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Douglas Preston, author of Old Bones

Young curator Nora Kelly is approached by historian Clive Benton with a once-in-a-lifetime proposal: to lead a team in search of the so-called "Lost Camp" of the tragic Donner Party. This was a group of pioneers who became snow-bound in the California mountains in 1847, their fate unknown until the first skeletonized survivors stumbled out of the wilderness, raving about starvation, murder --- and cannibalism. Benton tells Kelly he has come across an amazing find: the long-sought diary of one of the victims, which has an enigmatic description of the Lost Camp.

Week of March 2, 2020

LILAC GIRLS, Martha Hall Kelly's runaway bestseller, introduced the real-life heroine Caroline Ferriday. LOST ROSES, set a generation earlier and also inspired by true events, features Caroline's mother, Eliza, and follows three equally indomitable women from St. Petersburg to Paris under the shadow of World War I. Other paperback releases for the week of March 2nd include Preston & Child's OLD BONES, which brings the true story of the ill-fated Donner Party to new life in a thrilling novel of archaeology, history, murder and suspense; MACHINES LIKE ME by Ian McEwan, a powerful portrayal of two lovers who will be tested beyond their understanding, set in an uncanny alternative 1982 London --- where Britain has lost the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power, and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence; and WOMEN TALKING, in which Miriam Toews envisions a small community of women, scarred by trauma but tentatively daring to imagine a new kind of future.