Elizabeth Castellano

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Illinois

A Novel (Good Morning America Book Club)

GMA BOOK CLUB PICK • ONE OF PEOPLE MAGAZINE'S BEST BOOKS OF SUMMER • An outrageously funny debut novel about a woman who moves to a small beach town looking for peace, only to find herself in an all-out war with her neighbors. “Irreverent and unexpectedly tender, this story takes neighborhood feuding to new heights and finds beauty and reinvention in unlikely places." —Oprah Daily "Brings a tongue-in-cheek tone to the beach read genre."—TIME When Kathleen Deane’s husband, Tom, tells her he's no longer happy with his life and their marriage, Kathleen is confused. They live in Kansas. They’ve been married thirty years. Who said anything about being happy? But with Tom off finding himself, Kathleen starts to think about what she wants. And her thoughts lead her to a small beach community on the east coast, a town called Whitbey that has always looked lovely in the Christmas letters her childhood friend Josie sends every year. It turns out, though, that life in Whitbey is nothing like Josie’s letters. Kathleen’s new neighbor, Rosemary, is cantankerous, and the town’s supervisor won't return Kathleen’s emails, but worst of all is the Sugar Cube, the monstrosity masquerading as a holiday home that Kathleen’s absentee neighbors are building next door to her quaint (read: tiny) cottage. As Kathleen gets more and more involved in the fight against the Sugar Cube and town politics overall, she realizes that Whitbey may not be a fairytale, but it just might be exactly what she needed. Save What’s Left can best be described as the “un-beach read.” It pulls back the curtain on life in a beach town, revealing the true cost of a pretty view. Told from the candid and irreverent perspective of a newcomer turned local, this is a story of forgiveness, fortitude, and second chances.

Save What's Left

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Garth Risk Hallberg

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

A Novel

A luminous new novel from the best-selling author of City on Fire, plunging us deep into the lives of a teenage girl and her father as they navigate love, grief, addiction, resurrection, and the restless pull of other people. When 13-year-old Jolie Aspern drops her phone onto the subway tracks in 2011, her estranged dad, Ethan, seems like the furthest thing from her mind. A convicted felon and recovering addict, Ethan has always struggled to see past himself. But then a call from his ex makes him fear their daughter's in deeper trouble than anyone realizes. Believing he's the only one who can save her, he decides to return to New York with a gift: the whole of his life, its hard-won triumphs and harrowing mistakes... So begins the intimate epic of Jolie and Ethan: child and adult, apart and together, different yet the same. Their journey toward each other will face opposition from grandparents and siblings and friends. It will strain connections with roommates and benefactors and a probation officer desperate to help. It will push Jolie out past her depth with a mysterious admirer, and Ethan in over his head with his first love, Jolie's mom. But as father and daughter struggle to find their footing, new vistas beckon: from a surf break in mid-'90s Delaware to group therapy during the Great Recession, from an encampment at Occupy Wall Street to a HoJo on Maryland's Eastern Shore, from the heights of the Brooklyn Bridge to horizons seldom seen in fiction. The Second Coming is at once an incandescent feat of storytelling and an exploration of an enduring mystery: Can we ever really outrun the past, stay true to ourselves while still chasing something new? Full of music and pathos and passion—full of blues—this beautifully attuned work of fiction renews the extraordinary promise of this writer's “boundless and unflagging talents” (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times).

The Second Coming

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Olivie Blake

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

From New York Times bestselling author Olivie Blake comes an intricate web of love, magic, and rival witch families in New York City.

*This new hardcover edition will include illustrated endpapers from artist Lasq.Draws plus brand-new interior illustrations from Little Chmura*

In modern-day Manhattan where we lay our scene, two rival witch families fight to maintain control of their respective criminal empires.

On one side of the conflict are the Antonova sisters -- each one beautiful, cunning, and ruthless -- and their mother, the elusive supplier of premium intoxicants, known only as Baba Yaga. On the other side, the influential Fedorov brothers serve their father, the crime boss known as Koschei the Deathless, whose community extortion ventures dominate the shadows of magical Manhattan.

After twelve years of tenuous co-existence, a change in one family's interests causes a rift in the existing stalemate. When bad blood brings both families to the precipice of disaster, fate intervenes with a chance encounter, and in the aftershocks of a resurrected conflict, everyone must choose a side. As each of the siblings struggles to stake their claim, fraying loyalties threaten to rot each side from the inside out.

If, that is, the enmity between empires doesn't destroy them first.

Also by Olivie Blake
Alone with You in the Ether
Masters of Death
The Atlas Six
The Atlas Paradox

One for My Enemy (signed)

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Beatriz Williams

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

New York Times bestseller Beatriz Williams returns with a ravishing summer read, taking readers back to a mid-century New England rich with secrets and Cold War intrigue.

June 1946. As the residents of Winthrop Island prepare for the first summer season after the sacrifice of war, a glamorous new figure moves into the guest cottage at Summerly, the idyllic seaside estate of the wealthy Peabody family. To Emilia Winthrop, daughter of Summerly's year-round caretaker and a descendant of the island's settlers, Olive Rainsford opens a window into a world of shining possibility. While Emilia spent the war years caring for her incapacitated mother, Olive traveled the world, married fascinating men, and involved herself in political causes. She's also the beloved aunt of the two surviving Peabody sons, Amory and Shep, with whom Emilia has a tangled romantic history.

As the summer wears on, Emilia develops a deep rapport with Olive, who urges her to leave the island for a life of adventure, while romance blossoms with the sturdy and honorable Shep. But the heady promise of Peabody patronage is blown apart by the arrival of Sumner Fox, an FBI agent who demands Emilia's help to capture a Soviet agent who's transmitting vital intelligence on the West's atomic weapon program from somewhere inside the Summerly estate.

April 1954. Eight years later, Summerly is boarded up and Emilia has rebuilt her shattered life as a professor at Wellesley College, when shocking news arrives from Washington--the traitor she helped convict is about to be swapped for an American spy imprisoned in the Soviet Union, but with a mysterious condition only Emilia can fulfill. A reluctant Emilia is summoned to CIA headquarters, where she's forced to confront the harrowing consequences of her actions that fateful summer, and a choice that could destroy the Peabody family--and Emilia's chance for redemption--all over again.

The Beach at Summerly

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Shehan Karunatilaka

Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida--war photographer, gambler, and closet queen--has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lanka.

Ten years after his prize-winning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka's foremost authors, Shehan Karunatilaka is back with a "thrilling satire" (Economist) and rip-roaring state-of-the-nation epic that offers equal parts mordant wit and disturbing, profound truths.

Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

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Let us Descend

Ella Berman

Reese's Book Club

Reese’s Book Club Pick December 2023 A summer in Greece for three best friends ends in the unthinkable when only two return home. . . . Ten years ago, after a sun-soaked summer spent in Greece, best friends Bess and Joni were cleared of having any involvement in their friend Evangeline’s death. But that didn’t stop the media from ripping apart their teenage lives like vultures. While the girls were never convicted, Joni, ever the opportunist, capitalized on her newfound infamy to become a motivational speaker. Bess, on the other hand, resolved to make her life as small and controlled as possible so she wouldn’t risk losing everything all over again. And it almost worked. . . . Except now Joni needs a favor, and when she turns up at her old friend's doorstep asking for an alibi, Bess has no choice but to say yes. She still owes her. But as the two friends try desperately to shake off their past, they have to face reality. Can you ever be an innocent woman when everyone wants you to be guilty?

Before We Were Innocent

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Kita Mean

There is a man in your future who is going to love you like nobody's business ... and that man is you! Quirky, kitsch and delightfully camp, Kita Mean - Nick Nash by day - inspires fans around the world to live life as their authentic selves, inside and out. From wild nights partying to oblivion to making an unforgettable entrance on the drag scene and owning the iconic Caluzzi Cabaret with bestie Anita Wigl'it, the very first winner of RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under reflects on a life lived differently. Kita lays it bare and shares important life lessons - many learned the hard way - about self-worth, body image, and being consciously proud of who you are. Fearless, outrageous, and loveably cheeky, Life in Lashes is a memoir of a lost boy who found salvation in drag, learned to love herself, and went on to share her unique fabulousness with the world.

Life in Lashes: the Story of a Drag Superstar

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Esmeralda Santiago

From the award-winning, best-selling author of When I Was Puerto Rican, a powerful novel of family, race, faith, sex, and disaster that moves between Puerto Rico and the Bronx, revealing the lives and loves of five women and the secret that binds them together They refer to themselves as “las Madres,” a close-knit group of women who, with their daughters, have created a family based on friendship and blood ties.Their story begins in Puerto Rico in 1975 when fifteen-year-old Luz, the tallest girl in her dance academy and the only Black one in a sea of petite, light-skinned, delicate swans, is seriously injured in a car accident. Tragically, her brilliant, multilingual scientist parents are both killed in the crash. Now orphaned, Luz navigates the pressures of adolescence and copes with the aftershock of a brain injury, when two new friends enter her life, Ada and Shirley. Luz’s days are consumed with aches and pains, and her memory of the accident is wiped clean, but she suffers spells that send her mind to times and places she can’t share with others. In 2017, in the Bronx, Luz’s adult daughter, Marysol, wishes she better understood her. But how can she when her mother barely remembers her own life? To help, Ada and Shirley’s daughter, Graciela, suggests a vacation in Puerto Rico for the extended group, as an opportunity for Luz to unearth long-buried memories and for Marysol to learn more about her mother’s early life. But despite all their careful planning, two hurricanes, back-to-back, disrupt their homecoming, and a secret is revealed that blows their lives wide open. In a voice that sings with warmth, humor, friendship, and pride, celebrated author Esmeralda Santiago unspools a story of women’s sexuality, shame, disability, and love within a community rocked by disaster.

Las Madres

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The Reunion

Alice Hoffman

From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage of Opposites and the Practical Magic series comes an enchanting novel about love, heartbreak, self-discovery, and the enduring magic of books.

One brilliant June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. The Scarlet Letter was written almost two hundred years earlier, but it seems to tell the story of Mia's mother, Ivy, and their life inside the Community--an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts where contact with the outside world is forbidden, and books are considered evil. But how could this be? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have so perfectly captured the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her?

Through a journey of heartbreak, love, and time, Mia must abandon the rules she was raised with at the Community. As she does, she realizes that reading can transport you to other worlds or bring them to you, and that readers and writers affect one another in mysterious ways. She learns that time is more fluid than she can imagine, and that love is stronger than any chains that bind you.

As a girl Mia fell in love with a book. Now as a young woman she falls in love with a brilliant writer as she makes her way back in time. But what if Nathaniel Hawthorne never wrote The Scarlet Letter? And what if Mia Jacob never found it on the day she planned to die?

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote: "A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities."

This is the story of one woman's dream. For a little while it came true.

The Invisible Hour

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Kevin Wilson

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Kevin Wilson’s best book yet—a moving and uproarious novel about a woman who finds meaning in her life when she begins caring for two children with remarkable and disturbing abilities Lillian and Madison were the unlikeliest of roommates at their elite boarding school: Madison, the daughter of a prominent Atlanta family, being groomed for greatness; Lillian, a scholarship student, plucked out of nowhere based solely on her intellect and athletic prowess. The two were as tight as could be, reveling in their unique weirdnesses, until Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly. Years later, the two have lost touch, but Madison writes and begs Lillian for help. Her husband’s twin stepkids are moving in with them and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins can spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a disturbing but beautiful way. Disbelieving at first but ultimately too intrigued by these strange children, Lillian agrees. And as they hunker down in the pool house, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other—and stay cool—just as Madison’s family is bracing for a major announcement. It all seems impossible to manage, but Lillian soon accepts that she and the children need each other, urgently and fiercely.With a white-hot wit and a big, tender heart, Kevin Wilson has written a most unusual story of deep parental love that proves to be his best book yet.

Nothing to See Here

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Yulin Kuang

The brilliant contemporary romance novel debut from Yulin Kuang, the acclaimed screenwriter of Emily Henry's People We Meet on Vacation and director of the forthcoming Beach Read feature film. Helen Zhang hasn't seen Grant Shepard once in the thirteen years since the car wreck that killed her sister tied their lives together forever. Now a bestselling author, Helen pours everything into her career. She's even scored a coveted spot in the writers' room of the TV adaptation of her popular young adult novels, and if she can hide her imposter syndrome and overcome her writer's block, surely the rest of her life will fall into place too. LA is the fresh start she needs. After all, no one knows her there. Except... Grant has done everything in his power to move on from the past, including building a life across the country. And while the panic attacks have never quite gone away, he's well liked around town as a screenwriter. He knows he shouldn't have taken the job on Helen's show, but it will open doors to developing his own projects that he just can't pass up. Grant's exactly as Helen remembers him--charming, funny, popular, and lovable in ways that she's never been. And Helen's exactly as Grant remembers too--brilliant, beautiful, closed off. But working together is messy, and electrifying, and Helen's parents, who have never forgiven Grant, have no idea he's in the picture at all. When secrets come to light, they must reckon with the fact that theirs was never meant to be any kind of love story. And yet... the key to making peace with their past--and themselves--might just lie in holding on to each other in the present.

How to End a Love Story

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Toni Bentley

A Balanchine Story

Toni Bentley, a dancer for George Balanchine, the greatest ballet maker of the 20th century, tells the story of Serenade, his iconic masterpiece, and what it was like to dance—and live—in his world at New York City Ballet during its legendary era. At age seventeen, Toni Bentley was chosen by Balanchine, then in his final years, to join the New York City Ballet. From both backstage and onstage, she carries us through the serendipitous history and physical intricacies and demands of Serenade: its dazzling opening, with seventeen women in a double-diamond pattern; its radical, even jazzy, use of the highly refined language that is ballet; its place in the choreographer’s own dramatic story of his immigration to the United States from Soviet Russia; its mystical—and literal—embodiment of the tradition of classical ballet in just thirty-three minutes. Bentley takes us inside the rarefied, intense, and thrilling world Balanchine created through his lifelong devotion to celebrating and expanding female beauty and strength—a world that, inevitably, passed upon his death. An intimate elegy to grace and loss and to the imprint of a towering artist and his transcendent creation on Bentley’s own life, Serenade: A Balanchine Story is a rich narrative by a dynamic artist about the nature of art itself at its most ephemeral and glorious.

Serenade

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John Manuel Arias

Forthcoming novel from John Manuel Arias. On sale November 2022

Where There Was Fire

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Lakiesha Carr

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • This magisterial, intimate look at Black womanhood "follows three women whose various traumas haunt them literally and metaphorically, as it explores what it means to be a Black woman in America today" (The New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice). A middle-aged woman feed slots at a secret back-room parlor. A new mother descends into a devastating postpartum depression, wracked with the fear that she is unable to protect her children. A daughter returns home to join the other women in her family waging spiritual combat with the ghosts of their past. An Autobiography of Skin is a dazzling and masterful portrait of interconnected generations in the South from a singular new voice, offering a raw and tender view into the interior lives of Black women. It is at once a powerful look at how experiences are carried inside the body, inside the flesh and skin, and a joyous testament to how healing can be found within—in love, mercy, gratitude, and freedom.

An Autobiography of Skin

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Etaf Rum

The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of A Woman Is No Man returns with a striking exploration of the expectations of Palestinian-American women, the meaning of a fulfilling life, and the ways our unresolved pasts affect our presents. Raised in a conservative and emotionally volatile Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she would finally feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur who took her to the suburbs. She's gotten to follow her dreams, completing an undergraduate degree in Art and landing a good job at the local college. As a traditional wife, she also raises their two school-aged daughters, takes care of the house, and has dinner ready when her husband gets home. With her family balanced with her professional ambitions, Yara knows that her life is infinitely more rewarding than her own mother's. So why doesn't it feel like enough? After her dream of chaperoning a student trip to Europe evaporates and she responds to a colleague's racist provocation, Yara is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counseling to keep her position. Her mother blames a family curse for the trouble she's facing, and while Yara doesn't really believe in old superstitions, she still finds herself growing increasingly uneasy with her mother's warning and the possibility of falling victim to the same mistakes. Shaken to the core by these indictments of her life, Yara finds her carefully constructed world beginning to implode. To save herself, Yara must reckon with the reality that the difficulties of the childhood she thought she left behind have very real--and damaging--implications not just on her own future but that of her daughters.

Evil Eye

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Sara Desai

"Without rules, these fake fiancés might accidentally fall for each other in this romantic comedy by the author of The Marriage Game. Daisy Patel is a software engineer who understands lists and logic better than bosses and boyfriends. Ever the obedient daughter, she always follows the rules, but the one thing she can't give her family is the marriage they expect. With few options left to her, and desperate to escape a parade of unwanted suitors, she asks her childhood crush to be her decoy fiancé. Liam Murphy is a venture capitalist with something to prove. When he learns that his inheritance is contingent on being married, he realizes his best friend's little sister has the perfect solution to his problem. A marriage of convenience will get Daisy's matchmaking relatives off her back and fulfill the terms of his late grandmother's will. If only her brother hadn't warned him away... Sparks fly when Daisy and Liam go on a series of dates to legitimize their fake relationship. Too late, they realize that very little is convenient about their arrangement. History and chemistry aren't about to follow the rules of this engagement"--

The Dating Plan

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Jillian Medoff

"When We Were Bright and Beautiful blew me away. Jillian Medoff's gripping exploration of wealth, consent, and complicity tells the story of a loving family's unraveling with the propulsive pace of the best thrillers. A masterful achievement."--Aimee Molloy, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Mother and Goodnight Beautiful

The acclaimed, bestselling author of This Could Hurt returns with her biggest, boldest novel yet--an electrifying, twisty, and deeply emotional family drama, set on Manhattan's glittering Upper East Side, that explores the dark side of love, the limits of loyalty, and the high cost of truth.

You can have everything, and still not have enough. 

Cassie Quinn may only be twenty-three, but she knows a few things. One: money can't buy happiness, but it's certainly better to have it. Two: family matters most. Three: her younger brother Billy is not a rapist.

When Billy, a junior at Princeton, is arrested for assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Cassie races home to Manhattan to join forces with her big brother Nate and their parents, Lawrence and Eleanor. The Quinns scramble to hire the best legal minds money can buy, but Billy fits the all-too-familiar sex-offender profile--white, athletic, and privileged--that makes headlines and sways juries.

Meanwhile, Cassie struggles to understand why Billy's ex Diana would go this far, even if the breakup was painful. And she knows how the end of first love can destroy someone: Her own years-long affair with a powerful, charismatic man left her shattered, and she's only recently regained her footing.   

As reporters converge outside their Upper East Side landmark building, the Quinns gird themselves for a media-saturated trial, and Cassie vows she'll do whatever it takes to save Billy. But what if that means exposing her own darkest secrets to the world?

Lightning-paced and psychologically astute as it rockets toward an explosive ending, When We Were Bright and Beautiful is a dazzling novel that asks: who will pay the price when the truth is revealed? 

When We Were Bright and Beautiful

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David Nicholls

The Long-Awaited New Novel from the Best-selling Author of ONE DAY

From the best-selling author of One Day comes a bittersweet and brilliantly funny coming-of-age tale about the heart-stopping thrill of first love--and how just one summer can forever change a life. Now: On the verge of marriage and a fresh start, thirty-eight year old Charlie Lewis finds that he can't stop thinking about the past, and the events of one particular summer. Then: Sixteen-year-old Charlie Lewis is the kind of boy you don't remember in the school photograph. He's failing his classes. At home he looks after his depressed father--when surely it should be the other way round--and if he thinks about the future at all, it is with a kind of dread. But when Fran Fisher bursts into his life and despite himself, Charlie begins to hope. In order to spend time with Fran, Charlie must take on a challenge that could lose him the respect of his friends and require him to become a different person. He must join the Company. And if the Company sounds like a cult, the truth is even more appalling: The price of hope, it seems, is Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet learned and performed in a theater troupe over the course of a summer. Now: Charlie can't go the altar without coming to terms with his relationship with Fran, his friends, and his former self. Poignant, funny, enchanting, devastating, Sweet Sorrow is a tragicomedy about the rocky path to adulthood and the confusion of family life, a celebration of the reviving power of friendship and that brief, searing explosion of first love that can only be looked at directly after it has burned out.

Sweet Sorrow

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Chloe Gong

#1 New York Times bestselling YA author Chloe Gong's adult epic fantasy debut, inspired by Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, is a fiery collision of power plays, spilled blood, and romance amidst a set of deadly games.

Every year, thousands in the kingdom of Talin will flock to its capital twin cities, San-Er, where the palace hosts a set of games. For those confident enough in their ability to jump between bodies, competitors across San-Er fight to the death to win unimaginable riches.

Princess Calla Tuoleimi lurks in hiding. Five years ago, a massacre killed her parents and left the palace of Er empty...and she was the one who did it. Before King Kasa's forces in San can catch her, she plans to finish the job and bring down the monarchy. Her reclusive uncle always greets the victor of the games, so if she wins, she gets her opportunity at last to kill him.

Enter Anton Makusa, an exiled aristocrat. His childhood love has lain in a coma since they were both ousted from the palace, and he's deep in debt trying to keep her alive. Thankfully, he's one of the best jumpers in the kingdom, flitting from body to body at will. His last chance at saving her is entering the games and winning.

Calla finds both an unexpected alliance with Anton and help from King Kasa's adopted son, August, who wants to mend Talin's ills. But the three of them have very different goals, even as Calla and Anton's partnership spirals into something all-consuming. Before the games close, Calla must decide what she's playing for--her lover or her kingdom.

Immortal Longings

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Lara Prescott

A thrilling tale of secretaries turned spies, of love and duty, and of sacrifice--inspired by the true story of the CIA plot to infiltrate the hearts and minds of Soviet Russia, not with propaganda, but with the greatest love story of the twentieth century: Doctor Zhivago. At the height of the Cold War, two secretaries are pulled out of the typing pool at the CIA and given the assignment of a lifetime. Their mission: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR, where no one dare publish it, and help Pasternak's magnum opus make its way into print around the world. Glamorous and sophisticated Sally Forrester is a seasoned spy who has honed her gift for deceit all over the world--using her magnetism and charm to pry secrets out of powerful men. Irina is a complete novice, and under Sally's tutelage quickly learns how to blend in, make drops, and invisibly ferry classified documents. The Secrets We Kept combines a legendary literary love story--the decades-long affair between Pasternak and his mistress and muse, Olga Ivinskaya, who was sent to the Gulag and inspired Zhivago's heroine, Lara--with a narrative about two women empowered to lead lives of extraordinary intrigue and risk. From Pasternak's country estate outside Moscow to the brutalities of the Gulag, from Washington, D.C. to Paris and Milan, The Secrets We Kept captures a watershed moment in the history of literature--told with soaring emotional intensity and captivating historical detail. And at the center of this unforgettable debut is the powerful belief that a piece of art can change the world.

The Secrets We Kept

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Sarah Haywood

A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK New York Times Bestseller "Fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine will love The Cactus." --Red magazine In this charming and poignant debut, one woman's unconventional journey to finding love means learning to embrace the unexpected. For Susan Green, messy emotions don't fit into the equation of her perfectly ordered life. She has a flat that is ideal for one, a job that suits her passion for logic, and an "interpersonal arrangement" that provides cultural and other, more intimate, benefits. But suddenly confronted with the loss of her mother and the news that she is about to become a mother herself, Susan's greatest fear is realized. She is losing control. Enter Rob, the dubious but well-meaning friend of her indolent brother. As Susan's due date draws near and her dismantled world falls further into a tailspin, Susan finds an unlikely ally in Rob. She might have a chance at finding real love and learning to love herself, if only she can figure out how to let go.

The Cactus

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Eleanor Shearer

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK * This beautiful, page-turning and redemptive story of a mother's gripping journey across the Caribbean to find her stolen children in the aftermath of slavery is a "celebration of motherhood and female resilience" (The Observer).

"A powerful novel that explores how freedom and family are truly defined"--Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Real Simple, Goodreads, AARP, Boston.com, BookBub and BookRiot
 
Her search begins with an ending....

The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados gathers his slaves and announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. As of the following day, the Emancipation Act of 1834 will come into effect. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves; they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. They must work for him for another six years. Freedom is just another name for the life they have always lived. So Rachel runs.
 
Away from Providence, she begins a desperate search to find her children--the five who survived birth and were sold. Are any of them still alive? Rachel has to know. The grueling, dangerous journey takes her from Barbados then, by river, deep into the forest of British Guiana and finally across the sea to Trinidad. She is driven on by the certainty that a mother cannot be truly free without knowing what has become of her children, even if the answer is more than she can bear. These are the stories of Mary Grace, Micah, Thomas Augustus, Cherry Jane and Mercy. But above all this is the story of Rachel and the extraordinary lengths to which a mother will go to find her children...and her freedom.

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