene's increasingly tenuous situation. Like Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues, Night in Shanghai presents a dramatic story of a black musician searching for creative fulfillment and professional success while the world teeters on the brink of war. |
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| Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932: A Novel by Francine ProseAs a teenager, athlete and Olympic hopeful Louisianne “Lou” Villars travels to Paris, where she becomes a coat check girl at the infamous Chameleon Club, a cabaret favored by the city's bohemian demimonde, Lou falls in (and out of) love with performer Arlette, eventually achieving notoriety as a cross-dressing professional racecar driver with connections to the Nazi party. Inspired by the subjects of Brassaï's iconic 1932 photograph "Lesbian Couple at the Monocle," Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932, draws on the real-life experiences of Violette Morris and her contemporaries. |
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| Fallen Beauty by Erika RobuckEnsconced at Steepletop, her upstate New York mansion, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, encouraged by her husband, drinks to excess and embarks on a series of affairs with men and women alike. In the nearby town of Austerlitz, local seamstress Laura Kelley, an unwed single mother, struggles to make ends meet. When Laura meets "Vincent" (as Millay calls herself), their unlikely friendship scandalizes the town and forces both women to examine the high cost of the pursuit of happiness. If you enjoy stories about the literary world of the 1930s, don't miss this novel by the author of Hemingway's Girl and Call Me Zelda. |
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| The Whiskey Baron by Jon SealyThe combination of Prohibition and the Great Depression make Castle, South Carolina a tough place to live in 1932. Although work has dried up, local entrepreneur Larthan Tull makes it rain with his lucrative bootlegging operation. Sure, it's illegal, but since most of the town is on Tull's payroll, even local law enforcement is willing to look the other way -- until a brutal double murder forces Sheriff Furman Chambers to investigate the crime. This bleak, violent novel of desperate people struggling to survive in hardscrabble small towns in the rural American South may appeal to fans of Ron Rash's Serena or Daniel Woodrell's The Maid's Version. |
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| The Anatomy Lesson: A Novel by Nina SiegalIn 1632 Amsterdam, a thief's execution produces a valuable commodity: a cadaver for use by the city's Guild of Surgeons to teach anatomy. As Dr. Nicolaes Tulp performs a public dissection in the presence of an enthralled audience, two observers find their lives forever changed by the experience: Rambrandt van Rijn, who will create a painting based on the event, and Rene Descartes, who seeks to understand the nature of the soul. This evocative novel brings the politics and culture of 17th-century Holland to life while examining the intricate connections between the inhabitants of a chaotic, bustling city. |
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| The Ten Thousand Things: A Novel by John SpurlingAlthough he's descended from royalty, Wang Meng works as a low-level bureaucrat in 14th-century China in the service of the waning Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty. However, his passion is art and, in his quest to become a master painter, he retreats to the countryside, where he makes the acquaintance of fellow artists Huang Gongwang, Wu Zhen, and Ni Zan. And, in a lush, richly detailed, and leisurely paced narrative that unfurls like a painted landscape, he encounters others who will have a lasting impact on Chinese history and culture, including a novice monk, a bandit queen, and the poet who will later memorialize her deeds. |
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| Savage Girl: A Novel by Jean ZimmermanFrom his prison cell, wealthy socialite Hugo Delegate recounts the story of how, in 1875, his parents rescued a feral orphan, known as "Savage Girl," from a circus sideshow. Christened Bronwyn, the wild child matures into a beautiful young woman whose debut takes Manhattan society by storm -- attracting an ill-fated string of suitors and setting off a series of catastrophic events that will bring about her ruin as well as her adoptive family's destruction. With its richly detailed rendering of Gilded Age New York, page-turning suspense, and penetrating psychological portraits of tormented characters, Savage Girl may appeal to fans of Caleb Carr's The Alienist. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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