Frances's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 25 Apr 2025 07:54:08 -0700 60 Frances's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Briar Club 60873122 A haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.

Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital, where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely poised English beauty Fliss whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; police officer’s daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Bea, whose career has ended along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears apart the house, the Briar Club women must decide once and for Who is the true enemy in their midst?]]>
430 Kate Quinn 0063244764 Frances 0 currently-reading 4.44 2024 The Briar Club
author: Kate Quinn
name: Frances
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/25
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The Promise of Tomorrow 197794165 From the author of The Brighter the Light comes the moving story about one woman’s reason for leaving home and the love that brings her back.

When Olympia leaves her small Virginia town, she doesn’t expect to look back, much less ever come home. But after a year on the road, her sister’s engagement pulls Olympia into everything she left her family, her husband, and the grief she’s been trying to forget.

She’s determined to stay a few days, maybe a week—just enough time to visit gravestones and sign off on the divorce her husband, Spencer, asked for. But he’s reeling from their shared loss, as well as complications with his aging parents, leaving his heart just as fragile as Olympia’s. The more time they spend in each other’s orbit, the less sure they are they’ll be able to walk away for good.

As family secrets come to light and family bonds stretch to the breaking point, Olympia must decide where she’s going next and where she belongs. She’s used to coping with life’s complications alone, but maybe the best way to heal is together.]]>
339 Mary Ellen Taylor 1662513461 Frances 0 currently-reading 4.28 2024 The Promise of Tomorrow
author: Mary Ellen Taylor
name: Frances
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/03
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Not Quite by the Book 213724356 A bookstore owner discovers that life as a recluse isn’t for everyone in this sharp yet sweet novel about how sometimes you need to abandon the quest for love to find your true passion.

Emma Rini is in a rut so deep she could shelve books there. While her sister awaits her first baby, and her parents kick off retirement with vow renewals and travel, Emma stays put among the stacks of the family bookshop.

In fact, she can’t remember the last time she took a vacation. Or had a romance that hovered above disappointing. When her parents assume she’ll take over the shop for them without a break, she realizes she needs to get away—back to the nineteenth century. Channeling her favorite poet recluse, Emily Dickinson, Emma rents a crumbling manor house outside Amherst where she can learn how to be quietly, blissfully alone.

But becoming a world-weary spinster isn’t easy. She can’t start a fire or reason with the bunnies that are destroying the garden. She finds herself sparring constantly with the grumpy-hot architect who is renovating the manor. And then there’s the secret admirer who keeps sending her complicated floral messages�

No matter what she does, the outside world keeps knocking, and Emma starts to dream about the future. Will she forgo love for the family legacy? And will she shrink away or become the sort of bold person fortune favors?]]>
317 Julie Hatcher 1662523459 Frances 4 3.85 2025 Not Quite by the Book
author: Julie Hatcher
name: Frances
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/01
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River God (Ancient Egypt, #1) 37550872
The first book in the epic Egyptian series. 'Fame and popularity breed envy in high places, and the adulation of the mob is fickle. they often take as much pleasure in tearing down the idols that they have grown tired of, as they did in elevating them in the first place. It is safer by far to live unseen and unremarked, as I always attempt to do' An ancient kingdom. An incredible destiny. Taita is a humble sale; an expert in art, poetry, medicine, and engineering, as well as keeping important secrets, he is the most treasure possession of Lord Intef. Yet when Intef's beautiful daughter Lostris is married to the Pharaoh, Taita is commanded to follow her, and swiftly finds himself deeper than he ever could have imagined in a world of deception and treachery. But outside the palace, the great kingdom of Egypt is divided, and in even greater danger. Enemies threaten on all sides, and only Taita holds the power to save them all...]]>
704 Wilbur Smith 1499860838 Frances 0 4.46 1993 River God (Ancient Egypt, #1)
author: Wilbur Smith
name: Frances
average rating: 4.46
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/27
date added: 2025/02/27
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<![CDATA[Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone]]> 6116178 What really happened to Dr. David Livingstone? TheNew York Timesbestselling coauthor of The Ultimate Gameinvestigates in this thrilling account.With the utterance of a single line—“Doctor Livingstone, I presume?”—a remote meeting in the heart of Africa was transformed into one of the most famous encounters in exploration history. But the true story behind Dr. David Livingstone and journalist Henry Morton Stanley is one that has escaped telling. Into Africa is an extraordinarily researched account of a thrilling adventure—defined by alarming foolishness, intense courage, and raw human achievement. In the mid-1860s, exploration had reached a plateau. The seas and continents had been mapped, the globe circumnavigated. Yet one vexing puzzle remained what was the source of the mighty Nile river? Aiming to settle the mystery once and for all, Great Britain called upon its legendary explorer, Dr. David Livingstone, who had spent years in Africa as a missionary. In March 1866, Livingstone steered a massive expedition into the heart of Africa. In his path lay nearly impenetrable, uncharted terrain, hostile cannibals, and deadly predators. Within weeks, the explorer had vanished without a trace. Years passed with no word. While debate raged in England over whether Livingstone could be found—or rescued—from a place as daunting as Africa, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the brash American newspaper tycoon, hatched a plan to capitalize on the world’s fascination with the missing legend. He would send a young journalist, Henry Morton Stanley, into Africa to search for Livingstone. A drifter with great ambition, but little success to show for it, Stanley undertook his assignment with gusto, filing reports that would one day captivate readers and dominate the front page of the New York Herald. Tracing the amazing journeys of Livingstone and Stanley in alternating chapters, author Martin Dugard captures with breathtaking immediacy the perils and challenges these men faced. Woven into the narrative, Dugard tells an equally compelling story of the remarkable transformation that occurred over the course of nine years, as Stanley rose in power and prominence and Livingstone found himself alone and in mortal danger. The first book to draw on modern research and to explore the combination of adventure, politics, and larger-than-life personalities involved, Into Africa is a riveting read.]]> 368 Martin Dugard Frances 5 4.41 2002 Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone
author: Martin Dugard
name: Frances
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2002
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[The Killer Angels (The Civil War Trilogy, #2)]]> 8732739 “My favorite historical novel . . . a superb re-creation of the Battle of Gettysburg, but its real importance is its insight into what the war was about, and what it meant.”—James M. McPherson

In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fought for two conflicting dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Bright futures, untested innocence, and pristine beauty were also the casualties of war.

Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—the dramatic story of the battleground for America’s destiny.

BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Jeff Shaara's Blaze of Glory.]]>
402 Michael Shaara Frances 0 4.52 1974 The Killer Angels (The Civil War Trilogy, #2)
author: Michael Shaara
name: Frances
average rating: 4.52
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/12
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Pachinko 60578011 490 Min Jin Lee 8740052397 Frances 4 4.45 2017 Pachinko
author: Min Jin Lee
name: Frances
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2025/01/14
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Rubbernecker 35224982
Life is already strange enough for Patrick - being a medical student with Asperger's Syndrome doesn't come without its challenges. And that's before he is faced with solving a possible murder, especially when no one believes a crime has even taken place. Now he must stay out of danger long enough to unravel the mystery. But as Patrick learns one truth from a dead man, he discovers there have been many other lies closer to home.]]>
310 Belinda Bauer Frances 2 4.26 2013 Rubbernecker
author: Belinda Bauer
name: Frances
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/23
date added: 2024/10/23
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<![CDATA[The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild]]> 56701567 An alternate cover for this ASIN can be found: here

When South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony was asked to accept a herd of 'rogue' elephants on his Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand, his common sense told him to refuse. But he was the herd's last chance of survival � dangerous and unpredictable, they would be killed if Lawrence wouldn't take them in.

As Lawrence risked his life to create a bond with the troubled elephants and persuade them to stay on his reserve, he came to realize what a special family they were, from the wise matriarch Nana, who guided the herd, to her warrior sister Frankie, always ready to see off any threat, and their children who fought so hard to survive.

With unforgettable characters and exotic wildlife, this is an enthralling book that will appeal to animal lovers and adventurous souls everywhere.]]>
381 Lawrence Anthony Frances 5 4.68 2009 The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild
author: Lawrence Anthony
name: Frances
average rating: 4.68
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/16
date added: 2024/06/16
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The Confession 9403862 An innocent man is days from execution. Only a guilty man can save him.



Travis Boyette is a murderer. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, he abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high-school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched and waited as police and prosecutors arrested Donte Drumm, a local football star with no connection to the crime. Tried, convicted and sentenced, Drumm was sent to death row: his fate had been decided.



Nine years later, Donte Drumm is four days from execution. Over 400 miles away in Kansas, Travis faces a fate of his own: an inoperable brain tumour will soon deliver the end. Reflecting on his miserable life, he decides to do what's right. After years of silence he is ready to confess.



But how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges and politicians that they're about to execute an innocent man?

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530 John Grisham Frances 4 4.24 2010 The Confession
author: John Grisham
name: Frances
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2010
rating: 4
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First Lie Wins 127463547 Evie Porter has everything a nice Southern girl could want: a doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence, a tight group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.

The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job.

Evie isn’t privy to Mr. Smith’s real identity, but she knows this job isn’t like the others. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she’s starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can’t make any mistakes—especially after what happened last time.

Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there’s still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn’t be higher—but then, Evie has always liked a challenge. . . .]]>
384 Ashley Elston Frances 4 4.21 2024 First Lie Wins
author: Ashley Elston
name: Frances
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/19
date added: 2024/01/19
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The Little Paris Bookshop 24805783 Monsieur Perdu can prescribe the perfect book for a broken heart. But can he fix his own?

Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.

After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country’s rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself.

Internationally bestselling and filled with warmth and adventure, The Little Paris Bookshop is a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people's lives.


From the Hardcover edition.]]>
402 Nina George 0553418785 Frances 0 3.77 2013 The Little Paris Bookshop
author: Nina George
name: Frances
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2019/02/14
date added: 2023/11/29
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Year of Wonders 4965
Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition.

As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love.

As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders."

Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history. ]]>
304 Geraldine Brooks 0142001430 Frances 4 4.00 2001 Year of Wonders
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Frances
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2016/01/04
date added: 2023/11/11
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Excellent book with an intriguing setting and story line. The heroine is a complex character with strengths and flaws that are admirable and raw. It makes me wonder how I would have responded to this terrible disease and all of the social implications had I been faced with them. A great story of relationships and the trial of families and friendships that are lost and won. I recommend it highly.
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Hester 56686560 A vivid reimagining of the woman who inspired Hester Prynne, the tragic heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and a journey into the enduring legacy of New England's witchcraft trials.

Who is the real Hester Prynne?

Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with her husband, Edward. An apothecary who has fallen under the spell of opium, his pile of debts have forced them to flee Edinburgh for a fresh start in the New World. But only days after they've arrived in Salem, Edward abruptly joins a departing ship as a medic––leaving Isobel penniless and alone in a strange country, forced to make her way by any means possible.

When she meets a young Nathaniel Hawthorne, the two are instantly drawn to each other: he is a man haunted by his ancestors, who sent innocent women to the gallows––while she is an unusually gifted needleworker, troubled by her own strange talents. As the weeks pass and Edward's safe return grows increasingly unlikely, Nathaniel and Isobel grow closer and closer. Together, they are a muse and a dark storyteller; the enchanter and the enchanted. But which is which?

In this sensuous and hypnotizing tale, a young immigrant woman grapples with our country's complicated past, and learns that America's ideas of freedom and liberty often fall short of their promise. Interwoven with Isobel and Nathaniel's story is a vivid interrogation of who gets to be a "real" American in the first half of the 19th century, a depiction of the early days of the Underground Railroad in New England, and atmospheric interstitials that capture the long history of "unusual" women being accused of witchcraft. Meticulously researched yet evocatively imagined, Hester is]]>
336 Laurie Lico Albanese 1250278562 Frances 5 4.16 2022 Hester
author: Laurie Lico Albanese
name: Frances
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/14
date added: 2023/10/14
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Defending Jacob 51443902
Andy believes in Jacob’s innocence. Any parent would. But the pressure mounts. Damning evidence. Doubt. A faltering marriage. The neighbors� contempt. A murder trial that threatens to obliterate Andy’s family. It is the ultimate test for any parent: How far would you go to protect your child? It is a test of devotion. A test of how well a parent can know a child. For Andy Barber, a man with an iron will and a dark secret, it is a test of guilt and innocence in the deepest sense.

How far would you go?]]>
431 William Landay Frances 3 4.20 2012 Defending Jacob
author: William Landay
name: Frances
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/01
date added: 2023/09/01
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City of Girls 42140794 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and The Signature of All Things, comes a delicious novel of glamour, sex, and adventure, about a young woman discovering that you don’t have to be a good girl to be a good person.

“Life is both fleeting and dangerous, and there is no point in denying yourself pleasure, or being anything other than what you are.�

Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.

In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves—and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.

Now ninety-five years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life—and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. “At some point in a woman’s life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time,� she muses. “After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is.�

Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.]]>
391 Elizabeth Gilbert 0698408322 Frances 5 4.19 2019 City of Girls
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Frances
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/30
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Fresh Water for Flowers 53140333
Violette's routine is disrupted one day by the arrival of Julien Sole--local police chief--who insists on scattering the ashes of his recently deceased mother on the gravesite of a complete stranger. It soon becomes clear that Julien's inexplicable gesture is intertwined with Violette's own difficult past.

With Fresh Water for Flowers, Valérie Perrin has given readers an intimately told story that tugs on the heartstrings about a woman who believes obstinately in happiness, despite it all. A number one bestseller in France, Fresh Water for Flowers is a heartwarming and tender story that will stay will readers for years after the fi]]>
400 Valérie Perrin 1609455967 Frances 5 4.31 2018 Fresh Water for Flowers
author: Valérie Perrin
name: Frances
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/27
date added: 2023/08/27
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Hello Beautiful 61771675
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters� unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?]]>
416 Ann Napolitano Frances 3 4.14 2023 Hello Beautiful
author: Ann Napolitano
name: Frances
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/16
date added: 2023/05/16
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Remarkably Bright Creatures 59710157 For fans of A Man Called Ove, a charming, witty and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]>
362 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204177 Frances 5 4.51 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Frances
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/10
date added: 2023/05/10
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The Rose Code 54067525
The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Huntress and The Alice Network returns with another heart-stopping World War II story of three female code breakers at Bletchley Park and the spy they must root out after the war is over.

1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything—beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses—but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Imperious self-made Mab, product of east-end London poverty, works the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Both Osla and Mab are quick to see the potential in local village spinster Beth, whose shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and soon Beth spreads her wings as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts. But war, loss, and the impossible pressure of secrecy will tear the three apart.

1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips post-war Britain into a fever, three friends-turned-enemies are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter--the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum. A mysterious traitor has emerged from the shadows of their Bletchley Park past, and now Osla, Mab, and Beth must resurrect their old alliance and crack one last code together. But each petal they remove from the rose code brings danger--and their true enemy--closer...]]>
646 Kate Quinn Frances 5 4.55 2021 The Rose Code
author: Kate Quinn
name: Frances
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/25
date added: 2023/02/25
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<![CDATA[The Lightmaker's Manifesto: How to Work for Change without Losing Your Joy]]> 58283969
Leadership coach, lawyer, photographer, and activist Karen Walrond knows that when you care deeply about the world, light can seem hard to find. But when your activism grows out of your joy--and vice versa--you begin to see light everywhere.

In The Lightmaker's Manifesto, Walrond helps us name the skills, values, and actions that bring us joy; identify the causes that spark our empathy and concern; and then put it all together to change the world. Creative and practical exercises, including journaling, daily intention-setting, and mindful self-compassion, are complemented by lively conversations with activists and thought leaders such as Valarie Kaur, Bren� Brown, Tarana Burke, and Zuri Adele. With stories from around the world and wisdom from those leading movements for change, Walrond beckons readers toward lives of integrity, advocacy, conviction, and joy.

By unearthing our passions and gifts, we learn how to joyfully advocate for justice, peace, and liberation. We learn how to become makers of light.]]>
242 Karen Walrond 1506469957 Frances 0 4.10 The Lightmaker's Manifesto: How to Work for Change without Losing Your Joy
author: Karen Walrond
name: Frances
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/06
date added: 2022/10/09
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The Lincoln Highway 57139780 The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.

Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.]]>
576 Amor Towles 0735222371 Frances 0 4.36 2021 The Lincoln Highway
author: Amor Towles
name: Frances
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/02
date added: 2022/08/02
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<![CDATA[Where the Forest Meets the Stars]]> 41818297
After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises.

The girl calls herself Ursa, and she claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles. With concerns about the child’s home situation, Jo reluctantly agrees to let her stay—just until she learns more about Ursa’s past.

Jo enlists the help of her reclusive neighbor, Gabriel Nash, to solve the mystery of the charming child. But the more time they spend together, the more questions they have. How does a young girl not only read but understand Shakespeare? Why do good things keep happening in her presence? And why aren’t Jo and Gabe checking the missing children’s website anymore?

Though the three have formed an incredible bond, they know difficult choices must be made. As the summer nears an end and Ursa gets closer to her fifth miracle, her dangerous past closes in. When it finally catches up to them, all of their painful secrets will be forced into the open, and their fates will be left to the stars.]]>
333 Glendy Vanderah 1503959910 Frances 0 4.29 2019 Where the Forest Meets the Stars
author: Glendy Vanderah
name: Frances
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2019/02/23
date added: 2022/07/16
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This Magnificent Dappled Sea 55522057 Two strangers—generations and oceans apart—have a chance to save each other in this moving and suspenseful novel about family secrets and the ineffable connections that lead us to one another.

In a small Northern Italian village, nine-year-old Luca Taviano catches a stubborn cold and is subsequently diagnosed with leukemia. His only hope for survival is a bone marrow transplant. After an exhaustive search, a match turns up three thousand miles away in the form of a most unlikely Joseph Neiman, a rabbi in Brooklyn, New York, who is suffering from a debilitating crisis of faith. As Luca’s young nurse, Nina Vocelli, risks her career and races against time to help save the spirited redheaded boy, she uncovers terrible secrets from World War II—secrets that reveal how a Catholic child could have Jewish genes.

Can inheritance be transcended by accidents of love? That is the question at the heart of This Magnificent Dappled Sea, a novel that challenges the idea of identity and celebrates the ties that bind us together.]]>
255 David Biro 1542019826 Frances 0 4.03 2020 This Magnificent Dappled Sea
author: David Biro
name: Frances
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/07/13
date added: 2022/07/13
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These Tangled Vines 55929774 From the USA Today bestselling author of A Curve in the Road comes a sweeping and captivating tale of one woman’s journey to the lush vineyards of Tuscany—and into the mysteries of a tragic family secret.

If Fiona has learned anything in life, it’s how to keep a secret—even from the father who raised her. She is the only person who knows about her late mother’s affair in Tuscany thirty years earlier, and she intends to keep it that way…until a lawyer calls with shocking her biological father has died and left her an incredible inheritance—along with two half siblings.

Fiona travels to Italy, where the family is shocked to learn of her existence and desperate to contest her share of the will. While the mystery of her mother’s affair is slowly unraveled, Fiona must navigate through tricky family relationships and tense sibling rivalries. Fiona both fears and embraces her new destiny as she searches for the truth about the fateful summer her mother spent in Italy and the father she never knew.

Spilling over with the sumptuous flavors and romance of Tuscany, These Tangled Vines takes readers on a breathtaking journey of love, secrets, sacrifice, courage—and most importantly, the true meaning of family.]]>
302 Julianne MacLean 1542025389 Frances 4 4.27 2021 These Tangled Vines
author: Julianne MacLean
name: Frances
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/13
date added: 2022/07/13
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<![CDATA[A Room Of One's Own: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition]]> 19323941 ]]> 122 Virginia Woolf 0547544405 Frances 0 4.10 1929 A Room Of One's Own: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Frances
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1929
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Judge's List (The Whistler #2)]]> 57908970 368 John Grisham 0385546033 Frances 0 4.37 2021 The Judge's List (The Whistler #2)
author: John Grisham
name: Frances
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/03
date added: 2022/04/26
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The Secrets of Lost Stones 44319770 A soul-stirring novel about the bonds between mother and child and the redemption that comes with facing the past and letting it go.

Thirty-two-year-old Jess Abbot has lost everything: her job, her apartment, and—most heart-wrenching—her eight-year-old son, Chance, to a tragic accident. Haunted by memories and grief, Jess packs what’s left and heads for the small mountain town of Pine Lake, where she takes a position as caregiver to an eccentric old woman.

A rumored clairvoyant, Lucy is strange but welcoming and immediately intuits Jess as a “loose end� in need of closure. But Jess isn’t the only guest in Lucy’s large Victorian home. There’s also Star, a teenage runaway with a secret too painful to share. And the little boy with heart-shaped stones, who comes with a hope for reconciliation—and a warning.

Soon Jess learns that she’s not the only lost soul running from the ghosts of the past. She and Star have been brought together for a reason: to be saved by the very thing that destroyed them.]]>
336 Melissa Payne 1542041953 Frances 0 currently-reading 4.28 2019 The Secrets of Lost Stones
author: Melissa Payne
name: Frances
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/04/06
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Girls of Brackenhill 49754777 Haunted by her sister’s disappearance, a troubled woman becomes consumed by past secrets in this gripping thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Year.

When Hannah Maloney’s aunt dies in a car accident, she returns to her family’s castle in the Catskills and the epicenter of a childhood trauma: her sister’s unsolved disappearance. It’s been seventeen years, and though desperate to start a new life with her fiancé, Hannah is compelled to question the events of her last summer at Brackenhill.

When a human bone is found near the estate, Hannah is convinced it belongs to her long-lost sister. She launches her own investigation into that magical summer that ended in a nightmare. As strange happenings plague the castle, Hannah uncovers disturbing details about the past and startling realizations about her own repressed childhood memories.

Fueled by guilt over her sister’s vanishing, Hannah becomes obsessed with discovering what happened all those years ago, but by the time Hannah realizes some mysteries are best left buried, it’s too late to stop digging. Overwhelmed by what she has exposed, Hannah isn’t sure her new life can survive her old ghosts.]]>
330 Kate Moretti 1542000092 Frances 0 3.77 2020 Girls of Brackenhill
author: Kate Moretti
name: Frances
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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The Storyteller 16055529
Mourning the passing of her mother, Sage Singer decides to attend a grief support group.
She doesn't expect to start an unlikely friendship with an elderly man also attending.
Josef Weber is a beloved, retired teacher and Little League coach. Together they attempt to heal.
But one day he asks Sage for a favor: to kill him. Shocked, Sage refuses but then he confesses his darkest and long-buried secret, one that irrevocably changes Sage's worldview.]]>
508 Jodi Picoult Frances 0 4.44 2013 The Storyteller
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Frances
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/06
date added: 2022/04/06
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West With Giraffes 56449476 An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America.

“Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes…�

Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.

It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Behind the wheel is the young Dust Bowl rowdy Woodrow. Inspired by true events, the tale weaves real-life figures with fictional ones, including the world’s first female zoo director, a crusty old man with a past, a young female photographer with a secret, and assorted reprobates as spotty as the giraffes.

Part adventure, part historical saga, and part coming-of-age love story, West with Giraffes explores what it means to be changed by the grace of animals, the kindness of strangers, the passing of time, and a story told before it’s too late.]]>
346 Lynda Rutledge 1542023351 Frances 0 4.34 2021 West With Giraffes
author: Lynda Rutledge
name: Frances
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/10
date added: 2022/03/10
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The Midnight Library 53568397
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.]]>
288 Matt Haig 0525559485 Frances 0 4.16 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Frances
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/03
date added: 2022/03/03
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What She Left Behind 19802332 Ten years ago, Izzy Stone's mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother's apparent insanity, Izzy, now seventeen, refuses to visit her in prison. But her new foster parents, employees at the local museum, have enlisted Izzy's help in cataloging items at a long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and a window into her own past.

Clara Cartwright, eighteen years old in 1929, is caught between her overbearing parents and her love for an Italian immigrant. Furious when she rejects an arranged marriage, Clara's father sends her to a genteel home for nervous invalids. But when his fortune is lost in the stock market crash, he can no longer afford her care--and Clara is committed to the public asylum.

Even as Izzy deals with the challenges of yet another new beginning, Clara's story keeps drawing her into the past. If Clara was never really mentally ill, could something else explain her own mother's violent act? Piecing together Clara's fate compels Izzy to re-examine her own choices--with shocking and unexpected results.

Illuminating and provocative, What She Left Behind is a masterful novel about the yearning to belong--and the mysteries that can belie even the most ordinary life.

Praise For Ellen Marie Wiseman's The Plum Tree

"Ellen Marie Wiseman's provocative and realistic images of a small German village are exquisite. The Plum Tree will find good company on the shelves of those who appreciated Skeletons at the Feast, by Chris Bohjalian, Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay, and Night, by Elie Wiesel." --NY Journal of Books

"The meticulous hand-crafted detail and emotional intensity of The Plum Tree immersed me in Germany during its darkest hours and the ordeals its citizens had to face. A must-read for WWII Fiction aficionados--and any reader who loves a transporting story." --Jenna Blum, New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us

"Wiseman eschews the genre's usual military conflicts of daily life during wartime, lending an intimate and compelling poignancy to this intriguing debut." --Publishers Weekly

"Ellen Marie Wiseman weaves a story of intrigue, terror, and love from a perspective not often seen in Holocaust novels." --Jewish Book World

"A haunting and beautiful debut novel." --Anna Jean Mayhew, author of The Dry Grass of August

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337 Ellen Marie Wiseman Frances 3 4.11 2015 What She Left Behind
author: Ellen Marie Wiseman
name: Frances
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2022/03/01
date added: 2022/03/01
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Greenlights 54771828
Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges—how to get relative with the inevitable—you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.�

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights—and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck.]]>
253 Matthew McConaughey Frances 1 4.19 2020 Greenlights
author: Matthew McConaughey
name: Frances
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2020
rating: 1
read at: 2022/03/01
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Little Fires Everywhere 34331079
Enter Mia Warren—an enigmatic artist and single mother—who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town—and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.

Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood—and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.

Named a Best Book of the Year by: People, The Washington Post, Bustle, Esquire, Southern Living, The Daily Beast, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Audible, ŷ, Library Reads, Book of the Month, Paste, Kirkus Reviews, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and many more...

Perfect for book clubs! Visit celesteng.com for discussion guides and more. ]]>
348 Celeste Ng Frances 0 4.23 2017 Little Fires Everywhere
author: Celeste Ng
name: Frances
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2020/02/29
date added: 2022/02/09
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The Vanishing Half 52195151 From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect?

Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.]]>
350 Brit Bennett Frances 5 4.25 2020 The Vanishing Half
author: Brit Bennett
name: Frances
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/07
date added: 2022/02/07
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The Kitchen Front 55431517
Two years into WW2, Britain is feeling her losses; the Nazis have won battles, the Blitz has destroyed cities, and U-boats have cut off the supply of food. In an effort to help housewives with food rationing, a BBC radio program called The Kitchen Front is putting on a cooking contest--and the grand prize is a job as the program's first-ever female co-host. For four very different women, winning the contest presents a crucial chance to change their lives.

For a young widow, it's a chance to pay off her husband's debts and keep a roof over her children's heads. For a kitchen maid, it's a chance to leave servitude and find freedom. For the lady of the manor, it's a chance to escape her wealthy husband's increasingly hostile behavior. And for a trained chef, it's a chance to challenge the men at the top of her profession.

These four women are giving the competition their all--even if that sometimes means bending the rules. But with so much at stake, will the contest that aims to bring the community together serve only to break it apart?]]>
416 Jennifer Ryan 0593158822 Frances 3 4.14 2021 The Kitchen Front
author: Jennifer Ryan
name: Frances
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/17
date added: 2022/01/17
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<![CDATA[Divine Lola: A True Story of Scandal and Celebrity]]> 58448409 An enthralling biography about one of the most intriguing women of the Victorian age: the first self-invented international social celebrity.

Lola Montez was one of the most celebrated and notorious women of the nineteenth century. A raven-haired Andalusian who performed her scandalous “Spider Dance� in the greatest performance halls across Europe, she dazzled and beguiled all who met her with her astonishing beauty, sexuality, and shocking disregard for propriety. But Lola was an impostor, a self-invention. Born Eliza Gilbert, the beautiful Irish wild child escaped a stifling marriage and reimagined herself as Lola the Sevillian flamenco dancer and noblewoman, choosing a life of adventure, fame, sex, and scandal rather than submitting to the strictures of her era.

Lola cast her spell on the European aristocracy and the most famous intellectuals and artists of the time, including Alexandre Dumas, Franz Liszt, and George Sand, and became the obsession of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. She then set out for the New World, arriving in San Francisco at the height of the gold rush, where she lived like a pioneer and performed for rowdy miners before making her way to New York. There, her inevitable downfall was every bit as dramatic as her rise. Yet there was one final reinvention to come for the most defiant woman of the Victorian age—a woman known as a “savage beauty� who was idolized, romanticized, vilified, truly known by no one, and a century ahead of her time.]]>
420 Cristina Morató 1542025109 Frances 0 3.82 2013 Divine Lola: A True Story of Scandal and Celebrity
author: Cristina Morató
name: Frances
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2021/11/20
date added: 2021/12/08
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<![CDATA[Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy]]> 53604971 The New York Times bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor reveals the story of the female spy hidden in plain sight who set the stage for the Cold War--one of the last great intelligence secrets of the twentieth century.

If you happened to live in the quiet English village of Great Rollright in 1942, you might have noticed a thin, elegant woman emerging from a cottage and climbing onto her bicycle. Ursula Burton had three children and a husband named Len, who worked as a machinist nearby. Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. Her neighbors in the Cotswolds knew little about her.

They did not know that Burton was a dedicated communist, a Soviet colonel, and a veteran spy who had already conducted espionage operations in China, Poland, and Switzerland. They did not know that Len was also a Soviet agent, or that Burton kept a powerful radio transmitter connected to Moscow in their outhouse. They did not know that in her latest espionage mission, Burton had infiltrated communist spies into a top-secret American intelligence operation that sent anti-Nazi agents parachuting into the Third Reich. But perhaps the most remarkable thing they did not know about Ursula Burton was that when she hopped onto her bike and pedaled away, she was heading to a countryside rendezvous with Klaus Fuchs, the nuclear physicist working on Britain's top secret atomic weapons program. Klaus was Burton's best agent, and together they were gathering the scientific secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the bomb.

This true-life spy story is a masterpiece about the woman codenamed "Sonya," one of the most important female spies in history. Hunted by the Chinese, the Japanese, the Nazis, MI5, MI6, and the FBI, she evaded all of them, and survived as well the brutal Soviet purges that left many of her friends and colleagues dead. Her story reflects the great ideological clash of the twentieth century--between communism, fascism, and Western democracy--and casts new light on the spy battles and shifting allegiances of our own times.

With access to Sonya's papers and her intelligence files from multiple countries, Ben Macintyre has conjured a thrilling secret history of a landmark agent, a true original who altered the course of the Cold War and helped plunge the world into a nuclear standoff that would last for decades.]]>
362 Ben Macintyre 0593136314 Frances 0 4.32 2020 Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy
author: Ben Macintyre
name: Frances
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/11/20
date added: 2021/11/20
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The Maidens 53672372 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient comes a spellbinding tale of psychological suspense, weaving together Greek mythology, murder, and obsession, that further cements “Michaelides as a major player in the field� (Publishers Weekly).

Edward Fosca is a murderer. Of this Mariana is certain. But Fosca is untouchable. A handsome and charismatic Greek Tragedy professor at Cambridge University, Fosca is adored by staff and students alike—particularly by the members of a secret society of female students known as The Maidens.

Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge.

Mariana, who was once herself a student at the university, quickly suspects that behind the idyllic beauty of the spires and turrets, and beneath the ancient traditions, lies something sinister. And she becomes convinced that, despite his alibi, Edward Fosca is guilty of the murder. But why would the professor target one of his students? And why does he keep returning to the rites of Persephone, the maiden, and her journey to the underworld?

When another body is found, Mariana’s obsession with proving Fosca’s guilt spirals out of control, threatening to destroy her credibility as well as her closest relationships. But Mariana is determined to stop this killer, even if it costs her everything—including her own life.]]>
335 Alex Michaelides 1250881161 Frances 0 3.76 2021 The Maidens
author: Alex Michaelides
name: Frances
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/10/17
date added: 2021/10/17
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Hamnet 49856101 A thrilling departure: A short, piercing, deeply moving new novel from the acclaimed author of I Am, I Am, I Am, about the death of Shakespeare's eleven-year-old son Hamnet--a name interchangeable with Hamlet in fifteenth-century Britain--and the years leading up to the production of his great play.

England, 1580. A young Latin tutor--penniless, bullied by a violent father--falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman: a wild creature who walks her family's estate with a falcon on her shoulder and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer. Agnes understands plants and potions better than she does people, but once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose gifts as a writer are just beginning to awaken when his beloved young son succumbs to bubonic plague.

A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a hypnotic recreation of the story that inspired one of the greatest literary masterpieces of all time, Hamnet is mesmerizing and seductive, an impossible-to-put-down novel from one of our most gifted writers.]]>
310 Maggie O'Farrell Frances 3 4.32 2020 Hamnet
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Frances
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2021/08/12
date added: 2021/08/12
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The Puma Years 56930703 In this rapturous memoir, writer and activist Laura Coleman shares the story of her liberating journey in the Amazon jungle, where she fell in love with a magnificent cat who changed her life.

Laura was in her early twenties and directionless when she quit her job to backpack in Bolivia. Fate landed her at a wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Amazon jungle where she was assigned to a beautiful and complex puma named Wayra. Wide-eyed, inexperienced, and comically terrified, Laura made the scrappy, make-do camp her home. And in Wayra, she made a friend for life.

They weren’t alone, not with over a hundred quirky animals to care for, each lost and hurt in their own a pair of suicidal, bra-stealing monkeys, a frustrated parrot desperate to fly, and a pig with a wicked sense of humor. The humans, too, were cause for laughter and tears. There were animal whisperers, committed staff, wildly devoted volunteers, handsome heartbreakers, and a machete-wielding prom queen who carried Laura through. Most of all, there was the jungle—lyrical and alive—and there was Wayra, who would ultimately teach Laura so much about love, healing, and the person she was capable of becoming.

Set against a turbulent and poignant backdrop of deforestation, the illegal pet trade, and forest fires, The Puma Years explores what happens when two desperate creatures in need of rescue find one another.]]>
321 Laura Coleman 1542022207 Frances 0 4.33 2021 The Puma Years
author: Laura Coleman
name: Frances
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/06/11
date added: 2021/06/11
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The Secret Talker 56579322 A woman reclaims her own story in this taut and wholly original psychological tale from one of China’s literary superstars.

Hongmei is the perfect Chinese wife: beautiful, diligent, passive. Glen is the perfect American husband: intelligent, caring, well-off. From the outside, Hongmei and Glen's life in the San Francisco Bay Area seems perfect. But at home, their marriage is falling apart. Post-its left on the fridge are their primary form of communication.

When Hongmei receives a beguiling email from a secret admirer, naturally she’s intrigued. But what starts out as harmless flirting with an internet stranger quickly turns into an all-consuming emotional affair. As Hongmei spills more and more about her dark past as a military intelligence officer-in-training in China, she falls deeper and deeper into a tense cat-and-mouse game. Desperate and self-destructive, she embarks on an investigation into her emailer’s secret history…one that may tear her life and marriage apart forever.

A domestic suspense turned on its head, The Secret Talker elegantly examines how repressed desire and simmering silence can upend even the most idyllic marriage. As Hongmei pursues her stalker, her identity and agency come into question, and the chase curveballs into a captivating journey of self-actualization. Yan Geling pierces the human psyche to reveal devastating and emotional truths � and an ending that will leave readers speechless.]]>
155 Geling Yan 0063004054 Frances 2 3.18 2004 The Secret Talker
author: Geling Yan
name: Frances
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2004
rating: 2
read at: 2021/06/11
date added: 2021/06/11
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The Dutch House 44569767 The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades,The Dutch Houseis a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.

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353 Ann Patchett 0062963694 Frances 5 4.25 2019 The Dutch House
author: Ann Patchett
name: Frances
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2021/05/07
date added: 2021/05/07
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American Dirt 45721673
Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable.

Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with a few books he would like to buy—two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.

Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia—trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier’s reach doesn’t extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?]]>
389 Jeanine Cummins Frances 0 4.52 2020 American Dirt
author: Jeanine Cummins
name: Frances
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/03/30
date added: 2021/03/30
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Less (Arthur Less, #1) 39927096 You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years now engaged to someone else. You can’t say yes--it would all be too awkward--and you can’t say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of half-baked literary invitations you’ve received from around the world.

QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?

ANSWER: You accept them all.

If you are Arthur Less.

Thus begins an around-the-world-in-eighty-days fantasia that will take Arthur Less to Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India and Japan and put thousands of miles between him and the problems he refuses to face. What could possibly go wrong?

Well: Arthur will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Sahara sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and arrive in Japan too late for the cherry blossoms. In between: science fiction fans, crazed academics, emergency rooms, starlets, doctors, exes and, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to see. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. The second phase of life, as he thinks of it, falling behind him like the second phase of a rocket. There will be his first love. And there will be his last.

A love story, a satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, by an author The New York Times has hailed as “inspired, lyrical,� “elegiac,� “ingenious,� as well as “too sappy by half,� Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.]]>
273 Andrew Sean Greer Frances 5 3.61 2017 Less (Arthur Less, #1)
author: Andrew Sean Greer
name: Frances
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2021/02/28
date added: 2021/02/28
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<![CDATA[Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century]]> 36078223

From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon’s CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that social security comes up short, often underwater on mortgages, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming a growing community of migrant laborers who call themselves “workampers.�


On frequently traveled routes between seasonal jobs, Jessica Bruder meets people from all walks of a former professor, a McDonald’s vice president, a minister, a college administrator, and a motorcycle cop, among many others—including her irrepressible protagonist, a onetime cocktail waitress, Home Depot clerk, and general contractor named Linda May.


In a secondhand vehicle she christens “Van Halen,� Bruder hits the road to get to know her subjects more intimately. Accompanying Linda May and others from campground toilet cleaning to warehouse product scanning to desert reunions, then moving on to the dangerous work of beet harvesting, Bruder tells a compelling, eye-opening tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy—one that foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, she celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these quintessential Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive. Like Linda May, who dreams of finding land on which to build her own sustainable “Earthship� home, they have not given up hope.]]>
287 Jessica Bruder Frances 5 4.19 2017 Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century
author: Jessica Bruder
name: Frances
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2021/02/24
date added: 2021/02/24
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The Huntress 40245700 In the aftermath of war, the hunter becomes the hunted�

Bold and fearless, Nina Markova always dreamed of flying. When the Nazis attack the Soviet Union, she risks everything to join the legendary Night Witches, an all-female night bomber regiment wreaking havoc on the invading Germans. When she is stranded behind enemy lines, Nina becomes the prey of a lethal Nazi murderess known as the Huntress, and only Nina’s bravery and cunning will keep her alive.

Transformed by the horrors he witnessed from Omaha Beach to the Nuremberg Trials, British war correspondent Ian Graham has become a Nazi hunter. Yet one target eludes him: a vicious predator known as the Huntress. To find her, the fierce, disciplined investigator joins forces with the only witness to escape the Huntress alive: the brazen, cocksure Nina. But a shared secret could derail their mission unless Ian and Nina force themselves to confront it.

Growing up in post-war Boston, seventeen-year-old Jordan McBride is determined to become a photographer. When her long-widowed father unexpectedly comes homes with a new fiancée, Jordan is thrilled. But there is something disconcerting about the soft-spoken German widow. Certain that danger is lurking, Jordan begins to delve into her new stepmother’s past—only to discover that there are mysteries buried deep in her family . . . secrets that may threaten all Jordan holds dear.

In this immersive, heart-wrenching story, Kate Quinn illuminates the consequences of war on individual lives, and the price we pay to seek justice and truth.]]>
560 Kate Quinn Frances 0 4.32 2019 The Huntress
author: Kate Quinn
name: Frances
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2021/02/13
date added: 2021/02/18
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The Four Winds 53496907
Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.

By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.

In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.

The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it—the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.]]>
464 Kristin Hannah 1250178622 Frances 0 currently-reading 4.44 2021 The Four Winds
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Frances
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/02/10
shelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants]]> 19488206 Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.]]> 410 Robin Wall Kimmerer Frances 5 4.54 2013 Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Frances
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2021/02/10
date added: 2021/02/10
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Pretty Things 49254027
Vanessa is a privileged young heiress who wanted to make her mark in the world. Instead she becomes an Instagram influencer—traveling the globe, receiving free clothes and products, and posing for pictures in exotic locales. But behind the covetable façade is a life marked by tragedy. After a broken engagement, Vanessa retreats to her family’s sprawling mountain estate, Stonehaven: a mansion of dark secrets not just from Vanessa’s past, but from that of a lost and troubled girl named Nina.

Nina’s, Vanessa’s, and Lachlan’s paths collide here, on the cold shores of Lake Tahoe, where their intertwined lives give way to a winter of aspiration and desire, duplicity and revenge.]]>
470 Janelle Brown Frances 3 4.03 2020 Pretty Things
author: Janelle Brown
name: Frances
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2021/01/23
date added: 2021/01/23
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The Exiles 53533806 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 nineteenth-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 nineteenth-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 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 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.


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380 Christina Baker Kline Frances 4 4.26 2020 The Exiles
author: Christina Baker Kline
name: Frances
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/12/26
date added: 2020/12/26
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Your Story, My Story 53345095 From the award-winning author of The Friendship comes a shattering, brilliantly inventive novel based on the volatile true love story of literary icons Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

In 1963 Sylvia Plath took her own life in her London flat. Her death was the culmination of a brief, brilliant life lived in the shadow of clinical depression—a condition exacerbated by her tempestuous relationship with mercurial poet Ted Hughes. The ensuing years saw Plath rise to martyr status while Hughes was cast as the cause of her suicide, his infidelity at the heart of her demise.

For decades, Hughes never bore witness to the truth of their marriage—one buried beneath a mudslide of apocryphal stories, gossip, sensationalism, and myth. Until now.

In this mesmerizing fictional work, Connie Palmen tells his side of the story, previously untold, delivered in Ted Hughes’s own uncompromising voice. A brutal and lyrical confessional, Your Story, My Story paints an indelible picture of their seven-year relationship—the soaring highs and profound lows of star-crossed soul mates bedeviled by their personal demons. It will forever change the way we think about these two literary icons.]]>
201 Connie Palmen 1542004624 Frances 0 currently-reading 3.68 2015 Your Story, My Story
author: Connie Palmen
name: Frances
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/12/19
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The Road to Character 36686305
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST

With the wisdom, humor, curiosity, and sharp insights that have brought millions of readers to his New York Times column and his previous bestsellers, David Brooks has consistently illuminated our daily lives in surprising and original ways. In The Social Animal, he explored the neuroscience of human connection and how we can flourish together. Now, in The Road to Character, he focuses on the deeper values that should inform our lives.

Looking to some of the world’s greatest thinkers and inspiring leaders, Brooks explores how, through internal struggle and a sense of their own limitations, they have built a strong inner character. Labor activist Frances Perkins understood the need to suppress parts of herself so that she could be an instrument in a larger cause. Dwight Eisenhower organized his life not around impulsive self-expression but considered self-restraint. Dorothy Day, a devout Catholic convert and champion of the poor, learned as a young woman the vocabulary of simplicity and surrender. Civil rights pioneers A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin learned reticence and the logic of self-discipline, the need to distrust oneself even while waging a noble crusade.

Blending psychology, politics, spirituality, and confessional, The Road to Character provides an opportunity for us to rethink our priorities, and strive to build rich inner lives marked by humility and moral depth.

“Joy,� David Brooks writes, “is a byproduct experienced by people who are aiming for something else. But it comes.”]]>
321 David Brooks Frances 0 currently-reading 3.92 2015 The Road to Character
author: David Brooks
name: Frances
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/11/12
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<![CDATA[Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir]]> 42044349 Trailblazing food writer and beloved restaurant critic Ruth Reichl took the risk (and the job) of a lifetime when she entered the glamorous, high-stakes world of magazine publishing. Now, for the first time, she chronicles her groundbreaking tenure as editor in chief of Gourmet, during which she spearheaded a revolution in the way we think about food.

When Condé Nast offered Ruth Reichl the top position at America's oldest epicurean magazine, she declined. She was a writer, not a manager, and had no inclination to be anyone's boss. And yet . . . Reichl had been reading Gourmet since she was eight; it had inspired her career. How could she say no?

This is the story of a former Berkeley hippie entering the corporate world and worrying about losing her soul. It is the story of the moment restaurants became an important part of popular culture, a time when the rise of the farm-to-table movement changed, forever, the way we eat. Readers will meet legendary chefs like David Chang and Eric Ripert, idiosyncratic writers like David Foster Wallace, and a colorful group of editors and art directors who, under Reichl's leadership, transformed stately Gourmet into a cutting-edge publication. This was the golden age of print media--the last spendthrift gasp before the Internet turned the magazine world upside down.

Complete with recipes, Save Me the Plums is a personal journey of a woman coming to terms with being in charge and making a mark, following a passion and holding on to her dreams--even when she ends up in a place she never expected to be.]]>
288 Ruth Reichl 0679605231 Frances 3 4.28 2019 Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir
author: Ruth Reichl
name: Frances
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2020/10/25
date added: 2020/10/25
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<![CDATA[She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement]]> 45025308 From the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters who broke the news of Harvey Weinstein's sexual harassment and abuse for the New York Times, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the thrilling untold story of their investigation and its consequences for the #MeToo movement

For many years, reporters had tried to get to the truth about Harvey Weinstein’s treatment of women. Rumors of wrongdoing had long circulated. But in 2017, when Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey began their investigation into the prominent Hollywood producer for the New York Times, his name was still synonymous with power. During months of confidential interviews with top actresses, former Weinstein employees, and other sources, many disturbing and long-buried allegations were unearthed, and a web of onerous secret payouts and nondisclosure agreements was revealed. These shadowy settlements had long been used to hide sexual harassment and abuse, but with a breakthrough reporting technique Kantor and Twohey helped to expose it. But Weinstein had evaded scrutiny in the past, and he was not going down without a fight; he employed a team of high-profile lawyers, private investigators, and other allies to thwart the investigation. When Kantor and Twohey were finally able to convince some sources to go on the record, a dramatic final showdown between Weinstein and the New York Times was set in motion.

Nothing could have prepared Kantor and Twohey for what followed the publication of their initial Weinstein story on October 5, 2017. Within days, a veritable Pandora’s box of sexual harassment and abuse was opened. Women all over the world came forward with their own traumatic stories. Over the next twelve months, hundreds of men from every walk of life and industry were outed following allegations of wrongdoing. But did too much change—or not enough? Those questions hung in the air months later as Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court, and Christine Blasey Ford came forward to testify that he had assaulted her decades earlier. Kantor and Twohey, who had unique access to Ford and her team, bring to light the odyssey that led her to come forward, the overwhelming forces that came to bear on her, and what happened after she shared her allegation with the world.

In the tradition of great investigative journalism, She Said tells a thrilling story about the power of truth, with shocking new information from hidden sources. Kantor and Twohey describe not only the consequences of their reporting for the #MeToo movement, but the inspiring and affecting journeys of the women who spoke up—for the sake of other women, for future generations, and for themselves.]]>
320 Jodi Kantor Frances 0 currently-reading 4.35 2019 She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement
author: Jodi Kantor
name: Frances
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/10/25
shelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[The Lost City of the Monkey God]]> 40873920 A five-hundred-year-old legend. An ancient curse. A stunning medical mystery. And a pioneering journey into the unknown heart of the world's densest jungle.

Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location.

Three quarters of a century later, author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization.

Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease.]]>
326 Douglas Preston Frances 0 3.95 2017 The Lost City of the Monkey God
author: Douglas Preston
name: Frances
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2020/05/17
date added: 2020/05/18
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<![CDATA[If You Must Know (Potomac Point, #1)]]> 49372065 Life turns upside down for two sisters in Wall Street Journal bestselling author Jamie Beck’s emotional novel about how secrets and differences can break—or bind—a family.

Sisters Amanda Foster and Erin Turner have little in common except the childhood bedroom they once shared and the certainty each feels that her way of life is best. Amanda follows the rules—at the school where she works; in her community; and as a picture-perfect daughter, wife, and mother-to-be. Erin follows her heart—in love and otherwise—living a bohemian lifestyle on a shoestring budget and honoring her late father’s memory with a passion for music and her fledgling bath-products business.

The sisters are content leading separate but happy lives in their hometown of Potomac Point until everything is upended by lies that force them to confront unsettling truths about their family, themselves, and each other. For sisters as different as these two, building trust doesn’t come easily—especially with one secret still between them—but it may be the only way to save their family.
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368 Jamie Beck 1542008700 Frances 0 3.90 2020 If You Must Know (Potomac Point, #1)
author: Jamie Beck
name: Frances
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2020/05/17
date added: 2020/05/17
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<![CDATA[You've Been Volunteered (Class Mom, #2)]]> 42298087
She’s been roped into room-parenting yet again, for her son Max’s third grade class, but as her husband buries himself in work, her older daughters navigate adulthood, and Jen’s own aging parents start to need some parenting themselves, Jen gets pulled in more directions than any one mom, or superhero, can handle.

Refreshingly down-to-earth and brimming with warmth, Dixon’s next chapter will keep you turning the pages to find out what’s really going on under the veneer of polite parent interactions, and have you laughing along with her the whole way.]]>
270 Laurie Gelman 1250301866 Frances 0 3.90 2019 You've Been Volunteered (Class Mom, #2)
author: Laurie Gelman
name: Frances
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2020/05/17
date added: 2020/05/17
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The Woman in the Window 51240105 #1 New York Times Bestseller � Soon to be a Major Motion Picture starring Amy Adams, Julianne Moore, and Gary Oldman

For readers of Gillian Flynn and Tana French comes one of the decade’s most anticipated debuts, to be published in thirty-six languages around the world and already in development as a major film from Fox: a twisty, powerful Hitchcockian thriller about an agoraphobic woman who believes she witnessed a crime in a neighboring house.

It isn’t paranoia if it’s really happening . . .

Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.

Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother, their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble—and its shocking secrets are laid bare.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.

Twisty and powerful, ingenious and moving, The Woman in the Window is a smart, sophisticated novel of psychological suspense that recalls the best of Hitchcock.]]>
455 A.J. Finn Frances 0 4.11 2018 The Woman in the Window
author: A.J. Finn
name: Frances
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2020/04/17
date added: 2020/04/17
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Behold the Dreamers 36510285 A compulsively readable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American Dream—the unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York just as the Great Recession upends the economy

Named one of BuzzFeed’s “Incredible New Books You Need to Read This Summer�

Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty—and Jende is eager to please. Clark’s wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses� summer home in the Hamptons. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America and imagine a brighter future.

However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers� façades.

When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende’s job—even as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.]]>
401 Imbolo Mbue Frances 0 4.09 2016 Behold the Dreamers
author: Imbolo Mbue
name: Frances
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2020/03/02
date added: 2020/03/02
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The Blue Period 34336202 A riveting novel about the tragic romance that nearly destroyed a young Pablo Picasso - while granting him his first flight of creative genius.

From rowdy Barcelona barrooms to the incandescent streets of turn-of-the-century Paris, Pablo Picasso experiences the sumptuous highs and seedy lows of bohemian life alongside his rebellious poet friend with a shadowy past, Carles Casagemas.

Fleeing family misfortune and their parents� expectations, the two young artists seek their creative outlet while chasing inspiration in drugs, decadence, and the liberated women of Montmartre—creatures far different from the veiled ones back home.

The new life feels like bliss, and nothing can come between them…until a dark-haired, enigmatic muse enters the picture. The two artists� passion for Germaine will lead to a devastating turn. Amid soul-searching and despair, however, Picasso discovers a color palette in which to render his demons and paint himself into lasting history.

Bringing the exuberance of the era vividly to life, this richly imagined portrait of Picasso’s coming of age intertwines the love, death, lust, and friendships that inspired the immortal works of a defiant master.

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348 Luke Jerod Kummer 1542096138 Frances 4 3.61 2019 The Blue Period
author: Luke Jerod Kummer
name: Frances
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/27
date added: 2020/02/27
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Little Voices 40511233
Devon Burges is in the throes of a high-risk birth when she learns of her dear friend’s murder. The police quickly name another friend as the chief suspect, but Devon doesn’t buy it—and despite her difficult recovery, she decides to investigate.

Haunted by postpartum problems that manifest as a cruel voice in her head, Devon is barely getting by. Yet her instincts are still sharp, and she’s bent on proving her friend’s innocence.

But as Devon digs into the evidence, the voice in her head grows more insistent, the danger more intense. Each layer is darker, more disturbing, and she’s not sure she—or her baby—can survive what lies at the truth.]]>
335 Vanessa Lillie 1542092280 Frances 5 3.66 2019 Little Voices
author: Vanessa Lillie
name: Frances
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2020/02/18
date added: 2020/02/18
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The Guardians 43702958 New York Times #1 bestselling author moves at breakneck speed, delivering some of his most inventive twists and turns yet.

In the small north Florida town of Seabrook, a young lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead at his desk as he worked late one night. The killer left no clues behind. There were no witnesses, no real suspects, no one with a motive. The police soon settled on Quincy Miller, a young black man who was once a client of Russo’s.
Quincy was framed, convicted, and sent to prison for life. For twenty-two years he languished in prison with no lawyer, no advocate on the outside. Then he wrote a letter to Guardian Ministries, a small innocence group founded by a lawyer/minister named Cullen Post.

Guardian handles only a few innocence cases at a time, and Post is its only investigator. He travels the South fighting wrongful convictions and taking cases no one else will touch. With Quincy Miller, though, he gets far more than he bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Quincy exonerated.

They killed one lawyer twenty-two years ago, and they will kill another one without a second thought.]]>
375 John Grisham Frances 5 4.35 2019 The Guardians
author: John Grisham
name: Frances
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2020/02/18
date added: 2020/02/18
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The Giver of Stars 44057462 Set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond

When Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve, she escapes her stifling life in England, but small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books on horseback as part of Eleanor Roosevelt's new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically. What happens to these women—and to the men they love—becomes an unforgettable drama of loyalty, justice, humanity, and passion.

Based on a true story rooted in America's past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope and epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, enthralling, it is destined to become a modern classic—a richly rewarding novel of women's friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.]]>
399 Jojo Moyes Frances 4 4.41 2019 The Giver of Stars
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Frances
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/16
date added: 2020/02/16
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Lady's Maid 19402331 -- SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
She was Elizabeth Barrett's lady's maid. But "Wilson" was more than that. She was a confidante, friend and conspirator in Elizabeth's forbidden romance with Robert Browning. Wilson stayed with Elizabeth for sixteen years, through every trial and crisis, and when Wilson's affairs took a dramatic turn she expected the same loyalty from Elizabeth....]]>
547 Margaret Forster 0307823024 Frances 0 currently-reading 4.03 1990 Lady's Maid
author: Margaret Forster
name: Frances
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity]]> 40874325
In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant The Shack wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone you know to read this book!]]>
294 William Paul Young Frances 0 currently-reading 4.06 2007 The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity
author: William Paul Young
name: Frances
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/02/12
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Circling the Sun 36685074 385 Paula McLain Frances 0 4.18 2015 Circling the Sun
author: Paula McLain
name: Frances
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2019/11/18
date added: 2019/11/18
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An Unnecessary Woman 36324288
Aaliya Sohbi lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books. Godless, fatherless, divorced, and childless, Aaliya is her family’s "unnecessary appendage.� Every year, she translates a new favorite book into Arabic, then stows it away. The thirty-seven books that Aaliya has translated have never been read—by anyone. After overhearing her neighbors, "the three witches,� discussing her too-white hair, Aaliya accidentally dyes her hair too blue.

In this breathtaking portrait of a reclusive woman’s late-life crisis, readers follow Aaliya’s digressive mind as it ricochets across visions of past and present Beirut. Insightful musings on literature, philosophy, and art are invaded by memories of the Lebanese Civil War and Aaliya’s volatile past. As she tries to overcome her aging body and spontaneous emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left.

A love letter to literature and its power to define who we are, the gifted Rabih Alameddine has given us a nuanced rendering of a single woman's reclusive life in the Middle East.]]>
306 Rabih Alameddine Frances 0 3.92 2013 An Unnecessary Woman
author: Rabih Alameddine
name: Frances
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2019/11/18
date added: 2019/11/18
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The Silent Patient 40396699 Promising to be the debut novel of the season The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive�

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....]]>
362 Alex Michaelides Frances 3 4.18 2019 The Silent Patient
author: Alex Michaelides
name: Frances
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2019/11/10
date added: 2019/11/10
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<![CDATA[A Well-Read Woman: The Life, Loves, and Legacy of Ruth Rappaport]]> 41129453 The inspiring true story of an indomitable librarian’s journey from Nazi Germany to Seattle to Vietnam—all for the love of books.

Growing up under Fascist censorship in Nazi Germany, Ruth Rappaport absorbed a forbidden community of ideas in banned books. After fleeing her home in Leipzig at fifteen and losing both parents to the Holocaust, Ruth drifted between vocations, relationships, and countries, searching for belonging and purpose. When she found her calling in librarianship, Ruth became not only a witness to history but an agent for change as well.

Culled from decades of diaries, letters, and photographs, this epic true story reveals a driven woman who survived persecution, political unrest, and personal trauma through a love of books. It traces her activism from the Zionist movement to the Red Scare to bibliotherapy in Vietnam and finally to the Library of Congress, where Ruth made an indelible mark and found a home. Connecting it all, one constant thread: Ruth’s passion for the printed word, and the haven it provides—a haven that, as this singularly compelling biography proves, Ruth would spend her life making accessible to others.

This wasn’t just a career for Ruth Rappaport. It was her purpose.]]>
397 Kate Stewart 1503959147 Frances 0 currently-reading 3.39 2019 A Well-Read Woman: The Life, Loves, and Legacy of Ruth Rappaport
author: Kate Stewart
name: Frances
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/09/24
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Next Year in Havana 36039015 A HELLO SUNSHINE x REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK“A beautiful novel that's full of forbidden passions, family secrets and a lot of courage and sacrifice.”—Reese WitherspoonAfter the death of her beloved grandmother, a Cuban-American woman travels to Havana, where she discovers the roots of her identity—and unearths a family secret hidden since the revolution...Havana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba's high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country's growing political unrest—until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary...Miami, 2017. Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa's last wish was for Marisol to scatter her ashes in the country of her birth. Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba's tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate. When more family history comes to light and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she'll need the lessons of her grandmother's past to help her understand the true meaning of courage.]]> 394 Chanel Cleeton Frances 0 currently-reading 4.08 2018 Next Year in Havana
author: Chanel Cleeton
name: Frances
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/07/31
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My Dear Hamilton 41014257 New York Times bestselling authors of America’s First Daughter comes the epic story of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton—a revolutionary woman who, like her new nation, struggled to define herself in the wake of war, betrayal, and tragedy. Haunting, moving, and beautifully written, Dray and Kamoie used thousands of letters and original sources to tell Eliza’s story as it’s never been told before—not just as the wronged wife at the center of a political sex scandal—but also as a founding mother who shaped an American legacy in her own right.

A general’s daughter�

Coming of age on the perilous frontier of revolutionary New York, Elizabeth Schuyler champions the fight for independence. And when she meets Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s penniless but passionate aide-de-camp, she’s captivated by the young officer’s charisma and brilliance. They fall in love, despite Hamilton’s bastard birth and the uncertainties of war.

A founding father’s wife...

But the union they create—in their marriage and the new nation—is far from perfect. From glittering inaugural balls to bloody street riots, the Hamiltons are at the center of it all—including the political treachery of America’s first sex scandal, which forces Eliza to struggle through heartbreak and betrayal to find forgiveness.

The last surviving light of the Revolution�

When a duel destroys Eliza’s hard-won peace, the grieving widow fights her husband’s enemies to preserve Alexander’s legacy. But long-buried secrets threaten everything Eliza believes about her marriage and her own legacy. Questioning her tireless devotion to the man and country that have broken her heart, she’s left with one last battle—to understand the flawed man she married and the imperfect union he could never have created without her…]]>
652 Stephanie Dray Frances 0 currently-reading 4.32 2018 My Dear Hamilton
author: Stephanie Dray
name: Frances
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/05/07
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Educated 36247169 A newer cover edition of ASIN B072BLVM83 can be found here.

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.]]>
336 Tara Westover Frances 0 4.56 2018 Educated
author: Tara Westover
name: Frances
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2019/04/25
date added: 2019/04/25
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Becoming 38745806
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.]]>
428 Michelle Obama Frances 0 currently-reading 4.67 2018 Becoming
author: Michelle Obama
name: Frances
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/02/26
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<![CDATA[The Tenth Island: Finding Joy, Beauty, and Unexpected Love in the Azores]]> 39975783 From a Pulitzer Prize–winning writer comes an exuberant memoir of personal loss and longing, and finding connection on the remote Azorean islands of the Atlantic Ocean.

Reporter Diana Marcum is in crisis. A long-buried personal sadness is enfolding her—and her career is stalled—when she stumbles upon an unusual group of immigrants living in rural California. She follows them on their annual return to the remote Azorean islands in the Atlantic Ocean, where bulls run down village streets, volcanoes are active, and the people celebrate festas to ease their saudade, a longing so deep that the Portuguese word for it can’t be fully translated.

Years later, California is in a terrible drought, the wildfires seem to never end, and Diana finds herself still dreaming of those islands and the chuva—a rain so soft you don’t notice when it begins or ends.

With her troublesome Labrador retriever, Murphy, in tow, Diana returns to the islands of her dreams only to discover that there are still things she longs for—and one of them may be a most unexpected love.

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225 Diana Marcum 1503996336 Frances 3 3.72 2018 The Tenth Island: Finding Joy, Beauty, and Unexpected Love in the Azores
author: Diana Marcum
name: Frances
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2019/02/25
date added: 2019/02/25
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The Magnolia Inn 40227501 A #1 Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestseller.

New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Brown brings together two wounded hearts in a Texas romance of second chances and twice-in-a-lifetime true love.

Inheriting the Magnolia Inn, a Victorian home nestled in the East Texas pines, is a fantasy come true for Jolene Broussard. After living with the guilt of failing to rescue her self-destructive mother, Jolene knows her aunt and uncle’s B&B is the perfect jump start for a new life and a comforting place to call home. There’s just one stubborn and moody carpenter Tucker Malone. He’s got a half interest in the Magnolia Inn, and he’s planting his dusty cowboy boots squarely in the middle of her dream.

Ever since his wife’s death, Tucker’s own guilt and demons have left him as guarded as Jolene. The last thing he expects is for his new partner to stir something inside him he thought was gone forever. And as wary as Jolene is, she may have found a kindred spirit—someone she can help, and someone she can hold on to.

Restoring the Magnolia Inn is the first step toward restoring their hearts. Will they be able to let go of the past and trust each other to do it together?]]>
292 Carolyn Brown 1503959406 Frances 0 currently-reading 4.05 2019 The Magnolia Inn
author: Carolyn Brown
name: Frances
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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Where the Crawdads Sing 42421761
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world–until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]>
370 Delia Owens Frances 5 4.60 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing
author: Delia Owens
name: Frances
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2019/01/16
date added: 2019/01/16
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True Places 39904267 A Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestseller

A girl emerges from the woods, starved, ill, and alone…and collapses.

Suzanne Blakemore hurtles along the Blue Ridge Parkway, away from her overscheduled and completely normal life, and encounters the girl. As Suzanne rushes her to the hospital, she never imagines how the encounter will change her—a change she both fears and desperately needs.

Suzanne has the perfect house, a successful husband, and a thriving family. But beneath the veneer of an ideal life, her daughter is rebelling, her son is withdrawing, her husband is oblivious to it all, and Suzanne is increasingly unsure of her place in the world. After her discovery of the ethereal sixteen-year-old who has never experienced civilization, Suzanne is compelled to invite Iris into her family’s life and all its apparent privileges.

But Iris has an independence, a love of solitude, and a discomfort with materialism that contrasts with everything the Blakemores stand for—qualities that awaken in Suzanne first a fascination, then a longing. Now Suzanne can’t help but wonder: Is she destined to save Iris, or is Iris the one who will save her?]]>
347 Sonja Yoerg 1503959570 Frances 0 currently-reading 3.95 2019 True Places
author: Sonja Yoerg
name: Frances
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/12/18
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<![CDATA[Chesapeake Requiem: A Year With the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island]]> 39828496 A brilliant, soulful, and timely portrait of a two-hundred-year-old crabbing community in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay as it faces extinction from rising sea levels—part natural history of an extraordinary ecosystem, starring the beloved blue crab; part paean to a vanishing way of life; and part meditation on man’s relationship with the environment—from the acclaimed author, who reported this story for more than two years

Tangier Island, Virginia, is a community unique on the American landscape. Mapped by John Smith in 1608, settled during the American Revolution, the tiny sliver of mud is home to 470 hardy people who live an isolated and challenging existence, with one foot in the 21st century and another in times long passed. They are separated from their countrymen by the nation’s largest estuary, and a twelve-mile boat trip across often tempestuous water—the same water that for generations has made Tangier’s fleet of small fishing boats a chief source for the rightly prized Chesapeake Bay blue crab, and has lent the island its claim to fame as the softshell crab capital of the world.

Yet for all of its long history, and despite its tenacity, Tangier is disappearing. The very water that has long sustained it is erasing the island day by day, wave by wave. It has lost two-thirds of its land since 1850, and still its shoreline retreats by fifteen feet a year—meaning this storied place will likely succumb first among U.S. towns to the effects of climate change. Experts reckon that, barring heroic intervention by the federal government, islanders could be forced to abandon their home within twenty-five years. Meanwhile, the graves of their forebears are being sprung open by encroaching tides, and the conservative and deeply religious Tangiermen ponder the end times.

Chesapeake Requiem is an intimate look at the island’s past, present and tenuous future, by an acclaimed journalist who spent much of the past two years living among Tangier’s people, crabbing and oystering with its watermen, and observing its long traditions and odd ways. What emerges is the poignant tale of a world that has, quite nearly, gone by—and a leading-edge report on the coming fate of countless coastal communities.

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506 Earl Swift 0062661418 Frances 4 4.20 2018 Chesapeake Requiem: A Year With the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island
author: Earl Swift
name: Frances
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2018/11/15
date added: 2018/12/05
shelves:
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I really liked this book, even though it was a fairly long read. I decided to read it after seeing an article in Politico Magazine called, “The Doomed Island That Loves Trump�. It touted how 87% of Tangier Island in Virginia voted for Trump because they agreed with his assessment of climate change as a hoax. Swift does a nice job of integrating interviews of islanders with the reality of sea level rise that is playing out in the Chesapeake Bay. I appreciated how his year-long adventure on this quirky island yields vivid stories and viewpoints from very colorful characters. It was easy to empathize with these hardy watermen and their families as they deal with the harsh realities of trying to make a living by harvesting blue crab and oysters from the Bay, while their homes and land are being washed away. The effects of the dwindling population, strict Christian lifestyle and struggles with government agencies are palpable for the reader. Tom and have visited Tangier and Smith Islands by boat over the years and this book gave me new insights into these places that time has (almost) forgotten.
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Water for Elephants 10652328 421 Sara Gruen 1616200812 Frances 5 4.23 2006 Water for Elephants
author: Sara Gruen
name: Frances
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/11/13
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<![CDATA[Long Road to Mercy (Atlee Pine, #1)]]> 39088984 Introducing a remarkable new character from #1 New York Times bestselling writer David Baldacci: Atlee Pine, an FBI agent with special skills assigned to the remote wilds of the southwestern United States who must confront a new threat . . . and an old nightmare.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Catch a tiger by its toe.

It's seared into Atlee Pine's memory: the kidnapper's chilling rhyme as he chose between six-year-old Atlee and her twin sister, Mercy. Mercy was taken. Atlee was spared.

She never saw Mercy again.

Three decades after that terrifying night, Atlee Pine works for the FBI. She's the lone agent assigned to the Shattered Rock, Arizona resident agency, which is responsible for protecting the Grand Canyon.

So when one of the Grand Canyon's mules is found stabbed to death at the bottom of the canyon-and its rider missing-Pine is called in to investigate. It soon seems clear the lost tourist had something more clandestine than sightseeing in mind. But just as Pine begins to put together clues pointing to a terrifying plot, she's abruptly called off the case.

If she disobeys direct orders by continuing to search for the missing man, it will mean the end of her career. But unless Pine keeps working the case and discovers the truth, it could spell the very end of democracy in America as we know it...]]>
405 David Baldacci 1538761572 Frances 0 to-read 3.80 2018 Long Road to Mercy (Atlee Pine, #1)
author: David Baldacci
name: Frances
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/11/13
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Before We Were Yours 33154628 For readers of Orphan Train and The Nightingale comes a “thought-provoking [and] complex tale about two families, two generations apart . . . based on a notorious true-life scandal.�*

Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.

Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption.

Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.]]>
378 Lisa Wingate 0425284697 Frances 3 4.51 2017 Before We Were Yours
author: Lisa Wingate
name: Frances
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2018/10/15
date added: 2018/10/15
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<![CDATA[End Game (Will Robie Series, 5)]]> 36547081
Will Robie and Jessica Reel are two of the most lethal people alive. They're the ones the government calls in when the utmost secrecy is required to take out those who plot violence and mass destruction against the United States. And through every mission, one man has always had their their handler, code-named Blue Man.

But now, Blue Man is missing.

Last seen in rural Colorado, Blue Man had taken a rare vacation to go fly fishing in his hometown when he disappeared off the grid. With no communications since, the team can't help but fear the worst.

Sent to investigate, Robie and Reel arrive in the small town of Grand to discover that it has its own share of problems. A stagnant local economy and a woefully understaffed police force have made this small community a magnet for crime, drugs, and a growing number of militant fringe groups.

But lying in wait in Grand is an even more insidious and sweeping threat, one that may shake the very core of America. And when Robie and Reel find themselves up against an adversary with superior firepower and a home-court advantage, they'll be lucky if they make it out alive, with or without Blue Man...]]>
528 David Baldacci 1455586617 Frances 0 to-read 4.11 2017 End Game (Will Robie Series, 5)
author: David Baldacci
name: Frances
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/09/30
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<![CDATA[The Fallen (Memory Man Series, 4)]]> 37955631
Something sinister is going on in Baronville. The rust belt town has seen four bizarre murders in the space of two weeks. Cryptic clues left at the scenes--obscure bible verses, odd symbols--have the police stumped.

Amos Decker and his FBI colleague Alex Jamison are in Baronville visiting Alex's sister and her family. It's a bleak a former mill and mining town with a crumbling economy and rampant opioid addiction. Decker has only been there a few hours when he stumbles on a horrific double murder scene.

Then the next killing hits sickeningly close to home. And with the lives of people he cares about suddenly hanging in the balance, Decker begins to realize that the recent string of deaths may be only one small piece of a much larger scheme--with consequences that will reach far beyond Baronville.

Decker, with his singular talents, may be the only one who can crack this bizarre case. Only this time--when one mistake could cost him everything--Decker finds that his previously infallible memory may not be so trustworthy after all...]]>
464 David Baldacci 1538761386 Frances 0 to-read 4.17 2018 The Fallen (Memory Man Series, 4)
author: David Baldacci
name: Frances
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/08/25
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Women in Sunlight 35818773 The new novel from the mega bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun about four American expats and strangers who become unexpected friends over the course of one magical Italian year

Three American women--new friends, all older single women--have taken a lease on a stone manse in Tuscany. They are escaping, reinventing, reevaluating the fates expected of them as aging women in America. Released from their former lives, encouraging one another, and finding a lot of "why not" courage, each woman becomes more than she'd dreamed she'd be. Though there are serious setbacks because of cultural misunderstandings, jealous locals, and tensions from home, their trajectories throughout the novel are big affirmations of late-life possibilities.
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446 Frances Mayes 0451497686 Frances 4 3.97 2018 Women in Sunlight
author: Frances Mayes
name: Frances
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2018/08/20
date added: 2018/08/20
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The Nest 36269021
Every family has its problems. But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands out as spectacularly dysfunctional. Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point on an unseasonably cold afternoon in New York City as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab. Months earlier, an inebriated Leo got behind the wheel of a car with a nineteen-year-old waitress as his passenger. The ensuing accident has endangered the Plumbs' joint trust fund, “The Nest,� which they are months away from finally receiving. Meant by their deceased father to be a modest mid-life supplement, the Plumb siblings have watched The Nest’s value soar along with the stock market and have been counting on the money to solve a number of self-inflicted problems.

Melody, a wife and mother in an upscale suburb, has an unwieldy mortgage and looming college tuition for her twin teenage daughters. Jack, an antiques dealer, has secretly borrowed against the beach cottage he shares with his husband, Walker, to keep his store open. And Bea, a once-promising short-story writer, just can’t seem to finish her overdue novel. Can Leo rescue his siblings and, by extension, the people they love? Or will everyone need to reimagine the futures they’ve envisioned? Brought together as never before, Leo, Melody, Jack, and Beatrice must grapple with old resentments, present-day truths, and the significant emotional and financial toll of the accident, as well as finally acknowledge the choices they have made in their own lives.

This is a story about the power of family, the possibilities of friendship, the ways we depend upon one another and the ways we let one another down. In this tender, entertaining, and deftly written debut, Sweeney brings a remarkable cast of characters to life to illuminate what money does to relationships, what happens to our ambitions over the course of time, and the fraught yet unbreakable ties we share with those we love.]]>
373 Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney Frances 0 3.64 2016 The Nest
author: Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
name: Frances
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2018/07/22
date added: 2018/07/22
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Leopard at the Door 30039172 Set in Kenya against the fading backdrop of the British Empire, a story of self-discovery, betrayal, and an impossible love.

After six years in England, Rachel has returned to Kenya and the farm where she spent her childhood, but the beloved home she’d longed for is much changed. Her father’s new companion—a strange, intolerant woman—has taken over the household. The political climate in the country grows more unsettled by the day and is approaching the boiling point. And looming over them all is the threat of the Mau Mau, a secret society intent on uniting the native Kenyans and overthrowing the whites.

As Rachel struggles to find her place in her home and her country, she initiates a covert relationship, one that will demand from her a gross act of betrayal. One man knows her secret, and he has made it clear how she can buy his silence. But she knows something of her own, something she has never told anyone. And her knowledge brings her power.


From the Hardcover edition.]]>
400 Jennifer McVeigh 0399575170 Frances 5 4.30 2017 Leopard at the Door
author: Jennifer McVeigh
name: Frances
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2018/06/04
date added: 2018/06/04
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The Underground Railroad 29584452 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.]]>
322 Colson Whitehead Frances 0 4.19 2016 The Underground Railroad
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Frances
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2018/05/24
date added: 2018/05/24
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The Tuscan Child 36175491
In 1944, British bomber pilot Hugo Langley parachuted from his stricken plane into the verdant fields of German-occupied Tuscany. Badly wounded, he found refuge in a ruined monastery and in the arms of Sofia Bartoli. But the love that kindled between them was shaken by an irreversible betrayal.

Nearly thirty years later, Hugo’s estranged daughter, Joanna, has returned home to the English countryside to arrange her father’s funeral. Among his personal effects is an unopened letter addressed to Sofia. In it is a startling revelation.

Still dealing with the emotional wounds of her own personal trauma, Joanna embarks on a healing journey to Tuscany to understand her father’s history—and maybe come to understand herself as well. Joanna soon discovers that some would prefer the past be left undisturbed, but she has come too far to let go of her father’s secrets now…]]>
353 Rhys Bowen Frances 4 4.11 2018 The Tuscan Child
author: Rhys Bowen
name: Frances
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2018/05/10
date added: 2018/05/10
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<![CDATA[Feast: True Love in and out of the Kitchen]]> 36520261 The compulsively readable memoir of a woman at war—with herself, with her body, and with food—while working her way through the underbelly of New York City’s glamorous culinary scene.

Hannah Howard is a Columbia University freshman when she lands a hostess job at Picholine, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Manhattan. Eighteen years old and eager to learn, she’s invigorated by the manic energy and knife-sharp focus of the crew. By day Hannah explores the Columbia arts scene, struggling to find her place. By night she’s intoxicated by boxes of heady truffles and intrigued by the food industry’s insiders. She’s hungry for knowledge, success, and love, but she’s also ravenous because she hasn’t eaten more than yogurt and coffee in days.

Hannah is hiding an eating disorder. The excruciatingly late nights, demanding chefs, bad boyfriends, and destructive obsessions have left a void inside her that she can’t fill. To reconcile her relationships with the food she worships and a body she struggles to accept, Hannah’s going to have to learn to nourish her soul.

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237 Hannah Howard 1503997561 Frances 3 3.86 2018 Feast: True Love in and out of the Kitchen
author: Hannah Howard
name: Frances
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2018/05/02
date added: 2018/05/02
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A Wrinkle in Time (Time, #1) 13264768 A Wrinkle in Time and the wonderful and unforgettable characters Meg and Charles Wallace Murry, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe. When the children learn that Mr. Murry has been captured by the Dark Thing, they time travel to Camazotz, where they must face the leader IT in the ultimate battle between good and evil—a journey that threatens their lives and our universe. A Newbery Award winner, A Wrinkle in Time is an iconic novel that continues to inspire millions of fans around the world. This special edition has been redesigned and includes an introduction by Katherine Paterson, an afterword by Madeleine L'Engle's granddaughter Charlotte Jones Voiklis that includes photographs and memorabilia, the author's Newbery Medal acceptance speech, and other bonus materials.]]> 257 Madeleine L'Engle 1466801646 Frances 5 3.99 1962 A Wrinkle in Time (Time, #1)
author: Madeleine L'Engle
name: Frances
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2018/03/06
date added: 2018/03/06
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Flirting with Felicity 23588484
When his uncle wills away his family’s oldest property, Blake Bancroft cooks up a plan to get it back. To check out his competition, he’ll need to check in. Too bad his first encounter with Felicity proves to be anything but smooth. As their battle over ownership begins, things begin to heat up between them—and not just in the kitchen. Their attraction may be a recipe for disaster. Yet with the right ingredients, it could turn into a recipe for love�

In her debut contemporary romance, award-winning historical romance author Gerri Russell whips up a sweet, passionate, and unforgettably delectable story.]]>
236 Gerri Russell 1477877207 Frances 0 3.33 2015 Flirting with Felicity
author: Gerri Russell
name: Frances
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2018/03/06
date added: 2018/03/06
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<![CDATA[The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden]]> 20824773 Jonas Jonasson's picaresque tale of how one person's actions can have far-reaching—even global—consequences, written with the same light-hearted satirical voice as his bestselling debut novel, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.

On June 14th, 2007, the King and Prime Minister of Sweden went missing from a gala banquet at the Royal Castle. Later it was said that both had fallen ill: the truth is different. The real story starts much earlier, in 1961, with the birth of Nombeko Mayeki in a shack in Soweto. Nombeko was fated to grow up fast and die early in her poverty-stricken township. But Nombeko takes a different path. She finds work as a housecleaner and eventually makes her way up to the position of chief advisor, at the helm of one of the world's most secret projects.

Here is where the story merges with, then diverges from reality. South Africa developed six nuclear missiles in the 1980s, then voluntarily dismantled them in 1994. This is a story about the seventh missile . . . the one that was never supposed to have existed. Nombeko Mayeki knows too much about it, and now she's on the run from both the South African justice and the most terrifying secret service in the world. She ends up in Sweden, which has transformed into a nuclear nation, and the fate of the world now lies in Nombeko's hands.

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433 Jonas Jonasson Frances 2 4.00 2013 The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden
author: Jonas Jonasson
name: Frances
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2018/03/01
date added: 2018/03/01
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Lilac Girls (Lilac Girls, #1) 28009835 Inspired by the life of a real World War II heroine, this powerful debut novel reveals an incredible story of love, redemption, and terrible secrets that were hidden for decades.

On the eve of a fateful war, New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline’s world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939—and then sets its sights on France.

An ocean away from Caroline, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, senses her carefree youth disappearing as she sinks deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement. In a tense atmosphere of watchful eyes and suspect neighbors, one false move can have dire consequences.

For ambitious young German doctor, Herta Oberheuser, an ad for a government medical position seems her ticket out of a desolate life. But, once hired, she finds herself trapped in a male-dominated realm of Nazi secrets and power.

The lives of these three women are set on a collision course when the unthinkable happens and Kasia is sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious female-only Nazi concentration camp. The tragedy and triumph of their stories cross continents—from New York to Paris, and Germany to Poland—capturing the indomitable pull of compassion to bring justice to those whom history has forgotten.

In Lilac Girls, Martha Hall Kelly has crafted a remarkable novel of unsung women and their quest for love, happiness, and second chances. It is a story that will keep readers bonded with the characters, searching for the truth, until the final pages.]]>
497 Martha Hall Kelly Frances 0 currently-reading 4.40 2016 Lilac Girls (Lilac Girls, #1)
author: Martha Hall Kelly
name: Frances
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/02/22
shelves: currently-reading
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Pride and Prejudice 19648822 In a remote Hertfordshire village, far off the good coach roads of George III's England, a country squire of no great means must marry off his five vivacious daughters. At the heart of this all-consuming enterprise are his headstrong second daughter Elizabeth Bennet and her aristocratic suitor Fitzwilliam Darcy � two lovers whose pride must be humbled and prejudices dissolved before the novel can come to its splendid conclusion.
A selection of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
Reprint of a standard 1813 edition.
-- store.doverpublications.com]]>
234 Jane Austen 0486132501 Frances 5 4.46 1813 Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: Frances
average rating: 4.46
book published: 1813
rating: 5
read at: 2018/01/18
date added: 2018/01/18
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The Japanese Lover 25275996 New York Times and internationally bestselling author Isabel Allende, an exquisitely crafted love story and multigenerational epic that sweeps from San Francisco in the present-day to Poland and the United States during the Second World War.

In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco’s parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There, as the rest of the world goes to war, she encounters Ichimei Fukuda, the quiet and gentle son of the family’s Japanese gardener. Unnoticed by those around them, a tender love affair begins to blossom. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart as Ichimei and his family—like thousands of other Japanese Americans—are declared enemies and forcibly relocated to internment camps run by the United States government. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love that they are forever forced to hide from the world.

Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the elderly woman and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco’s charmingly eccentric Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years.

Sweeping through time and spanning generations and continents, The Japanese Lover explores questions of identity, abandonment, redemption, and the unknowable impact of fate on our lives. Written with the same attention to historical detail and keen understanding of her characters that Isabel Allende has been known for since her landmark first novel The House of the Spirits, The Japanese Lover is a profoundly moving tribute to the constancy of the human heart in a world of unceasing change.]]>
337 Isabel Allende Frances 4 4.11 2015 The Japanese Lover
author: Isabel Allende
name: Frances
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2018/01/14
date added: 2018/01/14
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Not in the Heart 18193627
With mounting hospital bills and Truman’s penchant for gambling his savings, the situation seems hopeless . . . until his estranged wife throws him a lifeline—the chance to write the story of a death row inmate, a man convicted of murder who wants to donate his heart to Truman’s son.

As the execution clock ticks down, Truman uncovers disturbing evidence that points to a different killer. For his son to live, must an innocent man die? Truman’s investigation draws him down a path that will change his life, his family, and the destinies of two men forever.]]>
429 Chris Fabry 1414369166 Frances 0 4.47 2012 Not in the Heart
author: Chris Fabry
name: Frances
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2017/10/18
date added: 2017/10/18
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The House by the Sea 11370131 Previously published as The Mermaid Garden, the internationally bestselling author of The French Gardener presents a complex and irresistibly compelling novel that confirms the remarkable power of love to heal and transform.Ten-year-old Floriana is captivated by the beauty of the magnificent Tuscan villa that overlooks the sea just outside her small village. She likes to spy from the crumbling wall into the gardens and imagine that one day she’ll escape her meager existence and live there surrounded by its otherworldly splendor. Then one day Dante, the son of the villa’s powerful industrialist owner, invites her inside and shows her the enchanting Mermaid Garden. From that moment, Floriana knows that the only destiny for her is there, in that garden, with Dante. But as they grow up and fall in love, their romance causes a crisis, jeopardizing the very thing they hold most dear.Decades later and hundreds of miles away, a beautiful old country house hotel on England’s Devon coast has fallen on hard times after the financial crash of 2008. Its owner, Marina, advertises for an artist to stay the summer and teach the guests how to paint. The man she hires is charismatic and wise and soon begins to pacify the discord in her family and transform the fortunes of the hotel. However, he has his own agenda. Is it to destroy, to seduce, or to heal? Whatever his intentions, he is certain to change Marina’s life forever.Spanning four decades and sweeping from the Italian countryside to the English coast, this new story by Santa Montefiore is a moving and mysterious tale of love, forgiveness, and the past revealed.]]> 434 Santa Montefiore 145162431X Frances 5 4.25 2011 The House by the Sea
author: Santa Montefiore
name: Frances
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[In Praise of the Bees (Women of Ireland #1)]]> 26096994
Brutally beaten, she's lost her memory and found a new life. If she recovers, will she lose more than she gains?

A woman is found by a track, nearly dead from appalling wounds and remembers nothing. Her terror and her injuries are so great that she is given sanctuary in Mother Gobnait's unusual community of nuns, while all around her a war is being waged in which she is a pawn. The women name her Aine.

Disturbing fragments of Áine’s memory begin to surface, and in desperation she asks to remain in the safety of the community, but is it really safe for her anywhere?

It is only after events take another terrible turn that Áine is forced to discover who she really is and make life-changing choices � but will they prove to be her undoing?

A literary novel inspired by real women - complex female characters who strain against the cruel chains and crippling prejudices of a society where no woman has power. Except, perhaps, one…]]>
310 Kristin Gleeson Frances 0 currently-reading 3.93 2015 In Praise of the Bees (Women of Ireland #1)
author: Kristin Gleeson
name: Frances
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/09/10
shelves: currently-reading
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