"After breakfast, I read from the Song of Solomon for a while. It is my favorite book in the Bible. There are no murders in it. No beheadings. No godly fury. There is only a boy and a girl, and it reminds of the soap operas on the radio, and of other, sweeter days of my life." ~ from Chantel Acevedo's The Distant Marvels
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| Beatrice and Benedick by Marina FioratoSparring lovers Beatrice and Benedick take center stage in this lively prequel to Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Revealing the origins of their "merry war," this witty, yet heartfelt, novel shifts back and forth between its protagonists' perspectives as the couple meets, flirts, fights, and -- after a dramatic separation -- reunites. Looking for more fiction inspired by Shakespeare? Check out Lois Leveen's Juliet's Nurse, a poignant retelling of Romeo and Juliet, or Kathryn Johnson's The Gentleman Poet, which pays clever homage to The Tempest. |
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| Médicis Daughter: A Novel of Marguerite de Valois by Sophie PerinotFor certain 16th-century French noblewomen, the personal is political. The daughter of Queen consort Catherine de Médicis, sensitive Princess Marguerite de Valois ("Margot") is quite unlike her manipulative mama (dubbed La Serpente). With France gripped by religious warfare, Margot's fate, like that of her homeland, depends on not one, but three, powerful men named Henri: her brother, the Duc of Anjou; her betrothed, Henri of Bourbon, Prince of Navarre; and her lover, the Duc of Guise, who's got his eye on the throne. Like author Sophie Perinot's debut, The Sister Queens, this dramatic novel blends family drama and dynastic politics for a riveting read. |
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| White Collar Girl by Renée RosenIt's 1955 and journalist Jordan Walsh is struggling to make a name for herself in the male-dominated newsroom of The Chicago Tribune. Assigned to the society pages, Jordan yearns for the chance to engage in serious investigative reporting. But the price of Jordan's professional ambitions may be her personal safety when a source gives her an inside scoop that's sure to make headlines. For another historical novel about a Chicago-based female journalist who risks everything in pursuit of a story, try Jayne Anne Phillips' Quiet Dell. |
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Books You May Have Missed
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| A Memory of Violets: A Novel of London's Flower Sellers by Hazel GaynorFlorrie and Rosie Flynn's story is tragic, but hardly atypical in 1870s London. After losing their mother to cholera, the sisters become flower sellers on the streets of London. Florrie, disabled by polio, protects blind Rosie, until fate intervenes and separates them. In 1912, Tilly Harper becomes the assistant housemother at Shaw's Training Home for Watercress and Flower Girls (known to locals as "the Crippleage"), where she discovers Florrie's diary and sets out to discover what happened to the lost girls. |
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| The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen"I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces," declares the sardonic narrator of this novel, a Viet Cong agent known as "the Captain." The orphaned child of a French Catholic priest and his Vietnamese lover, the Captain has spent his young life moving seamlessly between different worlds. After traveling abroad for a university education funded by the CIA, he returned to his homeland to fight for the Communist cause. Now, in 1975, he poses as a refugee in Los Angeles to infiltrate the household of a former South Vietnamese army general. However, disillusionment and doubt has begun to creep into his thoughts. Framed as a confession, this moving, introspective novel depicts complex geopolitical conflicts while reflecting on the nature of identity. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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