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Reviews

Reviews

by Barbara Taylor Bradford - Fiction, Historical Fiction

James Lionel Falconer has risen quickly from a mere shop worker to being the right-hand man of Henry Malvern, head of the most prestigious shipping company in London. With Malvern's daughter, Alexis, running away to the country after a terrible tragedy and refusing to return, James' ascent to head of the company seems inevitable. But even a charmed life like James' is not without its setbacks. A terrible fire threatens to end his merchant career before it's had a chance to truly begin. Mrs. Ward, James' former paramour, has a secret that could change his life forever. And his distaste for Alexis Malvern is slowly growing into feelings of quite a different sort. Can James continue to be the master of his own fate, or will all of his charm, intelligence and wit finally fail him when he has to enter the lion's den?

by Lyssa Kay Adams - Comedy, Fiction, Romance, Women's Fiction

Alexis Carlisle and her cat café, ToeBeans, have shot to fame after she came forward as a victim of a celebrity chef’s sexual harassment. When a new customer approaches to confide in her, the last thing Alexis expects is for the woman to claim they’re sisters. Unsure what to do, Alexis turns to the only man she trusts --- her best friend, Noah Logan. Computer genius Noah left his rebellious teenage hacker past behind to become a computer security expert. Now he only uses his old skills for the right cause. But Noah has a secret: He’s madly in love with Alexis. When she asks for his help, he wonders if the timing will ever be right to confess his crush.

by Jodi Picoult - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Dawn Edelstein is on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement: Prepare for a crash landing. She braces herself as thoughts flash through her mind. The shocking thing is, the thoughts are not of her husband, but of a man she last saw 15 years ago: Wyatt Armstrong, who is now somewhere in Egypt working as an archaeologist. After the crash landing, the airline offers transportation to wherever they want to go. The obvious option for Dawn is to continue down the path she is on and go home to her family. The other is to return to the archaeological site she left years before, reconnect with Wyatt and their unresolved history, and maybe even complete her research on The Book of Two Ways --- the first known map of the afterlife.

by Susan Wiggs - Fiction, Women's Fiction

In the wake of a shocking tragedy, Natalie Harper inherits her mother’s charming but financially strapped bookshop in San Francisco. She also becomes caretaker for her ailing grandfather Andrew, who has begun displaying signs of decline. Natalie thinks it’s best to move him to an assisted living facility to ensure the care he needs. To pay for it, she plans to close the bookstore and sell the derelict but valuable building on historic Perdita Street, which is in need of constant fixing. There’s only one problem --- Grandpa Andrew owns the building and refuses to sell. To Natalie’s surprise, her sorrow begins to dissipate as her life becomes an unexpected journey of new connections, discoveries and revelations, from unearthing artifacts hidden in the bookshop’s walls, to discovering the truth about her family, her future and her own heart.

by Beatriz Williams - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Romance, Romance, Women's Fiction

In 1947, photographer and war correspondent Janey Everett arrives at a remote surfing village on the Hawaiian island of Kauai to research a planned biography of forgotten aviation pioneer Sam Mallory, who joined the loyalist forces in the Spanish Civil War and never returned. Obsessed with Sam’s fate, Janey has tracked down Irene Lindquist, the owner of a local island-hopping airline, who she believes might actually be the legendary Irene Foster, Mallory’s onetime student and flying partner. Foster’s disappearance during a round-the-world flight in 1937 remains one of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries. At first, the flinty Mrs. Lindquist denies any connection to Foster. But Janey informs her that the wreck of Sam Mallory’s airplane has recently been discovered in a Spanish desert, and piece by piece, the details of Foster’s extraordinary life emerge.

by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White - Fiction, Historical Fiction

The New York Times bestselling authors of THE GLASS OCEAN and THE FORGOTTEN ROOM --- Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White --- return with a glorious historical adventure that moves from the dark days of two World Wars to the turbulent years of the 1960s, in which three women with bruised hearts find refuge at Paris's legendary Ritz hotel.

by Beatriz Williams - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Romance, Romance, Women's Fiction

It’s 1924, and Ginger Kelly has fled south to safety in the company of disgraced Prohibition agent Oliver Anson Marshall and her newly orphaned young sister, Patsy. But then Marshall is reinstated to the agency with suspicious haste and put to work patrolling for rumrunners on the high seas, from which he promptly disappears. Gin hurries north to rescue him, only to be trapped in an agonizing moral quandary by Marshall’s desperate mother. It’s 1998, and Ella Dommerich has finally settled into her new life in Greenwich Village, inside the same apartment where a certain redheaded flapper lived long ago. Ella is eager to piece together the history of the mysterious Gin Kelly, whose only physical trace is a series of rare vintage photograph cards for which she modeled before she disappeared.

by Jennifer Chiaverini - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Just weeks before Christmas, severe wintry weather damages the church hall hosting the Christmas Boutique --- an annual sale of handcrafted gifts and baked goods that supports the county food pantry. Determined to save the fundraiser, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson offers to hold the event at Elm Creek Manor, her ancestral family estate and summertime home to Elm Creek Quilt Camp. In the spirit of the season, Sylvia and the Elm Creek Quilters begin setting up market booths in the ballroom and decking the halls with beautiful hand-made holiday quilts. Each of the quilters chooses a favorite quilt to display, a special creation evoking memories of holidays past and dreams of Christmases yet to come.

by Meg Waite Clayton - Fiction, Historical Fiction

In 1936, the Nazis are little more than loud, brutish bores to 15-year-old Stephan Neuman, the son of a wealthy and influential Jewish family and budding playwright. Stephan’s best friend and companion is the brilliant Žofie-Helene, a Christian girl whose mother edits a progressive, anti-Nazi newspaper. But the two adolescents’ carefree innocence is shattered when the Nazis take control. Truus Wijsmuller, a member of the Dutch resistance, risks her life smuggling Jewish children out of Nazi Germany to the nations that will take them. It is a mission that becomes even more dangerous after the Anschluss --- Hitler’s annexation of Austria --- as, across Europe, countries close their borders to the growing number of refugees desperate to escape.

by Kristan Higgins - Fiction, Women's Fiction

When Emma London's mother died, her father abandoned her on his mother's doorstep. Genevieve took Emma in and reluctantly raised her --- until Emma got pregnant her senior year of high school. Genevieve kicked her out with nothing but the clothes on her back...but Emma took with her the most important London possession: the strength not just to survive but to thrive. And indeed, Emma has built a wonderful life for herself and her teenage daughter, Riley. So what is Emma to do when Genevieve does the one thing Emma never expected of her and, after not speaking to her for nearly two decades, calls and asks for help?