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| 33 Place Brugmann by Alice AustenSet just prior to and during the Nazi occupation of Brussels, Belgium, this thought-provoking debut examines the challenges and choices of an apartment building's residents, who take turns narrating. They include an architect, his art student daughter, an art dealer, his 18-year-old son, a seamstress, a maid, a widowed colonel, and others. Try this next: The Keeper of Lost Art by Laura Morelli. |
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| The Pretender by Jo HarkinLambert Simnel, a ten-year-old peasant in 1480s England, is tutored and trained, and then declared the hidden heir to the throne. Amid court politics, Lambert becomes part of the Yorkist cause in this witty, "wildly entertaining" (Booklist) novel based on a little-known true story. For fans of: Maggie O'Farrell, Alison Weir, and Hilary Mantel. |
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A Lesser Light
by Peter Geye
"Set on the shore of Lake Superior in 1910, A Lesser Light tells the story of a newly commissioned lighthouse station, its keeper, and an ill-suited arranged marriage. Theodulf Sauer and his new wife, Willa, couldn't be less similar, but they build a life together, and Willa finds solace in the cosmos and their neighbors across the cove. As Theodulf reckons with the past and Willa begins to forge her own path to happiness, tragedy comes to their remote beacon, and the future plunges into the dark unknown."
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The Sirens
by Emilia Hart
Lucy searches for her missing sister Jess in a modern-day coastal Australian town shrouded in eerie legends. Along the way, she uncovers connections to Jess's adolescent past, as well as twin sisters from 1800 whose haunting ties to the sea ripple across generations.
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Barbara
by Joni Murphy
Born during World War II to a Manhattan Project engineer, Barbara's life is shaped by both historical events and personal tragedy. Though she forges a successful career as an actress, she grapples with her identity and the shifting tides of the 20th century.
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| Broken Country by Clare Leslie HallIn 1955 Dorset, England, teenage Beth falls for wealthy Gabriel, who leaves town. In 1968, Beth, now married to sheep farmer Frank, is still mourning the death of her young son two years before when Gabriel reappears with his own son, setting in motion events that lead to a courtroom trial. This emotionally intense Reese's Book Club pick will please fans of Chris Whitaker's All the Colors of the Dark and Miranda Cowley Heller's The Paper Palace. |
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Loot
by Tania James
Set in 18th-century India, England and France, this sweeping novel follows gifted woodcarver Abbas who embarks on a perilous journey to retrieve the giant wooden tiger he created for Tipu Sultan from an estate in the English countryside, where it is displayed in a collection of plundered art.
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The Fox Wife
by Yangsze Choo
In 1908 Manchuria, Bao, a detective with an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, is hired to uncover the identity of a dead courtesan, while a secretive woman named Snow, seeking vengeance for her lost child, navigates the myths and misconceptions of fox spirits to find a murderer.
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The Book of Everlasting Things
by Aanchal Malhotra
"On a January morning in 1938, Samir Vij first locks eyes with Firdaus Khan through the rows of perfume bottles in his family's ittar shop in Lahore. Over the years that follow, the perfumer's apprentice and calligrapher's apprentice fall in love with their ancient crafts and with each other, dreaming of the life they will one day share. But as the struggle for Indian independence gathers force, their beloved city is ravaged by Partition. Suddenly, they find themselves on opposite sides."
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Song of Exile by Kiana Davenport"In the last, innocent days before Pearl Harbor, two people meet in Honolulu almost by chance: Keo, a gifted jazz trumpeter native to the islands, and Sunny, a fiercely independent beauty of Hawaiian and Korean heritage. As their love grows, youth and ambition propel them out into a world that is spiraling into madness. Keo's music takes him from the back alleys of Honolulu to the hidden jazz clubs of New Orleans--and, ultimately, to the fevered decadence of pre-war Paris, where Sunny joins him, even as the Nazis prepare to march into the doomed city."
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How Much of These Hills is Gold
by C Pam Zhang
"Ba dies in the night; Ma is already gone. Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry, and glimpses of a different kind of future."
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Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
by Jamie Ford
When artifacts from Japanese families sent to internment camps during World War II are uncovered during renovations at Seattle's Panama Hotel, Henry Lee embarks on a personal quest that leads to memories of growing up Chinese in a city rife with anti-Japanese sentiment and of Keiko, a Japanese girl whose love transcended cultures and generations. A first novel.
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Beasts of a Little Land
by Juhea Kim
Follows a 50-year saga of love and war set into motion when an impoverished Korean hunter on the brink of starvation in 1917 saves a young Japanese officer from a tiger attack.
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The Last Story of Mina Lee
by Nancy Jooyoun Kim
Suspecting foul play in the wake of her mother's accidental death, Margot Lee investigates her mother's past as a Korean War orphan and undocumented immigrant before uncovering profound secrets.
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Fagin the Thief
by Allison Epstein
Revisiting Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist and providing a more nuanced depiction of villainous Fagin, this "magnificent" (Publishers Weekly) novel begins in 1838 London when trouble arrives at the rundown house where Fagin lives with his group of young thieves.
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Kantika
by Elizabeth Graver
Forced to flee early 20th-century Istanbul with her family, a young Sephardic woman is sent to Cuba for an arranged second marriage where a feisty, disabled stepdaughter pits her new family against her old one.
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One Good Thing
by Georgia Hunter
In occupied Italy, Jewish best friends Lili and Esti hide war orphans in a convent where they forge false papers for the Underground. When Esti is critically injured, she asks Lili to go on the run with her son Theo —through Nazi-occupied villages — toward Allied territory.
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The Postcard
by Anne Berest
Fifteen years after the arrival of an anonymous postcard with the names of her maternal great-grandparents and their children—all killed at Auschwitz—Anne Berest is moved to discover who sent it and why and embarks on a journey to learn the fate of the Rabinovitch family.
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Our next discussion:
Tuesday, June 17, 6:30 pm
Library Meeting Room on Lower Level
If you're a regular reader of contemporary and historical fiction, consider joining our Fiction Book Club! The club usually meets on the third Tuesday of the month at 6:30, but we do recommend confirming details on our events calendar in case of changes. Copies of our next book are on reserve at the Circulation Desk. We hope to see you there!
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The Great Divide by Cristina Henrâiquez"A novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, following the intersecting lives of the local families fighting to protect their homeland, the West Indian laborers recruited to dig the waterway, and the white Americans who gained profit and glory for themselves."
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