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Around the World December 2019
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A house without windows
by Nadia Hashimi
Accused by her in-laws and imprisoned for the brutal death of her husband, Zeba forges bonds with a group of women who have also been locked up for social violations and places her fate in the hands of an Afghan-born civil rights lawyer. Reading-group guide available online.
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An elderly lady is up to no good
by 1954- Tursten, Helene
Maud is an irascible 88-year-old Swedish woman with no family, no friends, and... no qualms about a little murder. This funny, irreverent story collection by Helene Tursten, author of the Irene Huss investigations, features two-never-before translated stories that will keep you laughing all the way to the retirement home.
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Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian lions
by 1963- Giordano, Mario
Auntie Poldi, sassy, brassy and sixty, moves to Sicily for a quiet alcohol-fuelled retirement. A murder spoils her plans.
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Bel canto
by Ann Patchett
When terrorists seize hostages at an embassy party, an unlikely assortment of people is thrown together, including American opera star Roxanne Coss, and Mr. Hosokawa--a Japanese CEO and her biggest fan.
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Convenience store woman
by 1979- Murata, Sayaka
A Japanese woman who has been working at a convenience store for 18 years, much to the disappointment of her family, finds friendship with an alienated, cynical and bitter young man who becomes her coworker.
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Cooking for Picasso
by Camille Aubray
A tale inspired by a little-known interlude follows the 1936 culinary affair between a reclusive Picasso at a crossroads in his life and a rebellious teen from the French Riviera, a relationship that shapes the life of the girl's granddaughter in New York more than half a century later.
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Next year in Havana
by Chanel Cleeton
A freelance writer returns to her grandmother’s homeland to fulfill her last wish to have her ashes scattered in Havana and discovers her family history amidst Cuba’s tropical beauty and dangerous political environment.
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The Spellman files
by Lisa Lutz
Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, a San Francisco private eye with a checkered past, has been working for her family's firm, Spellman Investigations, since age 12. Now 28, Izzy thinks she wants out of the family business, but elects to take on a cold case while dealing with her 14-year-old sister Rae, a nightmarish Nancy Drew, and parents who have no qualms about bugging their children's bedrooms. When Rae suddenly disappears, Izzy and her family must learn some serious lessons in order to find her.
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The housemaid's daughter
by Barbara Mutch
Duty and love collide on the arid plains of central South Africa. Cathleen Harrington leaves her home in Ireland in 1919 to travel to South Africa and marry the fiance she has not seen for five years. Isolated and estranged in a harsh landscape, she finds solace in her diary and the friendship of her housemaid's daughter, Ada. Cathleen recognises in her someone she can love and respond to in a way that she cannot with her own husband and daughter. Under Cathleen's tutelage, Ada grows into an accomplished pianist, and a reader who cannot resist turning the pages of the diary, discovering the secrets Cathleen sought to hide. When Ada is compromised and finds she is expecting a mixed-race child, she flees her home, determined to spare Cathleen the knowledge of her betrayal, and the disgrace that would descend upon the family. Scorned within her own community, Ada is forced to carve a life for herself, her child, and her music. But Cathleen still believes in Ada, and risks the constraints of apartheid to search for her and persuade her to return with her daughter. Beyond the cruelty, there is love, hope - and redemption.
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The secrets we kept
by Lara Prescott
A tale of spycraft, love and sacrifice inspired by the true story of Doctor Zhivago follows the efforts of two CIA agents to help publish Boris Pasternak's censored masterpiece against a backdrop of Cold War politics in Moscow.
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This tender land
by William Kent Krueger
Fleeing the Depression-era school for Native American children who have been taken from their parents, four orphans share a summer marked by struggling farmers, faith healers and lost souls.
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Us
by 1966- Nicholls, David
"The highly anticipated new novel from David Nicholls, author of the mega-bestselling fiction sensation One Day, which follows one man's efforts to salvage his marriage--and repair his troubled relationship with his teenaged son--during the course of a trip around Europe"--.
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For additional reading ideas, talk with your library staff!
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