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Reviews

Reviews

by Allegra Goodman - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian --- an enigmatic and volatile man --- spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. That journey takes an unexpected turn when Marguerite, accused of betrayal, is brutally punished and abandoned on a small island. Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she’d never before needed.

by Neko Case - Memoir, Nonfiction

Neko Case has long been revered as one of music’s most influential artists, whose authenticity, lyrical storytelling and sly wit have endeared her to a legion of critics, musicians and lifelong fans. In THE HARDER I FIGHT THE MORE I LOVE YOU, Case brings her trademark candor and precision to a memoir that traces her evolution from an invisible girl “raised by two dogs and a space heater” in rural Washington state to her improbable emergence as an internationally acclaimed talent. In luminous, sharp-edged prose, Case shows readers what it’s like to be left alone for hours and hours as a child, to take refuge in the woods around her home, and to channel the monotony, loneliness and joy that comes from music, camaraderie and shared experience into art.

by John Sayles - Fiction, Historical Fiction

In September 1890, the academic year begins at the Carlisle School, a military-style boarding school for Indians in Pennsylvania, founded and run by Captain Richard Henry Pratt. Pratt considers himself a champion of Native Americans. His motto, “To save the man, we must kill the Indian,” is severely enforced in both classroom and dormitory. As the young students navigate surviving the school, they begin to hear rumors of a “ghost dance” amongst the tribes of the west --- a ceremonial dance aimed at restoring the Native People to power and running the invaders off their land. As the hope and promise of the ghost dance sweeps across the Great Plains, cynical newspapers seize upon the story to whip up panic among local whites. The US government responds by deploying troops onto lands that had been granted to the Indians. It is an act that seems certain to end in slaughter.

by Julia Armfield - Fiction

Sisters Isla, Irene and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their father, an architect as cruel as he was revered, dies. His death offers an opportunity for the sisters to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until their fragile bond is shattered by a revelation in his will. The sisters are more estranged than ever, and their lives spin out of control. But something even more sinister might be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always seemed unusually interested in the sisters’ lives. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters have been chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperiled world.

by Pat Barker - Fiction, Historical Fiction

THE VOYAGE HOME follows the young Ritsa and the unpredictable Cassandra on their perilous return journey to Mycenae. Cassandra has acquired the powers of prophecy from the kiss of Apollo, but the very same god has taken away the people’s belief in her abilities. Though she warns of the carnage that awaits the Greek warrior king Agamemnon --- who numbs himself with alcohol on the storm-plagued trip home --- her shipmates disregard her. While Cassandra’s prophecies fall on deaf ears, Ritsa instead remains focused on surviving once they make land. When a mysterious young girl begins to shadow them, and Agamemnon’s cruelty takes a new turn, Ritsa must find a safe place for Cassandra, whose mood alternates between cruelty and frenzy. But it’s the ongoing ire between Queen Clytemnestra and Agamemnon that could prove fatal for everyone.

by Richard Price - Fiction

East Harlem, 2008. In an instant, a five-story tenement collapses into a fuming hill of rubble, pancaking the cars parked in front and coating the street with a thick layer of ash. As the city’s rescue services and media outlets respond, the surrounding neighborhood descends into chaos. At day’s end, six bodies are recovered, but many of the other tenants are missing. In LAZARUS MAN, Richard Price, one of the greatest chroniclers of life in urban America, creates intertwining portraits of a group of compelling and singular characters whose lives are permanently impacted by the disaster.

by Eliza Clark - Fiction, Short Stories

A woman welcomes a parasite into her body. A teenager longs for perfect skin. A scientist tends to fragile alien flora. A young man takes the night into his own hands. Unsettling, revelatory and laced with her signature dark humor, Eliza Clark’s debut short story collection plumbs the depths of that most basic human feeling: hunger.

by Kimberly Brock - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

Southern mythology and personal reckoning collide in this sweeping story inspired by the little-known history of Cumberland Island when a once-in-a-century storm threatens the natural landscape. Faced with a changing world, two timelines and the perspectives of three women intersect where a folktale meets the truth to reveal what Cumberland Island has hidden all along.

by Betsy Lerner - Fiction, Women's Fiction

It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight until her stunning confidence becomes erratic and unpredictable. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, believes in facts, proof and the empirical world. None of that explains what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the mental illness that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed life. As Amy comes of age and seeks to find her place --- first in academics, then New York publishing, and through a series of troubled relationships --- every step brings collisions with Ollie, who slips in and out of the Shred family without warning. Yet for all that threatens their sibling bond, Amy and Ollie cannot escape or deny the inextricable sister knot that binds them.

by Ina Garten - Memoir, Nonfiction

Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose.