For fans of Memoirs of a Geisha and Pachinko, a sweeping historical fiction debut that follows a young woman from a prominent family and her maidservant as they navigate their limited realities of love, marriage, and circumstance in 19th century China.
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THE STONE WITCH OF FLORENCE
1348. As the Black Plague lays waste to Italy, Ginevra di Gasparo is summoned back to Florence after nearly a decade of lonely exile. She was banished under accusations of witchcraft, but the same men who sent her away now beg her return and heal the sick using the ancient practices of alchemy she learned as a young girl. In Florence, she finds herself assigned to a much more dangerous mission: she must use her collection of jewels to track down a ruthless thief who is ransacking churches for priceless relics. If she succeeds, she’ll be a recognized physician, never accused of witchcraft again—but to achieve that goal, she must survive as a pawn in a dangerous game…
Never Saw Me Coming
Reminiscent of Caroline Kepnes’s You and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, Never Saw Me Coming is set on a college campus in Washington DC, where a renowned psychologist runs an experimental study for students diagnosed with psychopathy. Told from the alternating viewpoints of three of the students—each with their own motivations for being in the program, including revenge—things start to unravel when a student in their program is found murdered and it becomes obvious they’re all in danger.
The Last Story of Mina Lee
An electrifying debut novel for fans of Celeste Ng and Jean Kwok, The Last Story of Mina Lee is a poignant mother-daughter story and surprising mystery that illustrates the devastating realities of being an immigrant in America.
The Imperfects
The Millers are far from perfect. Estranged siblings Beck, Ashley and Jake find themselves under one roof for the first time in years, forced to confront old resentments and betrayals, when their mysterious, eccentric matriarch, Helen, passes away. But their lives are about to change when they find a secret inheritance hidden among her possessions—the Florentine Diamond, a 137-carat yellow gemstone that went missing from the Austrian Empire a century ago. Desperate to learn how one of the world’s most elusive diamonds ended up in Helen’s bedroom, they begin investigating her past only to realize how little they know about their brave, resilient grandmother. As the Millers race to determine whether they are the rightful heirs to the diamond and the fortune it promises, they uncover a past more tragic and powerful than they ever could have imagined, forever changing their connection to their heritage and each other.
The Ventriloquists
Brussels, 1943. Twelve-year-old street orphan Helene survives by living as a boy and selling copies of the country’s most popular newspaper, Le Soir, now turned into Nazi propaganda. Helene’s entire world changes when she befriends a rogue journalist, Marc Aubrion, who draws her into a secret network publishing dissident underground newspapers. Aubrion’s unbridled creativity and linguistic genius attract the attention of August Wolff, a high-ranking Nazi official tasked with swaying public opinion against the Allies. Wolff captures Aubrion and his comrades and gives them an impossible choice: use the newspaper to paint the Allies as monsters, or be killed. Faced with no decision at all, Aubrion has a brilliant idea: they will pretend to do the Nazis’ bidding, but instead they will publish a fake edition of Le Soir that pokes fun at Hitler and Stalin—giving power back to the Belgians by daring to laugh in the face of their oppressors. The ventriloquists have agreed to die for a joke, and they have only eighteen days to tell it. Told with dazzling scope, taut prose and devastating emotion, The Ventriloquists illuminates the extraordinary acts of courage by ordinary people forgotten by history—unlikely heroes who went to extreme lengths to orchestrate the most stunning feat of journalism in modern history.
Beautiful Bad
Maddie and Ian’s love story began with a chance encounter at a party overseas; he was serving in the British army and she was a travel writer visiting her best friend, Jo. Now almost two decades later, married with a beautiful son, Charlie, they are living the perfect suburban life in Middle America. But when a camping accident leaves Maddie badly scarred, she begins attending writing therapy, where she gradually reveals her fears about Ian’s PTSD; her concerns for the safety of their young son, Charlie; and the couple’s tangled and tumultuous past with Jo. From the Balkans to England, Iraq to Manhattan, and finally to an ordinary family home in Kansas, sixteen years of love and fear, adventure and suspicion culminate in The Day of the Killing, when a frantic 911 call summons the police to the scene of a shocking crime.
The Honey Bus
Meredith May was five years old when her parents divorced and she suddenly found herself in the care of her grandfather, an eccentric beekeeper who made honey in a rusty old military bus in the yard. She was drawn to the art of beekeeping as an escape from her troubled reality. Her mother had receded into a volatile cycle of madness and despair and spent most days locked away in the bedroom. The bees became a guiding force in May’s life, teaching her about family and community, loyalty and survival.
We Own the Sky
Rob Coates feels like he’s won the lottery of life. There is Anna, his incredible wife, their London town house and, most precious of all, Jack, their son, who makes every day an extraordinary adventure. But when a devastating illness befalls his family, Rob’s world begins to unravel. Suddenly finding himself alone, Rob seeks solace in photographing the skyscrapers and clifftops he and his son Jack used to visit. And just when it seems that all hope is lost, Rob embarks on the most unforgettable of journeys to find his way back to life, and forgiveness. We Own the Sky is a tender, heartrending, but ultimately life-affirming novel that will resonate deeply with anyone who has suffered loss or experienced great love. With stunning eloquence and acumen, Luke Allnutt has penned a soaring debut and a true testament to the power of love, showing how even the most thoroughly broken heart can learn to beat again.
Hanna Who Fell From the Sky
Hanna has never been outside her secluded community of Clearhaven. She has never questioned why her father has four wives or why she has fourteen brothers and sisters. And in only one week, on her eighteenth birthday, Hanna will follow tradition and become the fifth wife of a man more than twice her age. But just days before the wedding, Hanna meets Daniel, an enigmatic stranger who challenges her to question her fate and to follow her own will. Then her mother tells her a secret—one that could grant Hanna the freedom she’s known only in her dreams. As her world unravels around her, Hanna must decide whether she was really meant for something greater than the claustrophobic world of Clearhaven. But can she abandon her beloved younger sister and the only home she’s ever known? Or is there another option—one too fantastical to believe?