COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD WINNERLONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 MAN BOOKER PRIZE"A true leftfield wonder: Days Without End is a violent, superbly lyrical western offering a sweeping vision of America in the making." - Kazuo Ishiguro, Booker Prize winning author of The Remains of the Day and The Buried GiantFrom the two-time Man Booker Prize finalist Sebastian Barry, "a master storyteller" (Wall Street Journal) , comes a powerful new novel of duty and family set against the American Indian and Civil Wars Thomas McNulty, aged barely seventeen and having fled the Great Famine in Ireland, signs up for the U.S. Army in the 1850s. With his brother in arms, John Cole, Thomas goes on to fight in the Indian Wars - against the Sioux and the Yurok - and, ultimately, the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, the men find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in. Moving from the plains of Wyoming to Tennessee, Sebastian Barry's latest work is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language. An intensely poignant story of two men and the makeshift family they create with a young Sioux girl, Winona, Days Without End is a fresh and haunting portrait of the most fateful years in American history and is a novel never to be forgotten.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780525427360
|
Hardcover
The Best Bad Things
By Carrasco, Katrina Marie
"A brazen, brawny, sexy standout of a historical thrill ride, The Best Bad Things is full of unforgettable characters and insatiable appetites. I was riveted. Painstakingly researched and pulsing with adrenaline, Carrasco's debut will leave you thirsty for more." -- Lyndsay Faye, author of The Gods of GothamA vivid, sexy barn burner of a historical crime novel, The Best Bad Things introduces readers to the fiery Alma Rosales -- detective, smuggler, spyIt is 1887, and Alma Rosales is on the hunt for stolen opium. Trained in espionage by the Pinkerton Detective Agency -- but dismissed for bad behavior and a penchant for going undercover as a man -- Alma now works for Delphine Beaumond, the seductive mastermind of a West Coast smuggling ring.When product goes missing at their Washington Territory outpost, Alma is tasked with tracking the thief and recovering the drugs. In disguise as the scrappy dockworker Jack Camp, this should be easy -- once she muscles her way into the local organization, wins the trust of the magnetic local boss and his boys, discovers the turncoat, and keeps them all from uncovering her secrets. All this, while sending coded dispatches to the circling Pinkerton agents to keep them from closing in.Alma's enjoying her dangerous game of shifting identities and double crosses as she fights for a promotion and an invitation back into Delphine's bed. But it's getting harder and harder to keep her cover stories straight and to know whom to trust. One wrong move and she could be unmasked: as a woman, as a traitor, or as a spy.A propulsive, sensual tour de force, The Best Bad Things introduces Katrina Carrasco, a bold new voice in crime fiction.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780374123697
|
Hardcover
The Gods of Tango
By Robertis, Carolina De
February 1913. Seventeen-year-old Leda, clutching a suitcase and her father's cherished violin, leaves her small Italian village for a new home (and husband) halfway across the world in Argentina. Upon her arrival in Buenos Aires, Leda is shocked to find that her bridegroom has been killed. Unable to fathom the idea ofreturning home, she remains in this unfamiliar city, living in a commune, without friends or family, on the brink of destitution. She finally acts on a passion she has kept secret for years: mastering the violin
Publisher: n/a
|
9781101874493
|
Book
The Pull of the Stars
By Donoghue, Emma
Dublin, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu. A small world of work, risk, death, and unlooked-for love, by the bestselling author of The Wonder and ROOMIn an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders -- Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police , and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780316499019
|
Hardcover
Hild
By Griffith, Nicola
A brilliant, lush, sweeping historical novel about the rise of the most powerful woman of the Middle Ages: HildIn seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, frequently and violently. A new religion is coming ashore; the old gods are struggling, their priests worrying. Hild is the king's youngest niece, and she has a glimmering mind and a natural, noble authority. She will become a fascinating woman and one of the pivotal figures of the Middle Ages: Saint Hilda of Whitby.But now she has only the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world--of studying nature, of matching cause with effect, of observing her surroundings closely and predicting what will happen next--that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780374280871
|
Hardcover
The Mercies
By Hargrave, Kiran Millwood
"Every once in a while, a modern day parable, perfectly told, reflects all that could happen in a world gone mad."-Adriana Trigiani Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vard must fend for themselves. Three years later, a sinister figure arrives. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband's authority and terrified by it. In Vard, and in Maren, Ursa sees something she has never seen before: independent women. But Absalom sees only a place untouched by God, and flooded with a mighty evil. As Maren and Ursa are drawn to one another in ways that surprise them both, the island begins to close in on them, with Absalom's iron rule threatening Vard's very existence. Inspired by the real events of the Vard storm and the 1621 witch trials, The Mercies is a story of love, evil, and obsession, set at the edge of civilization.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780316529259
|
Hardcover
The Animals at Lockwood Manor
By Healey, Jane
A debut novel for fans of Sarah Perry and Kate Morton: when a young woman is tasked with safeguarding a natural history collection as it is spirited out of London during World War II, she discovers her new manor home is a place of secrets and terror instead of protection.In August 1939, thirty-year-old Hetty Cartwright arrives at Lockwood Manor to oversee a natural history museum collection, whose contents have been taken out of London for safekeeping. She is unprepared for the scale of protecting her charges from party guests, wild animals, the elements, the tyrannical Major Lockwood and Luftwaffe bombs. Most of all, she is unprepared for the beautiful and haunted Lucy Lockwood. For Lucy, who has spent much of her life cloistered at Lockwood suffering from bad nerves, the arrival of the museum brings with it new freedoms.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780358106401
|
Hardcover
As Meat Loves Salt
By Mccann, Maria
In the seventeenth century, the English Revolution is under way. The nation, seething with religious and political discontent, has erupted into violence and terror. Jacob Cullen and his fellow soldiers dream of rebuilding their lives when the fighting is over. But the shattering events of war will overtake them. A darkly erotic tale of passion and obsession, As Meat Loves Salt is a gripping portrait of England beset by war. It is also a moving portrait of a man on the brink of madness. Hailed as a masterpiece, this is a novel by a most original new voice in fiction. A Harvest Original
Publisher: n/a
|
9780156012263
|
Paperback
Dancer
By Mccann, Colum
From the acclaimed author of This Side of Brightness, the epic life and times of Rudolf Nureyev, reimagined in a dazzlingly inventive masterpiece-published to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Nureyev's deathA Russian peasant who became an international legend, a Cold War exile who inspired millions, an artist whose name stood for genius, sex, and excess-the magnificence of Rudolf Nureyev's life and work are known, but now Colum McCann, in his most daring novel yet, reinvents this erotically charged figure through the light he cast on those who knew him. Taking his inspiration from the biographical facts, McCann tells the story through a chorus of voices: there is Anna Vasileva, Rudi's first ballet teacher, who rescues her protégé from the stunted life of his town; Yulia, whose sexual and artistic ambitions are thwarted by her Soviet-sanctioned marriage; and Victor, the Venezuelan hustler, who reveals the lurid underside of the gay celebrity set.
Publisher: n/a
|
805067922
|
Book
The Song of Achilles
By Miller, Madeline
A New York Times Bestseller"At once a scholars homage to The Iliad and startlingly original work of art ... .A book I could not put down." - Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch HouseA thrilling, profoundly moving, and utterly unique retelling of the legend of Achilles and the Trojan War from the bestselling author of CirceA tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homers enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner, Millers monumental debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fictions brightest lights - and fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCulloughs Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes."Mary Renault lives again!" - Emma Donoghue, author of Room
Publisher: n/a
|
9780062060617
|
Paperback
Under the Udala Trees
By Okparanta, Chinelo
Inspired by Nigeria's folktales and its war, Under the Udala Trees is a deeply searching, powerful debut about the dangers of living and loving openly. Ijeoma comes of age as her nation does; born before independence, she is eleven when civil war breaks out in the young republic of Nigeria. Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child and they, star-crossed, fall in love. They are from different ethnic communities. They are also both girls. When their love is discovered, Ijeoma learns that she will have to hide this part of herself. But there is a cost to living inside a lie. As Edwidge Danticat has made personal the legacy of Haiti's political coming of age, Okparanta's Under the Udala Trees uses one woman's lifetime to examine the ways in which Nigerians continue to struggle toward selfhood.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780544003446
|
Hardcover
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
By Reid, Taylor Jenkins
"Riveting, heart-wrenching, and full of Old Hollywood glamour, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is one of the most captivating reads of 2017." - BuzzFeed "The epic adventures Evelyn creates over the course of a lifetime will leave every reader mesmerized. This wildly addictive journey of a reclusive Hollywood starlet and her tumultuous Tinseltown journey comes with unexpected twists and the most satisfying of drama." - PopSugar In this entrancing novel "that speaks to the Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor in us all" (Kirkus Reviews) , a legendary film actress reflects on her relentless rise to the top and the risks she took, the loves she lost, and the long-held secrets the public could never imagine.Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career. Summoned to Evelyn's luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the '80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn's story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique's own in tragic and irreversible ways. "Heartbreaking, yet beautiful" (Jamie Blynn, Us Weekly) , The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is "Tinseltown drama at its finest" (Redbook) : a mesmerizing journey through the splendor of old Hollywood into the harsh realities of the present day as two women struggle with what it means - and what it costs - to face the truth.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781501139239
|
Hardcover
Fire from heaven
By Renault, Mary
"Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us."-Hilary MantelAlexander the Great stands alone as a leader and strategist, and Fire from Heaven is Mary Renault's unsurpassed dramatization of the formative years of his life. His parents fight for their precocious son's love: On one side,
Publisher: n/a
|
9781480432871
|
eBook
Confessions of the Fox
By Rosenberg, Jordy
Set in the eighteenth-century London of notorious thieves and queer subcultures, this daring and genre-bending debut tells a profound story of love, desire, and liberation. Jack Sheppard and his partner in crime Bess captured the imagination of eighteenth-century London with their exploits as thieves, jailbreakers, and lovers. Yet no one knows the true story; their confessions have never been found. That is, until Dr. R. Voth - a recently jilted transgender scholar - discovers a mysterious stack of papers titled Confessions of the Fox. Dated 1724 and written in bawdy slang, the manuscript tells the story of an orphan named P. Sold into servitude at twelve, P struggles for years with her desire to live as "Jack." When P falls dizzyingly in love with Bess, a sex worker looking for freedom of her own, P begins to imagine a different life. Bess brings P into the London underworld where scamps and rogues clash with London's newly established police force, queer subcultures thrive, and ominous threats of the Plague abound. Soon, P becomes Jack Sheppard, one of the most notorious - and most wanted - thieves in history. As Dr. Voth is drawn deeper into Jack and Bess's tale of underworld resistance and gender transformation, it becomes clear that their fates are intertwined - and only a miracle will save them all. Confessions of the Fox is, at once, a work of speculative historical fiction, a soaring love story, a puzzling mystery, an electrifying tale of adventure and suspense, and an unabashed celebration of sex and sexuality. Writing with the narrative mastery of Sarah Waters and the playful imagination of Nabokov's Pale Fire, Jordy Rosenberg is an audacious storyteller of extraordinary talent.Advance praise for Confessions of the Fox "Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg is quite simply extraordinary. Imagine if Maggie Nelson, Daphne du Maurier, and Daniel Defoe collaborated? That." - Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent "With adventure, wit, and a ferocious heart, Confessions of the Fox is an astonishing, bawdy, dazzling triumph of a book." - Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble "A riotous and transporting novel. It's rich in the sound of another time, while thrillingly germane to our own. Jordy Rosenberg is a total original - part scamp, part genius - who has written a rollicking page-turner of a first novel. Hang on for the ride." - Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts
Publisher: n/a
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9780399592270
|
Hardcover
The Night Watch
By Waters, Sarah
A wonderful novelWaters is almost Dickensian in her wealth of description and depth of characterChicago Tribune Moving back through the s through air raids blacked-out streets illicit partying and sexual adventure to end with its beginning in The Night Watch tells the story of four Londonersthree women and a young man with a pastwhose lives and those of their friends and lovers connect in tragedy stunning surprise and exquisite turns only to change irreversibly in the shadow of a grand historical event
Publisher: n/a
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9781594489051
|
Hardcover
The Paying Guests
By Waters, Sarah
The New York Times bestselling novel that has been called "a tour de force" (Wall Street Journal) , "unputdownable" (The Washington Post) , "a delicious hothouse of a novel" (USA Today) , "effortless" (The Economist) , "seductive" (Vanity Fair) and "pitch perfect" (Salon) "Superb, bewitching ... Forget about Fifty Shades of Grey; this novel is one of the most sensual you will ever read, and all without sacrificing either good taste or a "G" rating" - NPR "One of the year's most engrossing and suspenseful novels ... a love affair, a shocking murder, and a flawless ending ... Will keep you sleepless for three nights straight and leave you grasping for another book that can sustain that high.
Days Without End
By Barry, Sebastian
COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD WINNERLONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 MAN BOOKER PRIZE"A true leftfield wonder: Days Without End is a violent, superbly lyrical western offering a sweeping vision of America in the making." - Kazuo Ishiguro, Booker Prize winning author of The Remains of the Day and The Buried GiantFrom the two-time Man Booker Prize finalist Sebastian Barry, "a master storyteller" (Wall Street Journal) , comes a powerful new novel of duty and family set against the American Indian and Civil Wars Thomas McNulty, aged barely seventeen and having fled the Great Famine in Ireland, signs up for the U.S. Army in the 1850s. With his brother in arms, John Cole, Thomas goes on to fight in the Indian Wars - against the Sioux and the Yurok - and, ultimately, the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, the men find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in. Moving from the plains of Wyoming to Tennessee, Sebastian Barry's latest work is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language. An intensely poignant story of two men and the makeshift family they create with a young Sioux girl, Winona, Days Without End is a fresh and haunting portrait of the most fateful years in American history and is a novel never to be forgotten.
The Best Bad Things
By Carrasco, Katrina Marie
"A brazen, brawny, sexy standout of a historical thrill ride, The Best Bad Things is full of unforgettable characters and insatiable appetites. I was riveted. Painstakingly researched and pulsing with adrenaline, Carrasco's debut will leave you thirsty for more." -- Lyndsay Faye, author of The Gods of GothamA vivid, sexy barn burner of a historical crime novel, The Best Bad Things introduces readers to the fiery Alma Rosales -- detective, smuggler, spyIt is 1887, and Alma Rosales is on the hunt for stolen opium. Trained in espionage by the Pinkerton Detective Agency -- but dismissed for bad behavior and a penchant for going undercover as a man -- Alma now works for Delphine Beaumond, the seductive mastermind of a West Coast smuggling ring.When product goes missing at their Washington Territory outpost, Alma is tasked with tracking the thief and recovering the drugs. In disguise as the scrappy dockworker Jack Camp, this should be easy -- once she muscles her way into the local organization, wins the trust of the magnetic local boss and his boys, discovers the turncoat, and keeps them all from uncovering her secrets. All this, while sending coded dispatches to the circling Pinkerton agents to keep them from closing in.Alma's enjoying her dangerous game of shifting identities and double crosses as she fights for a promotion and an invitation back into Delphine's bed. But it's getting harder and harder to keep her cover stories straight and to know whom to trust. One wrong move and she could be unmasked: as a woman, as a traitor, or as a spy.A propulsive, sensual tour de force, The Best Bad Things introduces Katrina Carrasco, a bold new voice in crime fiction.
The Gods of Tango
By Robertis, Carolina De
February 1913. Seventeen-year-old Leda, clutching a suitcase and her father's cherished violin, leaves her small Italian village for a new home (and husband) halfway across the world in Argentina. Upon her arrival in Buenos Aires, Leda is shocked to find that her bridegroom has been killed. Unable to fathom the idea ofreturning home, she remains in this unfamiliar city, living in a commune, without friends or family, on the brink of destitution. She finally acts on a passion she has kept secret for years: mastering the violin
The Pull of the Stars
By Donoghue, Emma
Dublin, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu. A small world of work, risk, death, and unlooked-for love, by the bestselling author of The Wonder and ROOMIn an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders -- Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police , and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world.
Hild
By Griffith, Nicola
A brilliant, lush, sweeping historical novel about the rise of the most powerful woman of the Middle Ages: HildIn seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, frequently and violently. A new religion is coming ashore; the old gods are struggling, their priests worrying. Hild is the king's youngest niece, and she has a glimmering mind and a natural, noble authority. She will become a fascinating woman and one of the pivotal figures of the Middle Ages: Saint Hilda of Whitby.But now she has only the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world--of studying nature, of matching cause with effect, of observing her surroundings closely and predicting what will happen next--that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her.
The Mercies
By Hargrave, Kiran Millwood
"Every once in a while, a modern day parable, perfectly told, reflects all that could happen in a world gone mad."-Adriana Trigiani Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vard must fend for themselves. Three years later, a sinister figure arrives. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband's authority and terrified by it. In Vard, and in Maren, Ursa sees something she has never seen before: independent women. But Absalom sees only a place untouched by God, and flooded with a mighty evil. As Maren and Ursa are drawn to one another in ways that surprise them both, the island begins to close in on them, with Absalom's iron rule threatening Vard's very existence. Inspired by the real events of the Vard storm and the 1621 witch trials, The Mercies is a story of love, evil, and obsession, set at the edge of civilization.
The Animals at Lockwood Manor
By Healey, Jane
A debut novel for fans of Sarah Perry and Kate Morton: when a young woman is tasked with safeguarding a natural history collection as it is spirited out of London during World War II, she discovers her new manor home is a place of secrets and terror instead of protection.In August 1939, thirty-year-old Hetty Cartwright arrives at Lockwood Manor to oversee a natural history museum collection, whose contents have been taken out of London for safekeeping. She is unprepared for the scale of protecting her charges from party guests, wild animals, the elements, the tyrannical Major Lockwood and Luftwaffe bombs. Most of all, she is unprepared for the beautiful and haunted Lucy Lockwood. For Lucy, who has spent much of her life cloistered at Lockwood suffering from bad nerves, the arrival of the museum brings with it new freedoms.
As Meat Loves Salt
By Mccann, Maria
In the seventeenth century, the English Revolution is under way. The nation, seething with religious and political discontent, has erupted into violence and terror. Jacob Cullen and his fellow soldiers dream of rebuilding their lives when the fighting is over. But the shattering events of war will overtake them. A darkly erotic tale of passion and obsession, As Meat Loves Salt is a gripping portrait of England beset by war. It is also a moving portrait of a man on the brink of madness. Hailed as a masterpiece, this is a novel by a most original new voice in fiction. A Harvest Original
Dancer
By Mccann, Colum
From the acclaimed author of This Side of Brightness, the epic life and times of Rudolf Nureyev, reimagined in a dazzlingly inventive masterpiece-published to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Nureyev's deathA Russian peasant who became an international legend, a Cold War exile who inspired millions, an artist whose name stood for genius, sex, and excess-the magnificence of Rudolf Nureyev's life and work are known, but now Colum McCann, in his most daring novel yet, reinvents this erotically charged figure through the light he cast on those who knew him. Taking his inspiration from the biographical facts, McCann tells the story through a chorus of voices: there is Anna Vasileva, Rudi's first ballet teacher, who rescues her protégé from the stunted life of his town; Yulia, whose sexual and artistic ambitions are thwarted by her Soviet-sanctioned marriage; and Victor, the Venezuelan hustler, who reveals the lurid underside of the gay celebrity set.
The Song of Achilles
By Miller, Madeline
A New York Times Bestseller"At once a scholars homage to The Iliad and startlingly original work of art ... .A book I could not put down." - Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch HouseA thrilling, profoundly moving, and utterly unique retelling of the legend of Achilles and the Trojan War from the bestselling author of CirceA tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homers enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner, Millers monumental debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fictions brightest lights - and fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCulloughs Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes."Mary Renault lives again!" - Emma Donoghue, author of Room
Under the Udala Trees
By Okparanta, Chinelo
Inspired by Nigeria's folktales and its war, Under the Udala Trees is a deeply searching, powerful debut about the dangers of living and loving openly. Ijeoma comes of age as her nation does; born before independence, she is eleven when civil war breaks out in the young republic of Nigeria. Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child and they, star-crossed, fall in love. They are from different ethnic communities. They are also both girls. When their love is discovered, Ijeoma learns that she will have to hide this part of herself. But there is a cost to living inside a lie. As Edwidge Danticat has made personal the legacy of Haiti's political coming of age, Okparanta's Under the Udala Trees uses one woman's lifetime to examine the ways in which Nigerians continue to struggle toward selfhood.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
By Reid, Taylor Jenkins
"Riveting, heart-wrenching, and full of Old Hollywood glamour, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is one of the most captivating reads of 2017." - BuzzFeed "The epic adventures Evelyn creates over the course of a lifetime will leave every reader mesmerized. This wildly addictive journey of a reclusive Hollywood starlet and her tumultuous Tinseltown journey comes with unexpected twists and the most satisfying of drama." - PopSugar In this entrancing novel "that speaks to the Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor in us all" (Kirkus Reviews) , a legendary film actress reflects on her relentless rise to the top and the risks she took, the loves she lost, and the long-held secrets the public could never imagine.Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career. Summoned to Evelyn's luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the '80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn's story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique's own in tragic and irreversible ways. "Heartbreaking, yet beautiful" (Jamie Blynn, Us Weekly) , The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is "Tinseltown drama at its finest" (Redbook) : a mesmerizing journey through the splendor of old Hollywood into the harsh realities of the present day as two women struggle with what it means - and what it costs - to face the truth.
Fire from heaven
By Renault, Mary
"Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us."-Hilary MantelAlexander the Great stands alone as a leader and strategist, and Fire from Heaven is Mary Renault's unsurpassed dramatization of the formative years of his life. His parents fight for their precocious son's love: On one side,
Confessions of the Fox
By Rosenberg, Jordy
Set in the eighteenth-century London of notorious thieves and queer subcultures, this daring and genre-bending debut tells a profound story of love, desire, and liberation. Jack Sheppard and his partner in crime Bess captured the imagination of eighteenth-century London with their exploits as thieves, jailbreakers, and lovers. Yet no one knows the true story; their confessions have never been found. That is, until Dr. R. Voth - a recently jilted transgender scholar - discovers a mysterious stack of papers titled Confessions of the Fox. Dated 1724 and written in bawdy slang, the manuscript tells the story of an orphan named P. Sold into servitude at twelve, P struggles for years with her desire to live as "Jack." When P falls dizzyingly in love with Bess, a sex worker looking for freedom of her own, P begins to imagine a different life. Bess brings P into the London underworld where scamps and rogues clash with London's newly established police force, queer subcultures thrive, and ominous threats of the Plague abound. Soon, P becomes Jack Sheppard, one of the most notorious - and most wanted - thieves in history. As Dr. Voth is drawn deeper into Jack and Bess's tale of underworld resistance and gender transformation, it becomes clear that their fates are intertwined - and only a miracle will save them all. Confessions of the Fox is, at once, a work of speculative historical fiction, a soaring love story, a puzzling mystery, an electrifying tale of adventure and suspense, and an unabashed celebration of sex and sexuality. Writing with the narrative mastery of Sarah Waters and the playful imagination of Nabokov's Pale Fire, Jordy Rosenberg is an audacious storyteller of extraordinary talent.Advance praise for Confessions of the Fox "Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg is quite simply extraordinary. Imagine if Maggie Nelson, Daphne du Maurier, and Daniel Defoe collaborated? That." - Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent "With adventure, wit, and a ferocious heart, Confessions of the Fox is an astonishing, bawdy, dazzling triumph of a book." - Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble "A riotous and transporting novel. It's rich in the sound of another time, while thrillingly germane to our own. Jordy Rosenberg is a total original - part scamp, part genius - who has written a rollicking page-turner of a first novel. Hang on for the ride." - Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts
The Night Watch
By Waters, Sarah
A wonderful novelWaters is almost Dickensian in her wealth of description and depth of characterChicago Tribune Moving back through the s through air raids blacked-out streets illicit partying and sexual adventure to end with its beginning in The Night Watch tells the story of four Londonersthree women and a young man with a pastwhose lives and those of their friends and lovers connect in tragedy stunning surprise and exquisite turns only to change irreversibly in the shadow of a grand historical event
The Paying Guests
By Waters, Sarah
The New York Times bestselling novel that has been called "a tour de force" (Wall Street Journal) , "unputdownable" (The Washington Post) , "a delicious hothouse of a novel" (USA Today) , "effortless" (The Economist) , "seductive" (Vanity Fair) and "pitch perfect" (Salon) "Superb, bewitching ... Forget about Fifty Shades of Grey; this novel is one of the most sensual you will ever read, and all without sacrificing either good taste or a "G" rating" - NPR "One of the year's most engrossing and suspenseful novels ... a love affair, a shocking murder, and a flawless ending ... Will keep you sleepless for three nights straight and leave you grasping for another book that can sustain that high.