RGG Speed Dating May 2022 Event
May 18, 2022
We love hearing from readers. I received this message from Pat, who won copies of THE PARIS LIBRARY by Janet Skeslien Charles for her book group, The Lynbrook Ladies Literary League, in our “What’s Your Book Group Reading This Month?” contest: “Wow is all I can say and my heartfelt THANKS! Our book club is celebrating its 30th year, and this is a great gift for all of us! We have been devoted fans of ReadingGroupGuides and have attended your presentations at the Rockville Centre Library. You have brought so much to our discussions with your bios and suggested discussion questions from selected authors. The pandemic has brought your expertise and love of reading even closer to us with your Zoom presentations. You never missed a beat in keeping us informed of the latest books and some inspiring author interviews.”
Editorial Content for Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age
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Teaser
DIAMONDS AND DEADLINES is the first major biography of the glamorous and scandalous Miriam Leslie, titan of publishing and an unsung hero of women’s suffrage.
Promo
DIAMONDS AND DEADLINES is the first major biography of the glamorous and scandalous Miriam Leslie, titan of publishing and an unsung hero of women’s suffrage.
About the Book
The first major biography of the glamorous and scandalous Miriam Leslie, titan of publishing and an unsung hero of women’s suffrage.
Among the fabled tycoons of the Gilded Age --- Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt --- is a forgotten figure: Mrs. Frank Leslie. For 20 years she ran the country’s largest publishing company, Frank Leslie Publishing, which chronicled postbellum America in dozens of weeklies and monthlies. A pioneer in an all-male industry, she made a fortune and became a national celebrity and tastemaker in the process. But Miriam Leslie was also a byword for scandal. She flouted feminine convention, took lovers, married four times, and harbored unsavory secrets that she concealed through a skein of lies and multiple personas. Both before and after her lifetime, glimpses of the truth emerged, including an illegitimate birth and a checkered youth.
DIAMONDS AND DEADLINES reveals the unknown, sensational life of the brilliant and brazen “empress of journalism,” who dropped a bombshell at her death. She left her entire multimillion-dollar estate to women’s suffrage --- a never-equaled amount that guaranteed passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. In this dazzling biography, cultural historian Betsy Prioleau draws from diaries, genealogies and published works to provide an intimate look at the life of one of the Gilded Age's most complex, powerful women and unexpected feminist icons.
Ultimately, DIAMONDS AND DEADLINES restores Mrs. Frank Leslie to her rightful place in history, as a monumental businesswoman who presaged the feminist future and reflected, in bold relief, the Gilded Age, one of the most momentous, seismic and vivid epochs in American history.
Editorial Content for The Good Left Undone
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Teaser
From Adriana Trigiani comes a lush, immersive novel about three generations of Tuscan artisans with one remarkable secret. Epic in scope and resplendent with the glorious themes of identity and belonging, THE GOOD LEFT UNDONE unfolds in breathtaking turns.
Promo
From Adriana Trigiani comes a lush, immersive novel about three generations of Tuscan artisans with one remarkable secret. Epic in scope and resplendent with the glorious themes of identity and belonging, THE GOOD LEFT UNDONE unfolds in breathtaking turns.
About the Book
From “a master of visual and palpable detail” (The Washington Post) comes a lush, immersive novel about three generations of Tuscan artisans with one remarkable secret. Epic in scope and resplendent with the glorious themes of identity and belonging, THE GOOD LEFT UNDONE unfolds in breathtaking turns.
Matelda, the Cabrelli family’s matriarch, has always been brusque and opinionated. Now, as she faces the end of her life, she is determined to share a long-held secret with her family about her own mother’s great love story: with her childhood friend, Silvio, and with dashing Scottish sea captain John Lawrie McVicars, the father Matelda never knew.
In the halcyon past, Domenica Cabrelli thrives in the coastal town of Viareggio until her beloved home becomes unsafe when Italy teeters on the brink of World War II. Her journey takes her from the rocky shores of Marseille to the mystical beauty of Scotland to the dangers of wartime Liverpool --- where Italian Scots are imprisoned without cause --- as Domenica experiences love, loss and grief while she longs for home.
A hundred years later, her daughter, Matelda, and her granddaughter, Anina, face the same big questions about life and their family’s legacy, while Matelda contemplates what is worth fighting for. But Matelda is running out of time, and the two timelines intersect and weave together in unexpected and heartbreaking ways that lead the family to shocking revelations and, ultimately, redemption.
Editorial Content for Shadows of Berlin
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Teaser
SHADOWS OF BERLIN is David R. Gillham's captivating novel of a Berlin girl on the run from the guilt of her past and the boy from Brooklyn who loves her.
Promo
SHADOWS OF BERLIN is David R. Gillham's captivating novel of a Berlin girl on the run from the guilt of her past and the boy from Brooklyn who loves her.
About the Book
A captivating novel of a Berlin girl on the run from the guilt of her past and the boy from Brooklyn who loves her.
1955 in New York City: the city of instant coffee, bagels at Katz's Deli, new-fangled TVs. But in the Perlmans' walk-up in Chelsea, the past is as close as the present. Rachel came to Manhattan in a wave of displaced Jews who managed to survive the horrors of war. Her Uncle Fritz fleeing with her, Rachel hoped to find freedom from her pain in New York and in the arms of her new American husband, Aaron.
But this child of Berlin and daughter of an artist cannot seem to outrun her guilt in the role of American housewife, not until she can shed the ghosts of her past. And when Uncle Fritz discovers, in a dreary midtown pawn shop, the most shocking portrait that her mother had ever painted, Rachel's memories begin to terrorize her, forcing her to face the choices she made to stay alive --- choices that might be her undoing.
From the cafés of war-torn Germany to the frantic drumbeat of 1950s Manhattan, SHADOWS OF BERLIN dramatically explores survival, redemption, and the way we learn to love and forgive across impossible divides.
Editorial Content for The Shop on Royal Street
Teaser
Nola Trenholm is hopeful for a fresh start in the Big Easy but must deal with ghosts from her past --- as well as new ones --- in this first book in a spinoff series of Karen White's New York Times bestselling Tradd Street novels.
Promo
Nola Trenholm is hopeful for a fresh start in the Big Easy but must deal with ghosts from her past --- as well as new ones --- in this first book in a spinoff series of Karen White's New York Times bestselling Tradd Street novels.
About the Book
Nola Trenholm is hopeful for a fresh start in the Big Easy but must deal with ghosts from her past --- as well as new ones --- in this first book in a spinoff series of Karen White's New York Times bestselling Tradd Street novels.
After a difficult detour on her road to adulthood, Nola Trenholm is looking to begin anew in New Orleans, and what better way to start her future than with her first house? But the historic fixer-upper she buys comes with even more work than she anticipated when the house’s previous occupants don’t seem to be ready to depart.
Although she can’t communicate with ghosts like her stepmother can, luckily Nola knows someone in New Orleans who is able to --- even if he’s the last person on earth she wants anything to do with ever again. Beau Ryan comes with his own dark past --- a past that involves the disappearance of his sister and parents during Hurricane Katrina --- and he’s connected to the unsolved murder of a woman who once lived in the old Creole cottage Nola is determined to make her own...whether the resident restless spirits agree or not.










