Editorial Content for The Personal Librarian
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Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray have penned the remarkable story of J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation.
Promo
Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray have penned the remarkable story of J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation.
About the Book
The remarkable story of J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray.
In her 20s, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection.
But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle’s complexion isn’t dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white --- her complexion is dark because she is African American.
THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style and wit, and shares the lengths she must go to --- for the protection of her family and her legacy --- to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.
Editorial Content for The Therapist
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The multimillion-copy New York Times bestselling author B. A. Paris returns to her heartland of gripping psychological suspense in THE THERAPIST --- a powerful tale of a house that holds a shocking secret.
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The multimillion-copy New York Times bestselling author B. A. Paris returns to her heartland of gripping psychological suspense in THE THERAPIST --- a powerful tale of a house that holds a shocking secret.
About the Book
The multimillion-copy New York Times bestselling author B. A. Paris returns to her heartland of gripping psychological suspense in THE THERAPIST --- a powerful tale of a house that holds a shocking secret.
When Alice and Leo move into a newly renovated house in The Circle, a gated community of exclusive houses, it is everything they’ve dreamed of. But appearances can be deceptive.
As Alice is getting to know her neighbors, she discovers a devastating secret about her new home, and begins to feel a strong connection with Nina, the therapist who lived there before.
Alice becomes obsessed with trying to piece together what happened two years before. But no one wants to talk about it. Her neighbors are keeping secrets, and things are not as perfect as they seem.
Editorial Content for The Turnout
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Bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott's revelatory and mesmerizing new novel is set against the hothouse of a family-run ballet studio.
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Bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott's revelatory and mesmerizing new novel is set against the hothouse of a family-run ballet studio.
About the Book
Bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott's revelatory and mesmerizing new novel is set against the hothouse of a family-run ballet studio.
With their long necks and matching buns and pink tights, Dara and Marie Durant have been dancers since they can remember. Growing up, they were homeschooled and trained by their glamorous mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents' death in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters began running the school together, along with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student.
Marie, warm and soft, teaches the younger students; Dara, with her precision, trains the older ones; and Charlie, sidelined from dancing after years of injuries, rules over the back office. Circling around one another, the three have perfected a dance, six days a week, that keeps the studio thriving. But when a suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of "The Nutcracker" --- a season of competition, anxiety and exhilaration --- an interloper arrives and threatens the sisters' delicate balance.
Taut and unnerving, THE TURNOUT is Megan Abbott at the height of her game. With uncanny insight and hypnotic writing, it is a sharp and strange dissection of family ties and sexuality, femininity and power, and a tale that is both alarming and irresistible.
Editorial Content for We Were Never Here
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A backpacking trip has deadly consequences in this “eerie psychological thriller...with alluring locales, Hitchcockian tension and possibly the best pair of female leads since Thelma and Louise” (BookPage), from the bestselling author of THE LOST NIGHT and THE HERD.
Promo
A backpacking trip has deadly consequences in this “eerie psychological thriller...with alluring locales, Hitchcockian tension and possibly the best pair of female leads since Thelma and Louise” (BookPage), from the bestselling author of THE LOST NIGHT and THE HERD.
About the Book
A backpacking trip has deadly consequences in this “eerie psychological thriller...with alluring locales, Hitchcockian tension and possibly the best pair of female leads since Thelma and Louise” (BookPage), from the bestselling author of THE LOST NIGHT and THE HERD.
Emily is having the time of her life --- she’s in the mountains of Chile with her best friend, Kristen, on their annual reunion trip, and the women are feeling closer than ever. But on the last night of the trip, Emily enters their hotel suite to find blood and broken glass on the floor. Kristen says the cute backpacker she brought back to their room attacked her, and she had no choice but to kill him in self-defense. Even more shocking: The scene is horrifyingly similar to last year’s trip, when another backpacker wound up dead. Emily can’t believe it’s happened again. Can lightning really strike twice?
Back home in Wisconsin, Emily struggles to bury her trauma, diving headfirst into a new relationship and throwing herself into work. But when Kristen shows up for a surprise visit, Emily is forced to confront their violent past. The more Kristen tries to keep Emily close, the more Emily questions her motives. As Emily feels the walls closing in on their cover-ups, she must reckon with the truth about her closest friend. Can Emily outrun the secrets she shares with Kristen, or will they destroy her relationship, her freedom --- even her life?
July 29, 2021
After never belonging to a book group, I have been in two book groups over the last couple of years. One, with members in my neighborhood, fizzled during the pandemic, while the other, comprised mostly of young moms, continued to meet --- first virtually, then outdoors (we became adept at campfire discussions), and recently in-person indoors.
We lost one of the group’s founders when she moved to Colorado in December. With her departure, our regular meeting place at a firehouse where her husband volunteered also vanished. Recently we have been a dedicated band of five, with other members dropping in and out of meetings.
Editorial Content for The Exiles
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The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller ORPHAN TRAIN returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel about three women whose lives are bound together in 19th-century Australia and the hardships they weather together as they fight for redemption and freedom in a new society.
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The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller ORPHAN TRAIN returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel about three women whose lives are bound together in 19th-century Australia and the hardships they weather together as they fight for redemption and freedom in a new society.
About the Book
The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller ORPHAN TRAIN returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel about three women whose lives are bound together in 19th-century Australia and the hardships they weather together as they fight for redemption and freedom in a new society.
Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early 19th-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.
During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel --- a skilled midwife and herbalist --- is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.
Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.
In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, THE EXILES is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.
Editorial Content for The Forest of Vanishing Stars
Teaser
The New York Times bestselling author of THE BOOK OF LOST NAMES returns with an evocative coming-of-age World War II story about a young woman who uses her knowledge of the wilderness to help Jewish refugees escape the Nazis --- until a secret from her past threatens everything.
Promo
The New York Times bestselling author of THE BOOK OF LOST NAMES returns with an evocative coming-of-age World War II story about a young woman who uses her knowledge of the wilderness to help Jewish refugees escape the Nazis --- until a secret from her past threatens everything.
About the Book
The New York Times bestselling author of the “heart-stopping tale of survival and heroism” (People) THE BOOK OF LOST NAMES returns with an evocative coming-of-age World War II story about a young woman who uses her knowledge of the wilderness to help Jewish refugees escape the Nazis --- until a secret from her past threatens everything.
After being stolen from her wealthy German parents and raised in the unforgiving wilderness of eastern Europe, a young woman finds herself alone in 1941 after her kidnapper dies. Her solitary existence is interrupted, however, when she happens upon a group of Jews fleeing the Nazi terror. Stunned to learn what’s happening in the outside world, she vows to teach the group all she can about surviving in the forest --- and in turn, they teach her some surprising lessons about opening her heart after years of isolation. But when she is betrayed and escapes into a German-occupied village, her past and present come together in a shocking collision that could change everything.
Inspired by incredible true stories of survival against staggering odds, and suffused with the journey-from-the-wilderness elements that made WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING a worldwide phenomenon, THE FOREST OF VANISHING STARS is a heart-wrenching and suspenseful novel from the #1 internationally bestselling author whose writing has been hailed as “sweeping and magnificent” (Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author), “immersive and evocative” (Publishers Weekly), and “gripping” (Tampa Bay Times).