New York Times bestseller!
An
unforgettable novel about a young Jewish woman growing up in Boston in
the early twentieth century, told “with humor and optimism…through the
eyes of an irresistible heroine” (People)—from the acclaimed author of The Red Tent.
Anita Diamant’s “vivid, affectionate portrait of American womanhood” (Los Angeles Times),
follows the life of one woman, Addie Baum, through a period of dramatic
change. Addie is The Boston Girl, the spirited daughter of an immigrant
Jewish family, born in 1900 to parents who were unprepared for America
and its effect on their three daughters. Growing up in the North End of
Boston, then a teeming multicultural neighborhood, Addie’s intelligence
and curiosity take her to a world her parents can’t imagine—a world of
short skirts, movies, celebrity culture, and new opportunities for
women. Addie wants to finish high school and dreams of going to college.
She wants a career and to find true love. From the one-room tenement
apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library
group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her
first, disastrous love affair, to finding the love of her life,
eighty-five-year-old Addie recounts her adventures with humor and
compassion for the naïve girl she once was.
Written with the same attention to historical detail and emotional resonance that made Diamant’s previous novels bestsellers, The Boston Girl is
a moving portrait of one woman’s complicated life in twentieth century
America, and a fascinating look at a generation of women finding their
places in a changing world. “Diamant brings to life a piece of
feminism’s forgotten history” (Good Housekeeping) in this “inspirational…page-turning portrait of immigrant life in the early twentieth century” (Booklist).
In love we find out who we want to be.
In war we find out who we are.
FRANCE, 1939
In
the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her
husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn't believe that
the Nazis will invade France … but invade they do, in droves of marching
soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the
skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain
requisitions Vianne's home, she and her daughter must live with the
enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger
escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice
after another to keep her family alive.
Vianne's
sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for
purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of
Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gäetan, a
partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France,
and she falls in love as only the young can … completely. But when he
betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking
her life time and again to save others.
With
courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah
captures the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of
history seldom seen: the women's war. The Nightingale tells the stories
of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion
and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward
survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France--a
heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the
human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a
novel for a lifetime.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
In this thrilling new novel from the author of Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen again demonstrates her talent for creating spellbinding period pieces. At the Water’s Edge is
a gripping and poignant love story about a privileged young woman’s
awakening as she experiences the devastation of World War II in a tiny
village in the Scottish Highlands.After
disgracing themselves at a high society New Year’s Eve party in
Philadelphia in 1944, Madeline Hyde and her husband, Ellis, are cut off
financially by his father, a former army colonel who is already ashamed
of his son’s inability to serve in the war. When Ellis and his best
friend, Hank, decide that the only way to regain the Colonel’s favor is
to succeed where the Colonel very publicly failed—by hunting down the
famous Loch Ness monster—Maddie reluctantly follows them across the
Atlantic, leaving her sheltered world behind. The
trio find themselves in a remote village in the Scottish Highlands,
where the locals have nothing but contempt for the privileged
interlopers. Maddie is left on her own at the isolated inn, where food
is rationed, fuel is scarce, and a knock from the postman can bring
tragic news. Yet she finds herself falling in love with the stark beauty
and subtle magic of the Scottish countryside. Gradually she comes to
know the villagers, and the friendships she forms with two young women
open her up to a larger world than she knew existed. Maddie begins to
see that nothing is as it first appears: the values she holds dear prove
unsustainable, and monsters lurk where they are least expected.
As
she embraces a fuller sense of who she might be, Maddie becomes aware
not only of the dark forces around her, but of life’s beauty and
surprising possibilities.
From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a #1 New York Times bestselling novel about two unforgettable American women.
Writing
at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd
presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the
desire to have a voice in the world.
Hetty
“Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century
Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose
her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah,
has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the
world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.
Kidd’s
sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she
is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid.
We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as
both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s
destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance,
estrangement and the uneasy ways of love.
As
the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and
sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will
experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism
before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless
younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition
and women’s rights movements.
Inspired
by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record
to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real
and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts
danger in her search for something better.
This
exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with
unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through
women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will
leave no reader unmoved.
Amazon.com Review
Louise Erdrich's
The Master Butchers Singing Club is
a powerfully told story of love, death, redemption, and resurrection.
After German soldier Fidelis Waldvogel returns home from World War I to
marry his best friend's pregnant widow, he packs up his father's butcher
knives and sets sail for America. He settles in Argus, North Dakota,
where he sets up a meat shop with his wife Eva, who quickly befriends
the struggling yet resourceful Delphine Watzka. Delphine, who runs a
vaudeville show with her balancing partner Cyprian Lazarre, has returned
home to Argus to care for her alcoholic father. While most of this
emotionally rich novel focuses on the changing landscape of small-town
life as seen through Delphine and Fidelis's eyes, Erdrich does a
masterful job of illuminating hidden dramas through her secondary
characters. Erdrich's portrayal of these various townsfolk, including
members of the Master Butchers Singing Club, truly shows off her
storytelling talent. Her ability to infuse each character with a
distinct and multifaceted personality makes this novel an intimate and
thought-provoking adventure.
--Gisele Toueg --
