Publisher: Delacorte Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 07/26/2011
ISBN-13: 9780385344159
ISBN-10: 0385344155

Although she stands just two feet, eight inches tall, Mercy Lavinia "Vinnie" Warren Bump's personality is larger-than-life. Wishing to expand her horizons, she abandons her schoolteacher job and joins an unsavory talent promoter's riverboat show. This gig ends abruptly with the start of the Civil War, but her subsequent association with impresario P.T. Barnum proves more enduring. Although Vinnie makes headlines with her marriage to fellow small-statured celebrity Charles Stratton (aka "General Tom Thumb"), she finds her intellectual soul mate in Barnum. Based on a true story, this novel by the author of Alice I Have Been is "a grand story worth the price of admission" (Publishers Weekly).

First Chapter  

Publisher: Little, Brown
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 07/25/2011
ISBN-13: 9780316117593
ISBN-10: 0316117595

In 1963, Dwayne Hallston and Larry Lime Beacon of Time Reckoning Breathe on Me Nolan (Larry Lime, for short) are two aspiring musicians growing up in a small, segregated North Carolina town. Normally, their paths wouldn't cross, for Dwayne is white and Larry is black. However, both teenagers have fallen in love with the same James Brown album, Live at the Apollo, which prompts them to challenge the longstanding divide between their communities. Like Clyde Edgerton's other work, including the acclaimed The Bible Salesman, The Night Train makes use of pitch-perfect dialogue and comic scenarios to explore serious themes.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Soho Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/07/2011
ISBN-13: 9781569479452
ISBN-10: 1569479453

When Agnes Bourret was a child, her father, a respected Montreal physician, disappeared. Now grown, Agnes longs to follow in his footsteps and attend medical school, but in 1890s Canada, medicine is a man's profession. Can Agnes break down barriers and achieve her dream? And what sacrifices will she have to make if she prevails? Inspired by the career of real-life physician Maude Abbott, one of Canada's first female doctors, The Heart Specialist may appeal to fans of Robin Oliveira's My Name is Mary Sutter, which also concerns a 19th-century woman who defies societal norms to realize a lifelong ambition of becoming a doctor.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 07/12/2011
ISBN-13: 9780307268327
ISBN-10: 0307268322

Gloriosa Ana María de los Ángeles Larragoity Cubillas Nieves de Donostia--better known as "Ana"--longs for a life of adventure that neither her convent school nor her respectable parents will provide. Inspired by the exploits of her conquistador ancestors, Ana marries Ramon Argosas and accompanies him and his twin brother to Puerto Rico, where they'll be managing a sugar plantation. An ambitious and savvy businesswoman, Ana is soon running the place, coping with challenges ranging from hurricanes to cholera outbreaks to slave revolts. This sprawling saga, which Publishers Weekly calls "a Puerto Rican Gone With the Wind," boasts a fascinatingly complex, if not always sympathetic, heroine.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Penguin Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 01/31/2006
ISBN-13: 9780143036661
ISBN-10: 0143036661

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Mr. March, the absent father in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, comes alive through a combination of correspondence and diary entries. Captain John March (a stand-in for the real-life Bronson Alcott) is an abolitionist clergyman who becomes a Union army chaplain during the Civil War. Although his letters to Marmee, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are optimistic, the reality of his situation is grim. As he witnesses firsthand the horrors of war, survives serious illness, and is unexpectedly reunited with a woman from his past, March finds himself irrevocably changed by his experiences.

Publisher: Pantheon Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 01/05/2010
ISBN-13: 9780307378774
ISBN-10: 0307378772

After Achilles slays Trojan warrior Hector to avenge the death of his beloved companion, Patroclus, the Greek hero ties his fallen adversary's body to his chariot and spends 11 days dragging the corpse around the walls of Troy. Hector's grief-stricken father, King Priam, braves the enemy camp in order to ransom his son's body back from Achilles, who refuses to either return it or give it a proper burial. Although the "cinematic vividness" (Publishers Weekly) of Ransom's prose differs from the more contemporary idiom of Barry Unsworth's The Songs of the Kings, both novels are inspired by events depicted in Homer's Iliad and focus on the human dimension of the epic tale.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 01/24/2006
ISBN-13: 9781400054015
ISBN-10: 140005401X

While Huckleberry Finn and runaway slave Jim were rafting down the Mississippi River, Jim's wife Sadie, the mother of his two children, remained in slavery. In My Jim, Sadie tells her story, beginning with the history of her relationship with Jim and describing what happened to her and their family after he left. The dialect-rich style of Sadie's first-person narrative may appeal to readers who enjoyed Ernest J. Gaines' The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. For another retelling of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that examines issues of race and family relationships, try Jon Clinch's Finn, which focuses on "Pap" Finn, Huck's infamous father.

First Chapter  

Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 02/16/2010
ISBN-13: 9780312583927
ISBN-10: 0312583923

At the end of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, the author reveals that Hester Prynne and her child, Pearl, left Puritan Boston to travel abroad. In Hester, novelist Paula Reed sends the pair to England, where Hester hopes that Pearl, whose reputation suffers as a result of her mother's transgressions, will have better prospects. But Hester soon attracts the notice of Oliver Cromwell, who wishes to take advantage of Hester's ability to detect the sins of others--which puts both mother and daughter in a dangerous position. For another perspective on these classic literary characters, check out Deborah Noyes' interpretation of Pearl in Angel and Apostle.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Norton
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/04/1996
ISBN-13: 9780393308808
ISBN-10: 0393308804

Originally published in 1966, Jean Rhys' postcolonial prequel to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre tells the story of the first Mrs. Rochester, the "madwoman in the attic" who ended her days sequestered in Thornfield Hall. Born in British-controlled Jamaica, high-spirited Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway contends with her mother's mental illness and her brother's untimely death before embarking on an arranged marriage to an Englishman. As their relationship disintegrates, Antoinette--dubbed "Bertha" by her husband--begins to fall apart.