Nipuna's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 01 May 2025 18:14:22 -0700 60 Nipuna's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Specimen 203751835
1826. Isobel Tait finds herself, by chance, staring at a tiny human heart floating in a jar. It should be of little consequence; Dr. Burnett is renowned for his collection of oddities and medical specimens, and this, a juvenile heart with a damaged mitral valve, is not the strangest thing on display. Except that the condition is rare, and that Isobel's young son, who has been missing for months, suffered from the ailment.

A phantom pulse beats in Isobel's ears. She knows something here isn't right.

Missing persons cases are all too common in Edinburgh, where people simply vanish like mist. But Burnett is obsessed with his specimens � how far would he go to acquire a new one? Determined to investigate, Isobel joins his staff as the keeper of his collection. What she'll unearth, though, is far worse than any of her nightmares�

Based on true crimes, The Specimen is a mesmerizing story about one woman's search for truth and vengeance in the darkest of places—where the deadliest secrets lie hidden in plain sight, on a freshly dusted shelf.]]> 416 Jaima Fixsen 1728294908 Nipuna 5 3.95 2024 The Specimen
author: Jaima Fixsen
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/01
date added: 2025/05/01
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]]> In the Orchard 60656832
At night, Maisie Moore dreams that her life is the looming mortgages and credit card debt have magically vanished, and she can raise her four children, including newborn Esme, on an undulating current of maternal bliss, by turns oceanic and overwhelming, but awash in awe and wonder. Then she jolts awake and, after checking that her husband and baby are asleep beside her, remembers the real-world money problems to be resolved amid the long days of grocery shopping, gymnastics practices, and soccer games. From this moment, Eliza Minot draws readers into the psyche of the perceptive and warmhearted Maisie, who yearns to understand the world around her and overflows with fierce love for her growing family.Ěý

Unfolding over the course of a single day in which Maisie and her husband take their children to pick apples, In the Orchard is luminous, masterfully crafted, revelatory—a shining exploration of motherhood, childhood, and love.]]> 256 Eliza Minot 0307593479 Nipuna 0 currently-reading 3.37 In the Orchard
author: Eliza Minot
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.37
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The House in the Pines 61251242 Armed with only hazy memories, a woman who long ago witnessed her friend's sudden, mysterious death, and has since spent her life trying to forget, sets out to track down answers. What she uncovers, deep in the woods, is hardly to be believed....

Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they'd been spending time with all summer.

Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is kicking the secret addiction that has allowed her to cope with what happened years ago, the gaps in her memories, and the lost time that she can't account for. But her past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. Plunged into the trauma that has defined her life, Maya heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer--the influence Frank once had on her and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey.

At her mother's house, she excavates fragments of her past and notices hidden messages in her deceased Guatemalan father's book that didn't stand out to her earlier. To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born, but time keeps running out, and soon, all roads are leading back to Frank's cabin....

Utterly unique and captivating, The House in the Pines keeps you guessing about whether we can ever fully confront the past and return home.]]> 321 Ana Reyes 0593186710 Nipuna 3 3.05 2023 The House in the Pines
author: Ana Reyes
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.05
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/29
date added: 2025/04/29
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]]> Have You Seen Her 62919390 A thrilling and timely novel about three women with dark secrets whose lives intersect in the picturesque and perilous Yosemite National Park from the USA TODAY bestselling author of Please Join Us.

Equipped with a burner phone and a new job, Cassie Peters has left her hectic and secretive life in New York City for the refuge of her hometown of Mammoth Lakes, California. There, she begins working again with Yosemite Search and Rescue, where a case she worked a decade ago continues to haunt her.

She quickly falls into old patterns, joining a group of fellow seasonal workers and young adventurers who have made Yosemite their home during the summer. There, she meets Petal, a young woman living in a trailer with her much older wife, keeping a detailed diary of the goings on of the park, and Jada, a recent college graduate on a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend, documenting their journey on Instagram.

When these three women cross paths, Cassie’s past catches up with her, and the shocking consequences ripple out far beyond what any could have imagined in this unputdownable thriller.]]> 327 Catherine McKenzie 1668011115 Nipuna 3 3.55 2023 Have You Seen Her
author: Catherine McKenzie
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/23
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]]> Lark Ascending 59892263 Ěý
With fires devastating much of America, Lark and his family first leave their home in Maryland for Maine. But as the country increasingly falls under the grip of religious nationalism, it becomes clear that nowhere is safe, not just from physical disasters but also persecution. The family secures a place on a crowded boat headed to Ireland, the last place on earth rumored to be accepting American refugees.
Ěý
Upon arrival, it turns out that the safe harbor of Ireland no longer exists either—and Lark, the sole survivor of the trans-Atlantic voyage, must disappear into the countryside. As he runs for his life, Lark finds two equally lost and desperate souls: one of the last remaining dogs, who becomes his closest companion, and a fierce, mysterious woman in search of her lost son. Together they form a makeshift family and attempt to reach Glendalough, a place they believe will offer protection. But can any community provide the safety that they seek?
Ěý
Lark Ascending is a moving and unforgettable story of friendship and bravery, and even more, a story of the ongoing fight to protect our per­sonal freedoms and find our shared humanity, from a writer at the peak of his powers.]]> 288 Silas House 164375159X Nipuna 4 4.12 2022 Lark Ascending
author: Silas House
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
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]]> Island Rule 176444102 From the author of The Companions, a genre-bending collection of interconnected short stories in the tradition of Jennifer Egan and Karen Russell

An angry mother turns into a literal monster. A company in San Francisco can scrub your entire reputation and create a new one…for a price. A failed actor on a reality show turns into an unlikely world savior. And much more. Through twelve interconnected stories, Katie Flynn masterfully blends people, places, and even realities.]]> 288 Katie M. Flynn 198212220X Nipuna 2 3.39 2024 Island Rule
author: Katie M. Flynn
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/17
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]]> The Underground Library 177185877 When the Blitz imperils the heart of a London neighborhood, three young women must use their fighting spirit to save the community’s beloved library in this heartwarming novel from the author of The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

When new deputy librarian, Juliet Lansdown, finds that Bethnal Green Library isn't the bustling hub she's expecting, she becomes determined to breathe life back into it. But can she show the men in charge that a woman is up to the task of running it, especially when a confrontation with her past threatens to derail her?

Katie Upwood is thrilled to be working at the library, although she's only there until she heads off to university in the fall. But after the death of her beau on the front line and amid tumultuous family strife, she finds herself harboring a life-changing secret with no one to turn to for help.

Sofie Baumann, a young Jewish refugee, came to London on a domestic service visa only to find herself working as a maid for a man who treats her abominably. She escapes to the library every chance she can, finding friendship in the literary community and aid in finding her sister, who is still trying to flee occupied Europe.

When a slew of bombs destroy the library, Juliet relocates the stacks to the local Underground station where the city's residents shelter nightly, determined to lend out stories that will keep spirits up. But tragedy after tragedy threatens to unmoor the women and sever the ties of their community. Will Juliet, Kate, and Sofie be able to overcome their own troubles to save the library? Or will the beating heart of their neighborhood be lost forever?]]> 368 Jennifer Ryan 0593500385 Nipuna 3 4.10 2024 The Underground Library
author: Jennifer Ryan
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
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]]> The White Lady 61346151
A reluctant ex-spy with demons of her own, Elinor finds herself facing down one of the most dangerous organized crime gangs in London, and exposing corruption from Scotland Yard to the highest levels of government.

Post-World War II Britain, 1947. Forty-one-year-old “Miss White," as Elinor is known, lives in a village in Kent, England, so quietly and privately as to seem an enigma to her fellow villagers. Well she might, as Elinor occupies a "grace and favor" property, a rare privilege offered to faithful servants of the Crown for services to the nation. But the residents of Shacklehurst have no way of knowing how dangerous Elinor's war work had been, or how deeply their mysterious neighbor continues to be haunted by her past.

It will take the child of Jim Mackie, a young farmworker and his wife, Rose, to break through Miss White's icy demeanor—but Jim has something in common with Elinor. He, too, is desperate to escape his past. When the powerful Mackie crime family demands a return of their prodigal son for an important job, Elinor assumes the task of protecting her neighbors, especially the bright-eyed Susie, who reminds her of the darkest day of her life.

Elinor’s wartime training and instincts serve her well, but as she endeavors to neutralize the threat to Jim, Rose and Susie Mackie, she is rapidly led along a tunnel of smoke and mirrors in which former wartime colleagues � who know the truth about what happened in 1944, and the terrible event that led to her wartime suicide attempt � are compromised by more powerful influences.

Ultimately, Elinor will hold a gun to the head of a Mackie crime lord to uncover the truth behind the family's pursuit of Jim, and in doing so, reveal the far-reaching tentacles of their power—along with the truth that will free Elinor from her past.]]> 321 Jacqueline Winspear 0062867989 Nipuna 3 3.89 2023 The White Lady
author: Jacqueline Winspear
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/12
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]]> Whether Violent or Natural 61783809 An unnerving, sinister, and brilliant dystopian novel about the choices we make at the end of the world, posing the question: Who can you trust when there’s almost no one left?

Years after complete antibiotic resistance has brought about global devastation, Kit ekes out an existence on a remote island alongside the taciturn Crevan, who has more recently fled the mainland. With once-curable diseases running riot, desperate measures are in place there: Those not yet infected are given experimental vaccines, and those for whom it’s already too late are culled. But Kit and Crevan are safe, protected on their island by a collapsing castle that holds a greenhouse and a well-stocked bunker within its ruins.

When a woman washes ashore—near drowned but clinging to life—the question of her fate threatens the fragile balance of Kit and Crevan’s isolated world. While Crevan wants to keep her alive, Kit isn’t so sure. And there’s more to wrestle with: Kit and Crevan each have secrets—secrets they have been keeping both from each other and from themselves. As the crisis brought about by the drowned woman’s appearance consumes them, the fictions of their shared existence crumble, and the truth begins to emerge.

Whether Violent or Natural is a startlingly original and thrilling novel for readers of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven. In the tenseness of its plotting, the gradual unfolding of truth, and in the strange and gripping intensity of its narrator’s voice, Whether Violent or Natural is an intelligent, unputdownable novel that welcomes a huge new talent to the genre.]]> 224 Natasha Calder 1419764667 Nipuna 4 2.97 2023 Whether Violent or Natural
author: Natasha Calder
name: Nipuna
average rating: 2.97
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> Mina's Matchbox 202102049 From the award-winning, psychologically astute author of The Memory Police, here is a hypnotic, introspective novel about an affluent Japanese family navigating buried secrets, and their young house guest who uncovers them.

In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt’s family. Tomoko’s aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home—and handsome, foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company—are symbols of that status. The seventeen rooms are filled with German-made furnishings; there are sprawling gardens, and even an old zoo where the family’s pygmy hippopotamus resides. The family is just as beguiling as their mansion—Tomoko’s dignified and devoted aunt, her German grandmother, and her dashing, charming uncle who confidently sits as the family’s patriarch. At the center of the family is Tomoko’s cousin Mina, a precocious, asthmatic girl of thirteen who draws Tomoko into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling.

In this elegant jewel box of a book, Yoko Ogawa invites us to witness a powerful and formative interlude in Tomoko’s life, which she looks back on briefly from adulthood at the novel’s end. Behind the family’s sophistication are complications that Tomoko struggles to understand—her uncle’s mysterious absences, her German grandmother’s experience of the second world war, her aunt’s misery. Rich with the magic and mystery of youthful experience, Mina’s Matchbox is an evocative snapshot of a moment frozen in time—and a striking depiction of a family on the edge of collapse.]]> 282 Yōko Ogawa 0593316088 Nipuna 4 3.74 2006 Mina's Matchbox
author: YĹŤko Ogawa
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
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]]> The Covenant of Water 180357146 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.]]> 715 Abraham Verghese 0802162177 Nipuna 5 4.34 2023 The Covenant of Water
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> The Great Mann 218460336 In this poignant retelling of The Great Gatsby, set amongst L.A.’s Black elite, a young veteran finds his way post-war, pulled into a new world of tantalizing possibilities—and explosive tensions.

In 1945, Charlie Trammell steps off a cross-country train into the vibrant tapestry of Los Angeles. Lured by his cousin Marguerite’s invitation to the esteemed West Adams Heights, Charlie is immediately captivated by the Black opulence of L.A.’s newly rechristened “Sugar Hill.�

Settling in at a local actress’s energetic boarding house, Charlie discovers a different way of life—one brimming with opportunity—from a promising career at a Black-owned insurance firm, the absence of Jim Crow, to the potential of an unforgettable romance. But nothing dazzles quite like James “Reaper� Mann.

Reaper’s extravagant parties, attended by luminaries like Lena Horne and Hattie McDaniel, draw Charlie in, bringing the milieu of wealth and excess within his reach. But as Charlie’s unusual bond with Reaper deepens, so does the tension in the neighborhood as white neighbors, frustrated by their own dwindling fortunes, ignite a landmark court case that threatens the community’s well-being with promises of retribution.

Told from the unique perspective of a young man who has just returned from a grueling, segregated war, The Great Mann weaves a compelling narrative of wealth and class, illuminating the complexities of Black identity and education in post-war America.]]> 320 Kyra Davis Lurie 0593800869 Nipuna 0 to-read 4.62 2025 The Great Mann
author: Kyra Davis Lurie
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Man in the Crooked Hat 34625731 "A new master mystery writer emerges."--Forbes Magazine

One cryptic clue leads a desperate man into a labyrinthine puzzle of murder in the electrifying new novel from national bestselling author Harry Dolan.

There's a killer, and he wears a crooked hat.

Private investigator Jack Pellum has spent two years searching for the man who he believes murdered his wife--a man he last saw wearing a peacoat and a fedora. Months of posting fliers and combing through crime records yield no leads. Then a local writer commits suicide, and he leaves a bewildering message that may be the first breadcrumb in a winding trail of unsolved murders . . .

Michael Underhill is a philosophical man preoccupied by what-ifs and could-have-beens, but his life is finally coming together. He has a sweet and beautiful girlfriend, and together they're building their future home. Nothing will go wrong, not if Underhill has anything to say about it. The problem is, Underhill has a dark and secret past, and it's coming back to haunt him.

These two men are inexorably drawn together in a mystery where there is far more than meets the eye, and nothing can be taken for granted. Filled with devious reversals and razor-sharp tension, The Man in the Crooked Hat is a masterwork from "one of America's best new crime writers" (Lansing State Journal).]]> 355 Harry Dolan 0399157972 Nipuna 4 3.83 2017 The Man in the Crooked Hat
author: Harry Dolan
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/26
date added: 2025/03/26
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]]> The Summer Job 55271529 Beach Read meets Sweetbitter in this laugh-out-loud and ultimately heartwarming debut of a good friend's very bad decision and the summer job that stands to ruin or make her life.

What if you could be someone else? Just for the summer...

Birdy has made a mistake. Everyone imagines running away from their life at some point. But Birdy has actually done it. And the life she's run into is her best friend Heather's. The only problem is, she hasn't told Heather.

The summer job at the highland Scottish hotel that her world class wine-expert friend ditched turns out to be a lot more than Birdy bargained for. Can she survive a summer pretending to be her best friend? And can Birdy stop herself from falling for the first man she's ever actually liked, but who thinks she's someone else?

One good friend's very bad decision is at the heart of this laugh-out-loud love story and unexpected tale of a woman finally finding herself in the strangest of places.]]> 384 Lizzy Dent 0593328116 Nipuna 3 3.49 2021 The Summer Job
author: Lizzy Dent
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]> The Chelsea Girls 42647003 From Fiona Davis, the nationally bestselling author ofĚýThe DollhouseĚýandĚýThe Address,Ěýthe bright lights of the theater district, the glamour and danger of 1950s New York, and the wild scene at the iconic Chelsea Hotel come together in a dazzling new novel about the twenty-year friendship that will irrevocably change two women's lives.

From the dramatic redbrick facade to the sweeping staircase dripping with art, the Chelsea Hotel has long been New York City's creative oasis for the many artists, writers, musicians, actors, filmmakers, and poets who have called it home—a scene playwright Hazel Riley and actress Maxine Mead are determined to use to their advantage. Yet they soon discover that the greatest obstacle to putting up a show on Broadway has nothing to do with their art, and everything to do with politics. A Red scare is sweeping across America, and Senator Joseph McCarthy has started a witch hunt for Communists, with those in the entertainment industry in the crosshairs. As the pressure builds to name names, it is more than Hazel and Maxine's Broadway dreams that may suffer as they grapple with the terrible consequences, but also their livelihood, their friendship, and even their freedom.

Spanning from the 1940s to the 1960s, The Chelsea Girls deftly pulls back the curtain on the desperate political pressures of McCarthyism, the complicated bonds of female friendship, and the siren call of the uninhibited Chelsea Hotel.]]> 368 Fiona Davis Nipuna 3 3.84 2019 The Chelsea Girls
author: Fiona Davis
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Three Hours in Paris (Kate Rees, #1)]]> 53093060
Kate Rees, a young American markswoman, has been recruited by British intelligence to drop into Paris with a dangerous assassinate the Führer. Wrecked by grief after a Luftwaffe bombing killed her husband and infant daughter, she is armed with a rifle, a vendetta, and a fierce resolve. But other than rushed and rudimentary instruction, she has no formal spy training. Thrust into the red-hot center of the war, a country girl from rural Oregon finds herself holding the fate of the world in her hands. When Kate misses her mark and the plan unravels, Kate is on the run for her life—all the time wrestling with the suspicion that the whole operation was a set-up.

New York Times bestselling author Cara Black is at her best as she brings Occupation-era France to vivid life in this masterful, pulse-pounding story about one young woman with the temerity—and drive—to take on Hitler himself.

*Features an illustrated map of 1940s Paris as full color endpapers.]]> 350 Cara Black 1641290412 Nipuna 4 3.76 2020 Three Hours in Paris (Kate Rees, #1)
author: Cara Black
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
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]]> Hester 59807978
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 a timeless tale of art, ambition, and desire that examines the roots of female creative power and the men who try to shut it down.

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.]]> 322 Laurie Lico Albanese 1250278554 Nipuna 4 3.94 2022 Hester
author: Laurie Lico Albanese
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Rook (The Checquy Files, #1)]]> 10836728
So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her.

She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.

In her quest to uncover which member of the Chequy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined.

Filled with characters both fascinating and fantastical, The Rook is a richly inventive, suspenseful, and often wry thriller that marks an ambitious debut from a promising young writer.]]> 504 Daniel O'Malley 0316098795 Nipuna 4 4.10 2012 The Rook (The Checquy Files, #1)
author: Daniel O'Malley
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
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]]> Orphan Train 15818107 This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780061950728, found here.

The author of Bird in Hand and The Way Life Should Be delivers her most ambitious and powerful novel to date: a captivating story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one has ever thought to ask.

Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from "aging out" of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.

Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life - answers that will ultimately free them both.

Rich in detail and epic in scope, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are.]]> 278 Christina Baker Kline Nipuna 4 4.18 2013 Orphan Train
author: Christina Baker Kline
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves:
review:

]]> The Audacity 182506481
In a short 72 hours, Victoria Stevens� multibillion-dollar startup will be exposed as a massive fraud, leaving her husband and collaborator Guy Sarvananthan to make one of two either pick up the pieces and reinvent himself, or return to his native Sri Lanka as an outcast and a failure. While V decides her best course of action is to disappear herself from the world—take a much-needed pause by faking her own death—Guy decides he won’t be buckling to the conditions of V’s self-created demise. He chooses option screw it, take the corporate jet to a private Caribbean island, and obscure all sense of regret by having every drink, drug, and debauched interaction he can find.

As Guy drunkenly wanders the gilded hallways and sleek yachts of a tropical “philanthropy summit� for the 0.001%, V narrates her side of the story from an off-grid cabin in the California desert. But how long can this fragile arrangement last before the whole house of cards comes tumbling down?

Ryan Chapman’s hilarious, incisive debut is the high-octane tragicomedy of two high-flying grifters facing their imminent downfall.]]> 288 Ryan Chapman 1641295627 Nipuna 3 2.83 2024 The Audacity
author: Ryan Chapman
name: Nipuna
average rating: 2.83
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> Everything I Don't Remember 28377709 Serial.

A young man named Samuel dies in a horrible car crash. Was it an accident or was it suicide? To answer that question, an unnamed writer with an agenda of his own sets out to map Samuel’s last day alive. Through conversations with friends, relatives, and neighbors, a portrait of Samuel emerges: the loving grandchild, the reluctant bureaucrat, the loyal friend, the contrived poseur. The young man who did everything for his girlfriend Laide and shared everything with his best friend Vandad. Until he lost touch with them both.

By piecing together an exhilarating narrative puzzle, we follow Samuel from the first day he encounters the towering Vandad to when they become roommates. We meet Panther, Samuel’s self-involved childhood friend whose move to Berlin indirectly cues the beginning of Samuel’s search for the meaning of love—which in turn leads Samuel to Laide. Soon, Samuel’s relationship with Laide leads to a chasm in his friendship with Vandad, and it isn’t long before the lines between loyalty and betrayal, protection, and peril get blurred irrevocably.

Everything I Don’t Remember is a gripping tale about love and memory. But it is also a story about a writer who, by filling out the contours of Samuel’s story, is actually trying to grasp a truth about himself. In the end, what remains of all our fleeting memories? And what is hidden behind everything we don’t remember? Told with Khemiri’s characteristic stylistic ingenuity, this is an emotional roller coaster ride of a book that challenges us to see ourselves—and our relationships to the closest people in our lives—in new and sometimes shocking ways.]]> 273 Jonas Hassen Khemiri 1501138049 Nipuna 3 3.35 2015 Everything I Don't Remember
author: Jonas Hassen Khemiri
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/24
date added: 2025/02/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sound of Us (Havencrest U)]]> 203578789 A Star is Born meets Good Girl Complex in this angsty, deeply emotional, heated romance perfect for fans of Colleen Hoover.They say music is a universal language…Skye Jordan thought she had it all figured out. Eighteen months ago, she was in college and dreaming of a basketball career. But in a split second her world fell apart. Now she’s back at Westfield U, broke and desperate. She has no use for sexy, bad boy musicians who kiss her senseless. . . until she lands an internship at the radio station where he works.DJ Dante Romano has lost every person close to his heart. All he has is his music. Consumed by guilt and driven by vengeance, he has no time for love, and yet the fiery new intern who shares his passion and feels his pain tempts him like no other. For Dante, Skye is off limits. And yet from the moment he meets her, he can’t turn away.Soon their scorching attraction develops into something deeper. Together they could make beautiful music, but will their untold secrets force them apart?]]> 320 Sarah Castille 1250289912 Nipuna 3 3.74 2024 The Sound of Us (Havencrest U)
author: Sarah Castille
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> Becoming Marlow Fin 193774298 315 Ellen Won Steil 1662512120 Nipuna 4 4.10 2024 Becoming Marlow Fin
author: Ellen Won Steil
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
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It was a good story but when I finished it I was confused.
]]> <![CDATA[The Autobiography of My Mother]]> 69721 228 Jamaica Kincaid 0452274664 Nipuna 4 3.80 1996 The Autobiography of My Mother
author: Jamaica Kincaid
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
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]]> The Curse of Pietro Houdini 176442905 From the Dagger Award–winning author of Norwegian by Night comes a vivid, thrilling, and moving World War II art-heist-adventure tale where enemies become heroes, allies become villains, and a child learns what it means to become an adult—for fans of All the Light We Cannot See.

August, 1943. Fourteen-year-old Massimo is all alone. Newly orphaned and fleeing from Rome after surviving the American bombing raid that killed his parents, Massimo is attacked by thugs and finds himself bloodied at the base of the Montecassino. It is there in the Benedictine abbey’s shadow that a charismatic and cryptic man calling himself Pietro Houdini, the self-proclaimed “Master Artist and confidante of the Vatican,� rescues Massimo and brings him up the mountain to serve as his assistant in preserving the treasures that lay within the monastery walls.

But can Massimo believe what Pietro is saying, particularly when Massimo has secrets too? Who is this extraordinary man? When it becomes evident that Montecassino will soon become the front line in the war, Pietro Houdini and Massimo execute a plan to smuggle three priceless Titian paintings to safety down the mountain. They are joined by a nurse concealing a nefarious past, a café owner turned murderer, a wounded but chipper German soldier, and a pair of lovers along with their injured mule, Ferrari. Together they will lie, cheat, steal, fight, kill, and sin their way through battlefields to survive, all while smuggling the Renaissance masterpieces and the bag full of ancient Greek gold they have rescued from the “safe keeping� of the Germans.

Heartfelt, powerfully engaging, and in the tradition of City of Thieves by David Benioff, The Curse of Pietro Houdini is a work of storytelling bravado: a thrilling action-packed adventure heist, an imaginative chronicle of forgotten history, and a philosophical coming-of-age epic where a child navigates one of the most enigmatic and morally complex fronts of World War II and lives to tell the tale]]> 384 Derek B. Miller 1668020882 Nipuna 4 4.07 2024 The Curse of Pietro Houdini
author: Derek B. Miller
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/12
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]]> The Road to the Country 198563650 A sweeping, heart-racing, mystical novel about a university student in Lagos trying to save his brother, and himself, amid the chaos of Nigeria’s civil war—a story of love, friendship, and personal triumph by the two-time Booker Prize finalist and “the heir to Chinua Achebe� (New York Times)

“A wondrous novel.”—Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All Stars, finalist for the National Book Award

“Chigozie Obioma is that rare thing: an original. His world is a mix of the real and the folkloric, and his writing sounds like no one else’s.”�The Wall Street Journal

The first images of the vision are grainy—like something seen through wet glass. But slowly it clears, and there appears the figure of a man.

Set in Nigeria in the late 1960s, The Road to the Country is the epic story of a shy, bookish student haunted by long-held guilt who must go to war to free himself. When his younger brother disappears as the country explodes in civil war, Kunle must set out on an impossible rescue mission. Kunle’s search for his brother becomes a journey of atonement that will see him conscripted into the breakaway Biafran army and forced to fight a war he hardly understands, all while navigating the prophecies of a local Seer, he who marks Kunle as an abami eda—one who will die and return to life.

The story of a young man seeking redemption in a country on fire, Chigozie Obioma’s novel is an odyssey of brotherhood, love, and unimaginable courage set during one of the most devastating conflicts in the history of Africa. Intertwining myth and realism into a thrilling, inspired, and emotionally powerful novel, The Road to the Country is the masterpiece of Chigozie Obioma, a writer Salman Rushdie calls “a major voice� in literature.]]> 384 Chigozie Obioma 0593596978 Nipuna 4 3.79 2024 The Road to the Country
author: Chigozie Obioma
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
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]]> Thistlefoot 60018639
Thistlefoot, as the house is called, has arrived from the Yagas' ancestral home in Russia--but not alone. A sinister figure known only as the Longshadow Man has tracked it to American shores, bearing with him violent secrets from the past: fiery memories that have hidden in Isaac and Bellatine's blood for generations. As the Yaga siblings embark with Thistlefoot on a final cross-country tour of their family's traveling theater show, the Longshadow Man follows in relentless pursuit, seeding destruction in his wake. Ultimately, time, magic, and legacy must collide--erupting in a powerful conflagration to determine who gets to remember the past and craft a new future.

An enchanted adventure illuminated by Jewish myth and adorned with lyrical prose as tantalizing and sweet as briar berries, Thistlefoot is an immersive modern fantasy saga by a bold new talent.]]> 448 GennaRose Nethercott 059346883X Nipuna 5 3.92 2022 Thistlefoot
author: GennaRose Nethercott
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Last Party (DC Morgan, #1)]]> 60305071 At midnight, one of them is dead.
By morning, all of them are suspects.

It's a party to end all parties, but not everyone is here to celebrate.

On New Year’s Eve, Rhys Lloyd has a house full of guests. His vacation homes on Mirror Lake are a success, and he’s generously invited the village to drink champagne with their wealthy new neighbors.

But by midnight, Rhys will be floating dead in the freezing waters of the lake.

On New Year’s Day, Ffion Morgan has a village full of suspects. The tiny community is her home, so the suspects are her neighbors, friends and family—and Ffion has her own secrets to protect.

With a lie uncovered at every turn, soon the question isn’t who wanted Rhys dead…but who finally killed him.

In a village with this many secrets, murder is just the beginning. ]]> 432 Clare Mackintosh 172825096X Nipuna 4 3.70 2022 The Last Party (DC Morgan, #1)
author: Clare Mackintosh
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/25
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]]> Just My Luck 49014109
For fifteen years, Lexi and Jake have played the same six numbers with their friends, the Pearsons and the Heathcotes. Over dinner parties, fish & chip suppers and summer barbecues, they’ve discussed the important stuff � the kids, marriages, jobs and houses � and they’ve laughed off their disappointment when they failed to win anything more than a tenner.

But then, one Saturday night, the unthinkable happens. There’s a rift in the group. Someone doesn’t tell the truth. And soon after, six numbers come up which change everything forever.

Lexi and Jake have a ticket worth ÂŁ18 million. And their friends are determined to claim a share of it.

Adele Parks returns with a riveting look at the dark side of wealth in this gripping take on friendship, money and betrayal, and good luck gone bad…]]> 382 Adele Parks 0008284709 Nipuna 3 3.73 2020 Just My Luck
author: Adele Parks
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
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]]> The Teller of Small Fortunes 207611551 A wandering fortune teller finds an unexpected family in this warm and wonderful debut fantasy, perfect for readers of Travis Baldree and Sangu Mandanna.

Tao is an immigrant fortune teller, traveling between villages with just her trusty mule for company. She only tells "small" fortunes: whether it will hail next week; which boy the barmaid will kiss; when the cow will calve. She knows from bitter experience that big fortunes come with big consequences�

Even if it’s a lonely life, it’s better than the one she left behind. But a small fortune unexpectedly becomes something more when a (semi) reformed thief and an ex-mercenary recruit her into their desperate search for a lost child. Soon, they’re joined by a baker with a knead for adventure, and—of course—a slightly magical cat.

Tao sets down a new path with companions as big-hearted as her fortunes are small. But as she lowers her walls, the shadows of her past are closing in—and she’ll have to decide whether to risk everything to preserve the family she never thought she could have.]]> 336 Julie Leong 0593815912 Nipuna 5 3.81 2024 The Teller of Small Fortunes
author: Julie Leong
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Vanished Days (Slains, #3)]]> 57183703
Queen Anne's commissioners, seeking to calm the situation, have begun paying out money sent up from London to settle the losses and wages owed to those Scots who took part in the disastrous Darien expedition eight years earlier--an ill-fated venture that left Scotland all but bankrupt.

When the young widow of a Darien sailor comes forward to collect her husband's wages, her claim is challenged. One of the men assigned to investigate has only days to decide if she's honest, or if his own feelings are blinding him to the truth.

The Vanished Days is a prequel and companion novel to The Winter Sea, with action that overlaps some of the action in that book. The Vanished Days goes back in time to the 1680s and introduces the reader to the Moray and Graeme families.

I've loved every one of Susanna's books! She has bedrock research and a butterfly's delicate touch with characters--sure recipe for historical fiction that sucks you in and won't let go!--DIANA GABALDON, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Outlander

From international bestselling author Susanna Kearsley comes a historical tale of intrigue and revolution in Scotland, where the exile of King James brought plots, machinations, suspicion and untold bravery to light. An investigation of a young widow's secrets by a man who's far from objective, leads to a multi-layered tale of adventure, endurance, romance...and the courage to hope.]]> 480 Susanna Kearsley 1492650161 Nipuna 5 3.80 2021 The Vanished Days (Slains, #3)
author: Susanna Kearsley
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
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]]> Tell Me Who You Are 195790821 The Silent Patient meets Gone Girl in this sharp psychological thriller about a psychiatrist with a shocking past and her dangerous new patient.

Brooklyn psychiatrist Dr. Caroline Strange is certain she knows what's best for her patients, her family, and pretty much everyone else, but that all changes when a troubled young man arrives for his appointment and makes a pair of alarming confessions: I am going to kill someone, and I know who you really are.

Dr. Caroline is accustomed to hearing her patients� deepest, darkest secrets, but it seems Nelson Schack may be one step ahead when detectives show up later that day, inquiring about a missing woman. It looks like Nelson has made good on his threat—yet somehow it’s Dr. Caroline who becomes the prime suspect.

Convinced the police are incompetent, Dr. Caroline takes matters into her own hands, chasing down the elusive Nelson and running headlong into a past she has spent her entire life trying to forget. As she closes in on her target, all the polished pieces of her manicured life splinter when people begin to question who she really is.

Harrowing, unpredictable, and compulsively readable, award-winning author Louisa Luna’s Tell Me Who You Are is an utterly gripping psychological thriller that begs the question: Can a person ever really outrun their past?]]> 352 Louisa Luna 037461279X Nipuna 4 3.50 2024 Tell Me Who You Are
author: Louisa Luna
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> Redemption in Indigo 7005878
Unfortunately, not all the djombi are happy about this gift: the Indigo Lord believes this power should be his and his alone, and he sets about trying to persuade Paama to return the Chaos Stick.

Chaos is about to reign supreme...]]> 188 Karen Lord 1931520666 Nipuna 4 An entertaining fable 3.86 2010 Redemption in Indigo
author: Karen Lord
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
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An entertaining fable
]]> The Swing of Things 36662759 Told from the dual perspective of a husband and a wife, The Swing of Things is a sexy, provocative, page-turning novel about a suburban couple who wants out of their routine—but will they take things too far?

Attorney Jayne Larsen loves her stay-at-home husband. Eric is attentive and a great father to their daughter. He’s also unfailingly committed to their Wednesday date nights—but things have gotten too predictable.

Enter Theo and Mia Winters, the effortlessly cool, attractive couple who are the center of everyone’s attention. They are blissfully happy and ready to share their secret for keeping things spicy. But there are rules. And breaking them has consequences. As Jayne and Eric explore a more modern definition of marriage, they are forced to confront whether they’ve given up too much in the pursuit of trying to have it all.

]]> 386 Linda Keir 1503933059 Nipuna 3 3.60 2018 The Swing of Things
author: Linda Keir
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/01
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]]> Enlightenment 196774352 The Essex Serpent, a story of love and astronomy told over the course of twenty years through the lives of two improbable best friends.

Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits—torn between their commitment to religion and their desire to explore the world beyond their small Baptist community. It is two romantic relationships that will rend their friendship, and in the wake of this rupture, Thomas develops an obsession with a vanished nineteenth-century astronomer said to haunt a nearby manor, and Grace flees Aldleigh entirely for London.

Over the course of twenty years, by coincidence and design, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as the mystery of the vanished astronomer unfolds into a devastating tale of love and scientific pursuit. Thomas and Grace will ask themselves what it means to love and be loved, what is fixed and what is mutable, how much of our fate is predestined and written in the stars, and whether they can find their way back to each other.

A thrillingly ambitious novel of friendship, faith, and unrequited love, rich in symmetry and symbolism, Enlightenment is a shimmering wonder of a book and Sarah Perry’s finest work to date.Ěý]]> 384 Sarah Perry 0063352613 Nipuna 3 3.54 2024 Enlightenment
author: Sarah Perry
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> The Pecan Children 197036044 352 Quinn Connor 1728263905 Nipuna 5 3.58 2024 The Pecan Children
author: Quinn Connor
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> The Temple of Persephone 195083747 364 Isabella Kamal Nipuna 3 3.63 2024 The Temple of Persephone
author: Isabella Kamal
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/18
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]]> Mail-Order Family 59586745 498 Irina VanPatten Nipuna 4 4.69 Mail-Order Family
author: Irina VanPatten
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.69
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> Pale Shadows 123154301 192 Dominique Fortier 1552454681 Nipuna 3 3.92 Pale Shadows
author: Dominique Fortier
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/08
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]]> One Two Three 42346406 In a town where nothing ever changes, suddenly everything does...

Everyone knows everyone in the tiny town of Bourne, but the Mitchell triplets are especially beloved. Mirabel is the smartest person anyone knows, and no one doubts it just because she can’t speak. Monday is the town’s purveyor of books now that the library’s closed―tell her the book you think you want, and she’ll pull the one you actually do from the microwave or her sock drawer. Mab’s job is hardest of all: get good grades, get into college, get out of Bourne.

For a few weeks seventeen years ago, Bourne was national news when its water turned green. The girls have come of age watching their mother’s endless fight for justice. But just when it seems life might go on the same forever, the first moving truck anyone’s seen in years pulls up and unloads new residents and old secrets. Soon, the Mitchell sisters are taking on a system stacked against them and uncovering mysteries buried longer than they’ve been alive. Because it's hard to let go of the past when the past won't let go of you.

Three unforgettable narrators join together here to tell a spellbinding story with wit, wonder, and deep affection. As she did in This Is How It Always Is, Laurie Frankel has written a laugh-out-loud-on-one-page-grab-a-tissue-the-next novel, as only she can, about how expanding our notions of normal makes the world a better place for everyone and how when days are darkest, it’s our daughters who will save us all.]]> 416 Laurie Frankel 1250236770 Nipuna 3 3.85 2021 One Two Three
author: Laurie Frankel
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/05
date added: 2024/12/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Book of Night (Book of Night, #1)]]> 58293924 Book of Night, a modern dark fantasy of shadowy thieves and secret societies.

In Charlie Hall’s world, shadows can be altered, for entertainment and cosmetic preferences—but also to increase power and influence. You can alter someone’s feelings—and memories—but manipulating shadows has a cost, with the potential to take hours or days from your life. Your shadow holds all the parts of you that you want to keep hidden—a second self, standing just to your left, walking behind you into lit rooms. And sometimes, it has a life of its own.

Charlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires. But when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie’s present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear—and at worst, non-existent. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgängers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister—all desperate to control the magic of the shadows.]]> 304 Holly Black 1250812194 Nipuna 4 3.51 2022 Book of Night (Book of Night, #1)
author: Holly Black
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/29
date added: 2024/11/29
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]]> The Eternal Zero 22318621
That is the angry recollection with which a former Zero fighter pilot greets two Japanese siblings who, typically, despite being educated, know next to nothing about a defining war in the Pacific that took place within living memory. The testimony rattles and confuses aspiring lawyer Kentaro and newly minted journalist Keiko since virtually the only fact they’ve grown up hearing about Kyuzo Miyabe is that he died a kamikaze. When the young pair digs deeper into the man’s past, other surviving comrades only seem to confirm the verdict, but its very import begins to shift in surprising ways.

In addition to providing a window into the experiences of the losing side’s flyboys and a frank look at contemporary Japan’s amnesia regarding the war, this novel also undertakes a blistering critique of the folly and inhumanity of the Imperial Navy and Army and a nuanced exploration of the differences between kamikaze pilots and today’s suicide bombers. At its core, however, it is a mystery of sorts about a long-dead man’s actions and intentions and a reconfiguration of the meaning of wartime loyalty and sacrifice.

A debut novel that was published when the author was fifty, The Eternal Zero has become Japan’s all-time top-selling mass-market paperback and the basis of a blockbuster film of the same name.]]> 352 Naoki Hyakuta 1939130824 Nipuna 5 4.37 2006 The Eternal Zero
author: Naoki Hyakuta
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/11/22
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]]> The Curse of Cortés 58086772
Three hundred years later, Sophia Martinez discovers odd relics hidden within a 200-year Roatan Island family home that reopens a legacy of disappearance, dementia and death. At the center of the mystery is a bloody log book written by an insane Inquisition executioner named Cortés.

With a Mayan prophecy psychopath in pursuit, Sophia will need the help of lost relatives to uncover a sacred pilgrimage to the origins of the Mayan creation myth. Time is running out to decode the macabre enigma and escape the deadly necropolis or they too will vanish without a trace � and an apocalypse will unleash on live television.]]> 462 Guy Morris 1735728640 Nipuna 4 4.13 The Curse of Cortés
author: Guy Morris
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.13
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/11/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman]]> 53288454 A triumphant and touching debut about the unlikeliest superstar you’ll ever meet.

Twelve-year-old Norman Foreman and his best friend, Jax, are a legendary comedic duo in waiting, with a plan to take their act all the way to the Edinburgh Fringe. But when Jax dies, Norman decides the only fitting tribute is to perform at the festival himself. The problem is, Norman’s not the funny one. Jax was.

There’s also another, far more colossal objective on Norman’s new plan that his single mom, Sadie, wasn’t ready for: he wants to find the father he’s never known. Determined to put a smile back on her boy’s face, Sadie resolves to face up to her own messy past, get Norman to the Fringe and help track down a man whose identity is a mystery, even to her.

Julietta Henderson’s delightfully charming, tender and uplifting debut takes us on a road trip with a mother and son who will live in the reader’s heart for a long time to come, and teaches us that—no matter the odds—we must always reach for the stars.]]> 400 Julietta Henderson 0778331954 Nipuna 5 4.08 2021 The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman
author: Julietta Henderson
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/09
date added: 2024/11/09
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]]> Carnegie Hill 41150286 Deception is just another day in the lives of the elite.

At age thirty-three, Penelope “Pepper� Bradford has no career, no passion and no children. Her intrusive parents still treat her like a child. Moving into the Chelmsford Arms with her fiancé Rick, an up-and-coming financier, and joining the co-op board give her some control over her life—until her parents take a gut dislike to Rick and urge Pepper to call off the wedding. When, the week before the wedding, she glimpses a trail of desperate text messages from Rick’s obsessed female client, Pepper realizes that her parents might be right.

She looks to her older neighbors in the building to help decide whether to stay with Rick, not realizing that their marriages are in crisis, too. Birdie and George’s bond frays after George is forced into retirement at sixty-two. And Francis alienates Carol, his wife of fifty years, and everyone else he knows, after being diagnosed with an inoperable heart condition. To her surprise, Pepper’s best model for love may be a clandestine romance between Caleb and Sergei, a porter and a doorman.

Jonathan Vatner's Carnegie Hill is a belated-coming-of-age novel about sustaining a marriage—and knowing when to walk away. It chronicles the lives of wealthy New Yorkers and the staff who serve them, as they suffer together and rebound, struggle to free themselves from family entanglements, deceive each other out of love and weakness, and fumble their way to honesty.]]> 352 Jonathan Vatner 1250174767 Nipuna 3 3.21 2019 Carnegie Hill
author: Jonathan Vatner
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.21
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/06
date added: 2024/11/06
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]]> Grayson's Vow 86508524
Grayson Hawthorn is losing hope. A convicted felon with limited capital and dwindling resources, his vow to resurrect his family's struggling vineyard seems destined to fail. That is, until a young woman enters his office with an outlandish proposal―a win-win business marriage he can't refuse. But what begins as a temporary arrangement soon threatens to become more, as vibrant, spirited Kira challenges detached, arrogant Grayson to want more from life. To want more for himself.

As their wills clash and fiery passion ignites, the two realize that sometimes the past creates walls too difficult to climb, and lies and deception rarely precede a happily ever after.

A marriage-of-convenience spicy standalone romance from the New York Times bestselling author of Archer's Voice.]]> 416 Mia Sheridan 1728285089 Nipuna 3 3.85 2015 Grayson's Vow
author: Mia Sheridan
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/30
date added: 2024/10/30
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]]> Like Happiness 127305658 A searing debut about the complexities of gender, power, and fame, told through the story of a young woman’s destructive relationship with a legendary writer.

It’s 2015, and Tatum Vega feels that her life is finally falling into place. Living in sunny Chile with her partner, Vera, she spends her days surrounded by art at the museum where she works. More than anything else, she loves this new life for helping her forget the decade she spent in New York City orbiting the brilliant and famous author M. Domínguez.

When a reporter calls from the US asking for an interview, the careful separation Tatum has constructed between her past and present begins to crumble. DomĂ­nguez has been accused of assault, and the reporter is looking for corroboration.

As Tatum is forced to reexamine the all-consuming but undefinable relationship that dominated so much of her early adulthood, long-buried questions surface. What did happen between them? And why is she still struggling with the mark the relationship left on her life?

Told in a dual narrative alternating between her present day and a letter from Tatum to DomĂ­nguez, recounting and reclaiming the totality of their relationship, Like Happiness explores the nuances of a complicated and imbalanced relationship, catalyzing a reckoning with gender, celebrity, memory, Latinx identity, and power dynamics.]]> 304 Ursula Villarreal-Moura 1250882834 Nipuna 4 3.77 2024 Like Happiness
author: Ursula Villarreal-Moura
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/27
date added: 2024/10/27
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]]> <![CDATA[The War of Mechanas (Tond, #4)]]> 59063935 294 Steven E. Scribner 1797833952 Nipuna 5 5.00 The War of Mechanas (Tond, #4)
author: Steven E. Scribner
name: Nipuna
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/25
date added: 2024/10/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Tond, Book Three: The Journey Northward]]> 36200910 Steven E. Scribner 1370306180 Nipuna 4 4.50 Tond, Book Three: The Journey Northward
author: Steven E. Scribner
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/21
date added: 2024/10/21
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]]> Tond, Book Two: The Wanderer 31704748 198 Steven E. Scribner 1370869983 Nipuna 4 4.00 Tond, Book Two: The Wanderer
author: Steven E. Scribner
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/11
date added: 2024/10/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Tond, Book One: The Sons of Tlaen Ras-Erkéltis]]> 27414728 300 Steven E. Scribner 1310238081 Nipuna 4 4.20 Tond, Book One: The Sons of Tlaen Ras-Erkéltis
author: Steven E. Scribner
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/09
date added: 2024/10/09
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]]> Gold Diggers 54719856 An Indian-American magical realist coming of age story, spanning two continents, two coasts, and four epochs, in razor sharp and deeply funny prose, Sathian captures what it is to grow up as a member of a family, of a diaspora, and of the American meritocracy.

A floundering second-generation teenager growing up in the Bush-era Atlanta suburbs, Neil Narayan is authentic, funny, and smart. He just doesn't share the same drive as everyone around him. His perfect older sister is headed to Duke. His parents' expectations for him are just as high. He tries to want this version of success, but mostly, Neil just wants his neighbor across the cul-de-sac, Anita Dayal.

But Anita has a secret: she and her mother Anjali have been brewing an ancient alchemical potion from stolen gold that harnesses the ambition of the jewelry's original owner. Anjali's own mother in Bombay didn't waste the precious potion on her daughter, favoring her sons instead. Anita, on the other hand, just needs a little boost to get into Harvard. But when Neil--who needs a whole lot more--joins in the plot, events spiral into a tragedy that rips their community apart.

Ten years later, Neil is an oft-stoned Berkeley history grad student studying the California gold rush. His high school cohort has migrated to Silicon Valley, where he reunites with Anita and resurrects their old habit of gold theft--only now, the stakes are higher. Anita's mother is in trouble, and only gold can save her. Anita and Neil must pull off one last heist.

Gold Diggers is a fine-grained, profoundly intelligent, and bitingly funny investigation in to questions of identity and coming of age--that tears down American shibboleths.]]> 352 Sanjena Sathian 1984882031 Nipuna 4 3.55 2021 Gold Diggers
author: Sanjena Sathian
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/06
date added: 2024/10/06
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]]> Call Me Zelda 15810873
From New York to Paris, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald reigned as king and queen of the Jazz Age, but those who really knew them saw their inner turmoil.

Committed to a Baltimore psychiatric hospital in 1932, Zelda vacillates between lucidity and madness as she fights to forge an identity independent of her famous husband. She discovers a sympathetic ear in her nurse Anna Howard, who finds herself drawn into the Fitzgerald’s tumultuous lives and wonders which of them is the true genius. But in taking greater emotional risks to save Zelda, Anna may end up paying a far higher price than she ever intended.

In this thoroughly researched, deeply moving novel, Erika Robuck explores the boundaries of female friendship, the complexity of marital devotion, and the sources of both art and madness.]]> 338 Erika Robuck 045123992X Nipuna 4 3.70 2013 Call Me Zelda
author: Erika Robuck
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/30
date added: 2024/09/30
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]]> Daughters of the New Year 60023145
What does the future hold for those born in the years of the Dragon, Tiger, and Goat?

In present day New Orleans, Xuan Trung, formerĚýbeauty queen turned refugeeĚýafter the Fall of Saigon, is obsessed with divining her daughters' fates through their Vietnamese zodiac signs. But Trac, Nhi and Trieu diverge completely from their immigrant parents' expectations. Successful lawyer Trac hides her sexuality from her family; Nhi competes as the only woman of color on aĚýBachelor-esque reality TV show; and Trieu, a budding writer,Ěýis determined to learn more about her familial and cultural past.

As the three sisters begin to encounter strange glimpses of long-buried secrets from the ancestors they never knew, the story of the Trung women unfurls to reveal the dramatic events that brought them to America. Moving backwards in time,ĚýE.M. Tran takes us into the high school classroomsĚýof New Orleans, to Saigon beauty pageants,Ěýto twentieth century rubber plantations, traversing a century as the Trungs are both estranged and united by the ghosts of their tumultuous history.

A “haunted story of resilience and survivalâ€� (Meng Jin,ĚýLittle Gods),ĚýDaughters of the New Year isĚýan addictive, high-wire act of storytelling that illuminates an entire lineage of extraordinary women fighting to reclaim the power they’ve been stripped of for centuries.

Ěý]]> 320 E.M. Tran 1335429239 Nipuna 3 3.46 2022 Daughters of the New Year
author: E.M. Tran
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/30
date added: 2024/09/30
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]]> Shuggie Bain 52741293 Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher's policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city's notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.

Shuggie's mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie's guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good--her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamourous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion's share of each week's benefits--all the family has to live on--on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs.

Agnes's older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Shuggie is meanwhile struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is "no right," a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her--even her beloved Shuggie.

A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Recalling the work of Edouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell.]]> 430 Douglas Stuart 0802148042 Nipuna 4 4.29 2020 Shuggie Bain
author: Douglas Stuart
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/13
date added: 2024/09/13
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]]> Love, Theoretically 61326735
Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job.

Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?]]> 389 Ali Hazelwood 1408725797 Nipuna 4 4.07 2023 Love, Theoretically
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/08
date added: 2024/09/08
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]]> After the Forest 65214189 After the Forest is a dark and enchanting fantasy debut from Kell Woods that explores the repercussions of a childhood filled with magic and a young woman contending with the truth of “happily ever after.�

Ginger. Honey. Cinnamon. Flour.

Twenty years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their mother and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people starving in the aftermath of a brutal war.

Greta has a secret, the witch's grimoire, secreted away and whispering in Greta's ear for the past two decades, and the recipe inside that makes the best gingerbread you've ever tasted. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat.

But in a village full of superstition, Greta and her mysteriously addictive gingerbread, not to mention the rumors about her childhood misadventures, is a source of gossip and suspicion.

And now, dark magic is returning to the woods and Greta's magic—magic she is still trying to understand—may be the only thing that can save her. If it doesn't kill her first.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 375 Kell Woods 1250852501 Nipuna 4 3.80 2023 After the Forest
author: Kell Woods
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2024/09/05
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]]> The Gifts 62985051 It will take something extraordinary to show four women who they truly are . . .

October 1840. A young woman staggers alone through a forest in the English countryside as a huge pair of impossible wings rip themselves from her shoulders.

In London, rumors of a "fallen angel" cause a frenzy across the city, and a surgeon desperate for fame and fortune finds himself in the grips of a dangerous obsession, one that will place the women he seeks in the most terrible danger . . .

The Gifts is an astonishing novel, a spellbinding tale told through five different perspectives and set against the luminous backdrop of nineteenth century London, it explores science, nature and religion, enlightenment, the role of women in society and the dark danger of ambition.]]> 448 Liz Hyder 1728271703 Nipuna 3 3.60 2022 The Gifts
author: Liz Hyder
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/31
date added: 2024/08/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Emma of 83rd Street (For the Love of Austen, #1)]]> 62919381
Beautiful, clever, and rich, Emma Woodhouse has lived twenty-three years in her tight-knit Upper East Side neighborhood with very little to distress or vex her…that is, until her budding matchmaking hobby results in her sister’s marriage—and subsequent move downtown. Now, with her sister gone and all her friends traveling abroad, Emma must start her final year of grad school grappling with an entirely new emotion: boredom. So when she meets Nadine, a wide-eyed Ohio transplant with a heart of gold and drugstore blonde highlights to match, Emma not only sees a potential new friend but a new project. If only her overbearing neighbor George Knightley would get out of her way.

Handsome, smart, and successful, the only thing that frustrates Knightley more than a corked whiskey is his childhood friend, Emma. Whether it’s her shopping sprees between classes or her revolving door of ill-conceived hobbies, he is only too happy to lecture her on all the finer points of adulthood she’s so hell-bent on ignoring. But despite his gripes—and much to his own chagrin—Knightley can’t help but notice that the girl next door is a woman now…one who he suddenly can’t get out of his head.

As Emma’s best laid plans collide with everyone from hipster baristas to meddling family members to flaky playboy millionaires, these two friends slowly realize their need to always be right has been usurped by a new need entirely, and it’s not long before they discover that even the most familiar stories still have some surprises.]]> 384 Audrey Bellezza 1668008394 Nipuna 3 3.74 2023 Emma of 83rd Street (For the Love of Austen, #1)
author: Audrey Bellezza
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/27
date added: 2024/08/27
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]]> <![CDATA[The Night Island (The Lost Night Files, #2)]]> 127463465 The disappearance of a mysterious informant leads two people desperate for answers to an island of deadly deception in this new novel in the Lost Night Files trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz.
Ěý
Talia March, Pallas Llewellyn, and Amelia Rivers, bonded by a night they all have no memory of, are dedicated to uncovering the mystery of what really happened to them months ago—an experience that brought out innate psychic abilities in each of them. The women suspect they were test subjects years earlier, and that there are more people like them—all they have to do is find the list. When Talia follows up on a lead from Phoebe, a fan of the trio’s podcast, she discovers that the informant has vanished.
Ěý
Talia isn’t the only one looking for Phoebe, however. Luke Rand, a hunted and haunted man who is chasing the same list that Talia is after, also shows up at the meeting place. It’s clear he has his own agenda, and they are instantly suspicious of each other. But when a killer begins to stalk them, they realize they have to join forces to find PhoebeĚýand the list.
Ěý
The rocky investigation leads Talia and Luke to a rustic, remote retreat on Night Island in the Pacific Northwest. The retreat promises to rejuvenate guests with the Unplugged Experience. Upon their arrival, Talia and Luke discover guests are quite literally cut off from the outside world because none of their high-tech devices work on the island. It soon becomes clear that PhoebeĚýis not the first person to disappear into the strange gardens that surround the Unplugged Experience retreat. And then the first mysterious death occurs…]]> 336 Jayne Ann Krentz 0593639871 Nipuna 3 4.05 2024 The Night Island (The Lost Night Files, #2)
author: Jayne Ann Krentz
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/23
date added: 2024/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Lady He Lost (The Lucky Ladies of London, #1)]]> 179947244
Lieutenant Eli Williams was supposed to be dead. In the two years since his shipwreck, his friends and family mourned him, his brother spent his savings, and his fiancée married someone else. So, when he turns up in the middle of the London social season, he quickly becomes the talk of the town. All Eli wants is to set his life back in order and reconnect with Jane Bishop, a friend who has always meant so much more to him, before returning to sea.

Jane refuses to waste any more of her life pining over Eli, who chose her cousin instead of her. She needs to focus on gaining her financial independence by establishing a ladies' gambling club. Never mind that Eli keeps trying to atone for his past mistake by bringing in new members. He's obviously keeping secrets about his disappearance, which means that she can't trust him with her heart even if she did kiss him in a moment of weakness. Or three.

As Eli works to regain her trust, Jane's defensive walls begin to crumble. But when Eli faces a court of inquiry on suspicion of desertion, Jane must decide if she can let go of the past to build a future with Eli, or risk losing him for good.

This charming and sexy friends to enemies to lovers historical romance romp is the perfect read for fans of Evie Dunmore and India Holton.]]> 336 Faye Delacour 1728290635 Nipuna 3 3.44 2024 The Lady He Lost (The Lucky Ladies of London, #1)
author: Faye Delacour
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/08/21
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]]> Between Two Moons 62049182 A deeply moving family story about identity, faith, and belonging set in the Muslim immigrant enclave of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn following three siblings coming of age over the course of one Ramadan

It's the holy month of Ramadan, and twin sisters Amira and Lina are about to graduate from high school in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. On the precipice of adulthood, they plan to embark on a summer of teenage revelry, trying on new identities and testing the limits of what they can get away with while still under their parents' roof. But the twins' expectations of a summer of freedom collide with their older brother's return from prison, and his mysterious behavior threatens to undo the delicate family balance.

Meanwhile, outside the family's apartment, a storm is brewing in Bay Ridge. A raid on a local business sparks a protest that brings the Arab community together, and a senseless act of violence threatens to tear them apart. Everyone's motives are called into question as an alarming sense of disquiet pervades the neighborhood. With everything spiraling out of control, how will Amira and Lina know whom to trust?]]> 336 Aisha Abdel Gawad 0385548613 Nipuna 3 3.89 2023 Between Two Moons
author: Aisha Abdel Gawad
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/19
date added: 2024/08/19
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]]> The Villa 60784641 From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins comes a deliciously wicked gothic suspense, set at an Italian villa with a dark history, for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware.

As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable. But by their 30s, their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend.

Villa Aestas in Orvieto is a high-end holiday home now, but in 1974, it was known as Villa Rosato, and rented for the summer by a notorious rock star, Noel Gordon. In an attempt to reignite his creative spark, Noel invites up-and-coming musician, Pierce Sheldon to join him, as well as Pierce’s girlfriend, Mari, and her stepsister, Lara. But he also sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Mari writing one of the greatest horror novels of all time, Lara composing a platinum album––and ends in Pierce’s brutal murder.

As Emily digs into the villa’s complicated history, she begins to think there might be more to the story of that fateful summer in 1974. That perhaps Pierce’s murder wasn’t just a tale of sex, drugs, and rock & roll gone wrong, but that something more sinister might have occurred––and that there might be clues hidden in the now-iconic works that Mari and Lara left behind.

Yet the closer that Emily gets to the truth, the more tension she feels developing between her and Chess. As secrets from the past come to light, equally dangerous betrayals from the present also emerge––and it begins to look like the villa will claim another victim before the summer ends.]]> 279 Rachel Hawkins 125028001X Nipuna 4 3.59 2023 The Villa
author: Rachel Hawkins
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/14
date added: 2024/08/14
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]]> Family Lore 62949033 From bestselling, National Book Award-winning author Elizabeth Acevedo comes her first novel for adults, the story of one Dominican-American family told through the voices of its women as they await a gathering that will forever change their lives.

Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake--a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she's led--her sisters are surprised. Has Flor forseen her own death, or someone else's? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila.

But Flor isn't the only person with secrets. Matilde has tried for decades to cover the extent of her husband's infidelity, but she must now confront the true state of her marriage. Pastora is typically the most reserved sister, but Flor's wake motivates this driven woman to solve her sibling's problems. Camila is the youngest sibling, and often the forgotten one, but she's decided she no longer wants to be taken for granted.

And the next generation, cousins Ona and Yadi, face tumult of their own: Yadi is reuniting with her first love, who was imprisoned when they were both still kids; Ona is married for years and attempting to conceive. Ona must decide whether it's worth it to keep trying--to have a child, and the anthropology research that's begun to feel lackluster.

Spanning the three days prior to the wake, Family Lore traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City. Told with Elizabeth Acevedo's inimitable and incandescent voice, this is an indelible portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces--one family's journey through their history, helping them better navigate all that is to come.]]> 371 Elizabeth Acevedo Nipuna 3 3.51 2023 Family Lore
author: Elizabeth Acevedo
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/12
date added: 2024/08/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Ashram Assassin (Paperback Sleuth #2)]]> 199259309
When a set of rare, impossible-to-find yoga books are stolen from a West London ashram, its leaders turn to Cordelia, the paperback sleuth, to recover them � a set-up that’s a little awkward as they’ve previously barred her from yoga classes for selling marijuana to their students. But what begins as a hunt for missing paperbacks soon becomes a murder investigation as those involved with the ashram can’t seem to stop dropping down dead � murdered with a whisky bottle to the head or a poisoned curry. Can Cordelia work out who the killer is and bring them to justice before they bring an end to her sleuthing for good.]]> 336 Andrew Cartmel 1803367938 Nipuna 3 3.90 2024 Ashram Assassin (Paperback Sleuth #2)
author: Andrew Cartmel
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/08
date added: 2024/08/08
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]]> Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Nipuna 4 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 4
read at: 2012/03/22
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
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What was with the rushed ending? The main character's name being Fanny and her reserved character and constant reluctance to say to most things reminded me a lot of Evelina by Fanny Burney. I'm wondering if she did that on purpose. I'm sure she was familiar with the work.
]]> The Night Ship 59366231
1629: A newly orphaned young girl named Mayken is bound for the Dutch East Indies on the Batavia , one of the greatest ships of the Dutch Golden Age. Curious and mischievous, Mayken spends the long journey going on misadventures above and below the deck, searching for a mythical monster. But the true monsters might be closer than she thinks.

1989: A lonely boy named Gil is sent to live off the coast of Western Australia among the seasonal fishing community where his late mother once resided. There, on the tiny reef-shrouded island, he discovers the story of an infamous shipwreck�

With her trademark “thrilling, mysterious, twisted, but more than anything, beautifully written� (Graham Norton, New York Times bestselling author) storytelling, Jess Kidd weaves “a true work of magic� (V.E. Schwab, author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue ) about friendship, sacrifice, brutality, and forgiveness.]]> 400 Jess Kidd 1982180811 Nipuna 3 3.61 2022 The Night Ship
author: Jess Kidd
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/05
date added: 2024/08/05
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]]> Diva 127305805 New York Times bestselling author Daisy Goodwin returns with a story of the scandalous love affair between the most celebrated opera singer of all time and one of the richest men in the world.

In the glittering and ruthlessly competitive world of opera, Maria Callas was known simply as la divina: the divine one. With her glorious voice, instinctive flair for the dramatic, and striking beauty, she was the toast of the grandest opera houses in the world. But her fame was hard won: Raised in Nazi-occupied Greece by a mother who mercilessly exploited her golden voice, she learned early in life to protect herself from those who would use her for their own ends.

When she met the fabulously rich Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, for the first time in her life, she believed she’d found someone who saw the woman within the legendary soprano. She fell desperately in love. He introduced her to a life of unbelievable luxury, showering her with jewels and sojourns in the most fashionable international watering holes with celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

And then suddenly, it was over. The international press announced that Aristotle Onassis would marry the most famous woman in the world, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, leaving Maria to pick up the pieces.

In this remarkable novel, Daisy Goodwin brings to life a woman whose extraordinary talent, unremitting drive, and natural chic made her a legend. But it was only in confronting the heartbreak of losing the man she loved that Maria Callas found her true voice and went on to triumph.]]> 336 Daisy Goodwin 1250279925 Nipuna 3 3.77 2024 Diva
author: Daisy Goodwin
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/08/01
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]]> The Secret of Elephants 59537956 Navsari, India. Penniless and trapped in a loveless marriage, Nirmala spends her days anxiously caring for her sick young son, Varun. Looming over Nirmala’s impoverished home is an imposing mansion built by her grandfather, and from its balcony her cruel aunt scorns them, refusing to help in any way.

But when a mysterious letter addressed to her long-dead father arrives from Zimbabwe, it opens a door to a past Nirmala never knew existed and a future she never imagined possible. If the contents of the letter can be believed, not only does she have family in Africa, but they might also hold the answers to a family mystery that spans three generations.

While travelling to Zimbabwe might lead to a brighter future for Nirmala and her son, it could also reignite the bitter family feud that condemned her family to poverty. Nirmala is ready to risk it all to uncover the truth, but how will she cope when this journey changes her life forever?]]> 305 Vasundra Tailor 1542038200 Nipuna 3 4.09 2022 The Secret of Elephants
author: Vasundra Tailor
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/28
date added: 2024/07/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store]]> 65678550
Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served the neighborhood's quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated the town's first dance hall. When the state came looking for a deaf black child, claiming that the boy needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill's residents—roused by Chona's kindess and the courage of a local black worker named Nate Timblin—banded together to keep the boy safe.

As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear how much the people of Chicken Hill have to struggle to survive at the margins of white Christian America and how damaging bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit can be to a community. When the truth is revealed about the skeleton, the boy, and the part the town’s establishment played in both, McBride shows that it is love and community—heaven and earth—that ultimately sustain us.]]> 385 James McBride 0593422945 Nipuna 4 3.83 2023 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
author: James McBride
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/28
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves:
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]]> The Familiar 133286777 From the New York Times bestselling author of Ninth House, Hell Bent, and creator of the Grishaverse series comes a highly anticipated historical fantasy set during the Spanish Golden Age

In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family's social position.

What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king's favor.

Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the line between magic, science, and fraud is never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive—even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santangel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.]]> 387 Leigh Bardugo 125088425X Nipuna 4 3.74 2024 The Familiar
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/18
date added: 2024/07/18
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]]> The Little French Bookshop 59568596 A letter writing workshop.
Five strangers.
Countless secrets bursting in between the pages.

When French bookseller Esther loses her father, she decides to place an ad in a newspaper, inviting struggling readers to join her secret letter writing workshop.

To Esther's surprise, applications pile in by the dozens - and before long, an elderly lady, a disillusioned businessman, a disheartened couple and an awkward teenager find themselves sharing stories, seeking advice, and forging new friendships.

As Esther's students uncover the hopes, dreams and fears that were hiding behind the pen, Esther, too, finds herself thrown into a new world full of unexpected adventures.]]> 240 CĂ©cile Pivot 1529392241 Nipuna 5 3.61 2020 The Little French Bookshop
author: CĂ©cile Pivot
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/10
date added: 2024/07/10
shelves:
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]]> Dirty Laundry 61327484 A twisty, domestic suspense debut about a clique of mothers that shatters when one of their own is murdered, bringing chaos to their curated lives.

She was the perfect wife, with the perfect life. You would kill to have it...

Ciara Dunphy has it all--a loving husband, well-behaved children, and a beautiful home. Her circle of friends in their small Irish village go to her for tips about mothering, style, and influencer success--a picture-perfect life is easy money on Instagram. But behind the filters, reality is less polished.

Enter Mishti Guha: Ciara's best friend. Ciara welcomed Mishti into her inner circle for being... unlike the other mothers in the group. But, discontent in a marriage arranged for her through her parents back in Calcutta, Mishti now raises her young daughter in a country that is too cold, among the children of her new friends who look nothing like her. She just wants what Ciara has--the ease with which she moves through the world--and in that sense, Mishti might be exactly like the other mothers.

And there's earth mother Lauren Doyle, born, bred, and the butt of jokes in their village. With her disheveled partner and children who run naked in the yard, they're mostly a happy lot, though unsurprisingly ostracized for being the singular dysfunction in Ciara's immaculate world. When Lauren finds an unlikely ally in Mishti, she decides that her days of ridicule are over.

Then Ciara is found murdered in her own pristine home, and the house of cards she'd worked so hard to build comes crumbling down. Everyone seems to have something to gain from Ciara's death, so if they don't want the blame, it may be the perfect time to air their enemies' dirty laundry.

In this dazzling debut novel, Disha Bose revolutionizes age-old ideas of love and deceit. What ensues is the delicious unspooling of a group of women desperate to preserve themselves.]]> 304 Disha Bose 0593497384 Nipuna 3 3.22 2023 Dirty Laundry
author: Disha Bose
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/07
date added: 2024/07/07
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]]> A Man Called Ove 18774964
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.]]> 337 Fredrik Backman 1476738017 Nipuna 4 4.35 2012 A Man Called Ove
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/07
date added: 2024/07/07
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Unbearable Lightness of Being]]> 9717 The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. This magnificent novel juxtaposes geographically distant places, brilliant and playful reflections, and a variety of styles, to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world’s truly great writers.]]> 314 Milan Kundera 0571224385 Nipuna 4 4.12 1984 The Unbearable Lightness of Being
author: Milan Kundera
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/30
date added: 2024/06/30
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]]> The God of Endings 60784372 480 Jacqueline Holland 1250856760 Nipuna 4 3.77 2023 The God of Endings
author: Jacqueline Holland
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/27
date added: 2024/06/27
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Catch (The Influencer, #3)]]> 154488304
In a last-ditch effort to rescue her brand from the brink of irrelevance, Boston fashion influencer Melanie Karlsen finds herself in a rural fishing village on the east coast of Canada. The only thing scarier than nature itself? The burly and bearded bed-and-breakfast owner and fisherman, Evan Whaler—who single-handedly disproves the theory that Canadians are “nice.�

After a boating accident lands Evan unconscious in the hospital, Mel is mistaken for his fiancée by his welcoming yet quirky family, who are embroiled in a long-standing feud over the B&B. In a bold attempt to mend family fences, Mel agrees to fake their engagement for one week in exchange for Evan’s help with her social media content.

Amid long hikes and campfire chats, reeling in their budding feelings for each other proves more difficult by the day. But is Mel willing to sacrifice her picture-perfect life in the city for a chance at a true, unfiltered love in the wild?]]> 416 Amy Lea 0593336615 Nipuna 3 3.63 2024 The Catch (The Influencer, #3)
author: Amy Lea
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/17
date added: 2024/06/17
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]]> Little Fish 37514015 WINNER, Lambda Literary Award; Firecracker Award for Fiction; $60,000 Amazon Canada First Novel Award

In this extraordinary debut novel by the author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning story collection A Safe Girl to Love, Wendy Reimer is a thirty-year-old trans woman who comes across evidence that her late grandfather—a devout Mennonite farmer—might have been transgender himself. At first she dismisses this revelation, having other problems at hand, but as she and her friends struggle to cope with the challenges of their increasingly volatile lives—from alcoholism, to sex work, to suicide—Wendy is drawn to the lost pieces of her grandfather’s life, becoming determined to unravel the mystery of his truth. Alternately warm-hearted and dark-spirited, desperate and mirthful, Little Fish explores the winter of discontent in the life of one transgender woman as her past and future become irrevocably entwined.]]> 320 Casey Plett 1551527200 Nipuna 4 3.88 2018 Little Fish
author: Casey Plett
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/15
date added: 2024/06/15
shelves:
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]]> Last Call on Decatur Street 45422546 Set in Pre-Katrina New Orleans, LAST CALL ON DECATUR STREET is an electrifying tale of friendship and betrayal, an exploration of racism and white privilege, and one woman's journey to find herself in the seedy, glamorous world of burlesque.

Despite vowing to never return to New Orleans when she left for college, Rosemary quickly finds herself back in her hometown--kicked out of school, at odds with her best friend, and desperate to lose herself in a bright, kaleidoscopic nightlife of dive bars and burlesque dancing.

This night, though, is different. An unlikely companion, a secret sorrow, and an unexpected visitor force Rosemary to break free. From the burlesque stage in the French Quarter, strip clubs to strangers' beds, a secret garden in Jackson Square, and ending at a raucous masquerade party, this night becomes a journey for Rosemary to come to grips with her past, grieve for those she has lost, and maybe, finally, acknowledge that she too deserves redemption.

With superlative emotional and intellectual sensitivity, mordant wit, and pitch-perfect style, Cohen captures the uncertainty and messy edges of early adulthood. A love letter to New Orleans, Last Call on Decatur Street is a story of family and home and the complicated things we inherit from the people and places we love.]]> 304 Iris Martin Cohen 0778308162 Nipuna 3 3.39 2020 Last Call on Decatur Street
author: Iris Martin Cohen
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/12
date added: 2024/06/12
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]]> Happy Place 61718053
They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends� hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week� in front of those who know you best?

A couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.]]> 400 Emily Henry 0593441273 Nipuna 4 3.95 2023 Happy Place
author: Emily Henry
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/09
date added: 2024/06/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The Brightest Light of Sunshine (The Brightest Light, #1)]]> 63831009
Determined to walk away from a traumatic past, 22-year-old Grace Allen feels ready to take the next step in her healing journey—dipping a toe into the dating pool. Although she should probably start by making a friend or two, right?

Samuel â€Calâ€� Callaghan isn’t who she had envisioned as her first male friend inâ€� well, forever. With an intimidating build, tattoos everywhere, eight years her senior, and a little sister under his care, the last thing she expected was to warm up to him so easily. As their friendship evolves, Grace can’t help but wonder if Cal is exactly who she’s been looking for all this time.

Cal can’t afford to lose sight of his priorities—making sure his tattoo parlor thrives and taking care of his little sister. Especially the latter. He wants to make sure 4-year-old Maddie has a healthy and happy childhood despite their mother going off the rails and her father’s blatant neglect. There’s certainly no room for love in his life right now. But when a sweet blonde with a veiled past breaks down his walls, he finds it difficult to stick to his guns.

CONTENT NOTES: This book contains themes of sexual assault (there are no explicit scenes depicting sexual assault), profanity, alcoholism, and explicit sexual content. Recommended for 18+.]]> 412 Lisina Coney Nipuna 3 3.83 2023 The Brightest Light of Sunshine (The Brightest Light, #1)
author: Lisina Coney
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/03
date added: 2024/06/03
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]]> All the Pretty Places 61349409 400 Joy Callaway 1400234409 Nipuna 3 3.81 2023 All the Pretty Places
author: Joy Callaway
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/31
date added: 2024/05/31
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]]> Pelican Girls 173955779 The Son and Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko and inspired by a true story, this stunning US literary debut captures the never-before-told journey of the Baleine Brides: a ship full of young women plucked from a Paris asylum and sent to marry settlers in North America's rough Louisiana Territory.

Paris, 1720. La Salpêtrière hospital is in crisis: too many occupants, not enough beds. Halfway across the world, France's colony in the wilds of North America has space to spare and needs families to fill it. So the director of the hospital rounds up nearly a hundred female “volunteers� of childbearing age—orphans, prisoners, and mental patients—to be shipped to New Orleans.

Among this group are three unlikely friends: a sharp-tongued twelve-year old orphan, a mute â€madwoman,â€� and an accused abortionist. Charlotte, PĂ©tronille, and Geneviève, along with the dozens of other women aboard La Baleine, have no knowledge of what lies ahead and no control over their futures. Strangers brought together by fate, these brave and fierce young women will face extraordinary adversity—pirates, slavedrivers, sickness, war—but also the private trauma of heartbreak and unrequited love, children born and lost, cruelty and unexpected pleasure, and a friendship forged in fire that will sustain through the years.

At once a gorgeously written work of startling depth and emotion and a gripping drama marrying high-seas adventure with pioneer grit, Pelican Girls is a powerful, thought-provoking novel about female friendship and desire and the daunting compromises women are forced to make to survive.]]> 368 Julia Malye 0063299755 Nipuna 3 3.17 2024 Pelican Girls
author: Julia Malye
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.17
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/25
date added: 2024/05/25
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]]> The God of Good Looks 62047994 This entertaining, transportive, and luminous debut novel follows a young Trinidadian woman finding her voice and a new kind of happy ending.

Bianca Bridge has always dreamt of becoming a writer. But Trinidadian society can be unforgiving, and having an affair with a married government official is a sure-fire way to ruin your prospects. So when Obadiah Cortland, a notoriously tyrannical entrepreneur in the island's beauty scene, offers her a job, Bianca accepts, realizing that working on his magazine is the closest to her dreams she'll get.

As Bianca begins to embrace her power and creative voice, she starts to suspect Obadiah is not the elite tyrant he seems. She's right. Born in one of the poorest parts of Trinidad, Obadiah has clawed partway up society's ladder and built his company around his meticulously crafted persona. Now, he's not about to let anyone, especially Bianca, see past his façade.

When Bianca's ex-lover threatens everything she's rebuilt, jeopardizing all she's come to love about her new life, she's surprised to find support from the most unlikely ally and, finally, draws the strength to fight back like her mother taught her.

Sharp-witted and fiercely fun, The God of Good Looks alternates between Bianca's diary entries and Obadiah's first-person narrative to portray modern Trinidad's rigid class barriers and the fraught impact of beauty commodification in a patriarchal society. Boisterous, moving, and full of meaty, universally relatable questions, Mc Ivor's sparkling debut is an open-hearted, awakening tale about prejudice and pride, the masks we wear, and what we can become if we dare to take them off.]]> 384 Breanne Mc Ivor 0063278812 Nipuna 5 3.89 2023 The God of Good Looks
author: Breanne Mc Ivor
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/24
date added: 2024/05/24
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]]> Bird Summons 52634103 New York Times Notable author Leila Aboulela delivers a lively portrait of three women who embark on a journey of self-discovery while grappling with the conflicting demands of family, duty, and faith.

When Salma, Moni, and Iman--friends and active members of their local Muslim Women's group--decide to take a road trip together to the Scottish Highlands, they leave behind lives often dominated by obligation, frustrated desire, and dull predictability. Each wants something more out of life, but fears the cost of taking it. Salma is successful and happily married, but tempted to risk it all when she's contacted by her first love back in Egypt; Moni gave up a career in banking to care for her disabled son without the help of her indifferent husband; and Iman, in her twenties and already on her third marriage, longs for the freedom and autonomy she's never known. When the women are visited by the Hoopoe, a sacred bird from Muslim and Celtic literature, they are compelled to question their relationships to faith and femininity, love, loyalty, and sacrifice.

Brilliantly imagined, thoughtful and wise, Bird Summons confirms Leila Aboulela's reputation as one of our finest contemporary writers.]]> 290 Leila Aboulela 0802149154 Nipuna 4 3.26 2019 Bird Summons
author: Leila Aboulela
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/10
date added: 2024/05/10
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I loved how it dove right into fantastical narratives to explore their feelings and inner struggles. I love storytelling that doesn’t follow the rules
]]> The Postcard 63880836 Winner of the Choix Goncourt Prize, Anne Berest’s The Postcard is a vivid portrait of twentieth-century Parisian intellectual and artistic life, an enthralling investigation into family secrets, and poignant tale of a Jewish family devastated by the Holocaust and partly restored through the power of storytelling.

January, 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front, a photo of the Opéra Garnier in Paris. On the back, the names of Anne Berest’s maternal great-grandparents, Ephraïm and Emma, and their children, Noémie and Jacques—all killed at Auschwitz.

Fifteen years after the postcard is delivered, Anne, the heroine of this novel, is moved to discover who sent it and why. Aided by her chain-smoking mother, family members, friends, associates, a private detective, a graphologist, and many others, she embarks on a journey to discover the fate of the Rabinovitch family: their flight from Russia following the revolution, their journey to Latvia, Palestine, and Paris. What emerges is a moving saga that shatters long-held certainties about Anne’s family, her country, and herself.]]> 464 Anne Berest Nipuna 4 4.31 2021 The Postcard
author: Anne Berest
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/04
date added: 2024/05/04
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]]> A Girl Named Anna 42071155 A compulsive suspense debut for fans of Megan Miranda, Wendy Walker and Kimberly Belle, about two teens--one sheltered by her strict and reclusive mamma, one living in the shadow of the missing sister who was snatched from a theme park as a toddler--and their search for the truth about their families and each other.

If your whole life is a lie, who can you trust?

Raised in a quiet rural community, Anna has always been taught that her Mamma's rules are the only path to follow. But, on her eighteenth birthday, she defies her Mamma for the first time in her life, and goes to Astroland. She’s never been allowed to visit Florida’s biggest theme park, so why, when she arrives, does everything about it seem so familiar? And is there a connection to the mysterious letter she receives that same day—a letter addressing her by a different name?

Rosie has grown up in the shadow of the missing sister she barely remembers, her family fractured by years of searching without leads. Now, on the fifteenth anniversary of her sister’s disappearance, the media circus resumes as the funds dedicated to the search dry up, and Rosie vows to uncover the truth herself. But can she find the answer before it tears her family apart?

Winner of the Daily Mail First Novel Competition, A Girl Named Anna is a psychologically riveting read that introduces Lizzy Barber as an outstanding new voice in suspense fiction.]]> 329 Lizzy Barber 0778308995 Nipuna 2 3.66 2019 A Girl Named Anna
author: Lizzy Barber
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2024/04/27
date added: 2024/04/27
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]]> Three Souls 18169712 An absorbing novel of romance and revolution, loyalty and family, sacrifice and undying love

We have three souls, or so I'd been told. But only in death could I confirm this ...

So begins the haunting and captivating tale, set in 1935 China, of the ghost of a young woman named Leiyin, who watches her own funeral from above and wonders why she is being denied entry to the afterlife. Beside her are three souls—stern and scholarly yang; impulsive, romantic yin; and wise, shining hun—who will guide her toward understanding. She must, they tell her, make amends.

As Leiyin delves back in time with the three souls to review her life, she sees the spoiled and privileged teenager she once was, a girl who is concerned with her own desires while China is fractured by civil war and social upheaval. At a party, she meets Hanchin, a captivating left-wing poet and translator, and instantly falls in love with him.

When Leiyin defies her father to pursue Hanchin, she learns the harsh truth—that she is powerless over her fate. Her punishment for disobedience leads to exile, an unwanted marriage, a pregnancy, and, ultimately, her death. And when she discovers what she must do to be released from limbo into the afterlife, Leiyin realizes that the time for making amends is shorter than she thought.

Suffused with history and literature, Three Souls is an epic tale of revenge and betrayal, forbidden love, and the price we are willing to pay for freedom.]]> 439 Janie Chang 1443423904 Nipuna 4 4.05 2013 Three Souls
author: Janie Chang
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/25
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Cafe by the Sea (Mure, #1)]]> 32497580
Years ago, Flora fled the quiet Scottish island where she grew up -- and she hasn't looked back. What would she have done on Mure? It's a place where everyone has known her all her life, where no one will let her forget the past. In bright, bustling London, she can be anonymous, ambitious... and hopelessly in love with her boss.

But when fate brings Flora back to the island, she's suddenly swept once more into life with her brothers -- all strapping, loud, and seemingly incapable of basic housework -- and her father. Yet even amid the chaos of their reunion, Flora discovers a passion for cooking -- and find herself restoring dusty little pink-fronted shop on the a café by the sea.

But with the seasons changing, Flora must come to terms with past mistakes -- and work out exactly where her future lies...

Funny and heartfelt, The Café by the Sea is a delightful summertime novel that puts a modern twist on the classic Seven Brides for Seven Brothers story.

Ěý

Ěý

Ěý

Ěý]]> 0 Jenny Colgan 0062662988 Nipuna 4 3.79 2017 The Cafe by the Sea (Mure, #1)
author: Jenny Colgan
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/19
date added: 2024/04/19
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]]> The Mandarins 19528 The Mandarins is the emotional odyssey of a woman torn between her inner desire and her public life.

The Mandarins won France's highest literary prize, the Prix Goncourt.]]> 752 Simone de Beauvoir 0007203942 Nipuna 4 4.18 1954 The Mandarins
author: Simone de Beauvoir
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1954
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/14
date added: 2024/04/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Not Quite Over You (Happily Inc, #4)]]> 37534149 Susan Mallery, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Fool’s Gold romances, proves there’s nowhere better than Happily Inc to rekindle first love.

Silver Tesdal has a head for business and a mouth made for kissing, and banker Drew Lovato has his eye on both. But ever since he was dumb enough to let her go, she’s kept him at a distance. When the bank turns her down for a loan, Drew sees a double opportunity—he can finance her brilliant, unique idea to rock Happily Inc’s wedding industry and win back her trust.

Despite her reputation, Silver’s not as tough as she seems. Losing Drew nearly destroyed her. Still, his kisses are as tempting as his offer to invest in her business. If she can’t quite get over him, maybe she should get under him and knock him out of her system once and for all.

But her best laid plans begin to unravel as Silver finds herself falling even harder than when they were high school sweethearts. Which means that she’ll have to come clean about the secret she’s been hiding from him for years—and risk losing him forever.]]> 352 Susan Mallery 1488096856 Nipuna 3 3.96 2018 Not Quite Over You (Happily Inc, #4)
author: Susan Mallery
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/04
date added: 2024/04/04
shelves:
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]]> The Wildest Sun 123280215
When tragedyĚýsends Delphine Auber, an aspiring writer on the cusp of adulthood, from her home in Paris, she seizes the opportunity to embark on the journeyĚýshe's long dreamed finding the father she has never known.ĚýBut her quest is complicated by the fact that she believes her father to be a famed literary icon, Ernest Hemingway, a man just as elusive as he is iconic.ĚýSheĚýdesperately yearns for his approval, as both a daughter and a writer, convinced that he holds the answer to who she's truly meant to be.ĚýButĚýwhat will happen if she is wrong, orĚýif her real story falls outside of the legend of her parentage that she’s revered all her life?Ěý

The answer takes herĚýfrom Paris toĚýNew York’s Harlem, toĚýHavanaĚýand Key West, asĚýDelphine fights to find her own triumphant place in the world and within herself, outside of the shadow of the myths she’s forged so strongly into her identity. Epically rendered as only Asha Lemmie’s vivid and lyrical voice can, The Wildest Sun is a dazzling and unexpected coming-of-age story about an unforgettable young woman who must come to terms with who she is and who she wants to be.]]> 336 Asha Lemmie 0593185722 Nipuna 4 3.69 2023 The Wildest Sun
author: Asha Lemmie
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/28
date added: 2024/03/28
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]]> Avalon 59089926 A profound and singular story about a young woman searching for her place in the world, from one of America's most original voices--the irresistible story of one teenager's reckoning with society at large and her search for a personal utopia.

Bran's Southern California upbringing is anything but traditional. After her mother joins a Buddhist colony, Bran is raised by her "common-law stepfather" on Bourdon Farms--a plant nursery that doubles as a cover for a biker gang. She spends her days tending plants, slogging through high school, and imagining what life could be if she had been born to a different family.

And then she meets Peter, a beautiful, troubled, and charming train wreck of a college student from the East Coast, who launches his teaching career by initiating her into the world of literature and aesthetics. As the two begin a volatile and ostensibly doomed long-distance relationship, Bran searches for meaning in her own surroundings--attending disastrous dance recitals, house-sitting for strangers, and writing scripts for student films. She knows how to survive, but her happiness depends on learning to call the shots.

Exceedingly rich, ecstatically dark, and delivered with masterful humor, Avalon is a poignant portrait of a young woman who, against all odds, is determined to find her place in the world and find clarity in its remote corners.
]]> 224 Nell Zink 0593534891 Nipuna 4 3.13 2022 Avalon
author: Nell Zink
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.13
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/24
date added: 2024/03/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Firefly Lane (Firefly Lane, #1)]]> 1472878 New York Times bestselling author of On Mystic Lake comes a powerful novelĚýof love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . .

In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world� moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end they’ve become TullyandKate. Inseparable.

So begins Kristin Hannah’s magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives.

From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness.Ěý

Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn’t know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she’ll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she’ll envy her famous best friend. . . .

For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship---jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they’ve survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test.

Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone’s Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it’s the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It’s about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you---and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you’ll never forget . . . one you’ll want to pass on to your best friend.]]> 479 Kristin Hannah 0312364083 Nipuna 5 4.16 2008 Firefly Lane (Firefly Lane, #1)
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/21
date added: 2024/03/21
shelves:
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]]> The Book of Lost Names 52762903 The Book of Lost Names.

The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II—an experience Eva remembers well—and the search to reunite people with the texts taken from them so long ago. The book in the photograph, an eighteenth-century religious text thought to have been taken from France in the waning days of the war, is one of the most fascinating cases. Now housed in Berlin’s Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don’t know where it came from—or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer—but will she have the strength to revisit old memories and help reunite those lost during the war?

As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named RĂ©my, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and RĂ©my disappears.

An engaging and evocative novel reminiscent of The Lost Girls of Paris and The Alice Network, The Book of Lost Names is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of bravery and love in the face of evil.]]> 388 Kristin Harmel 1982131896 Nipuna 4 4.41 2020 The Book of Lost Names
author: Kristin Harmel
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/16
date added: 2024/03/16
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]]> The Far Field 40642323 The Far Field follows a complicated flaneuse across the Indian subcontinent as she reckons with her past, her desires, and the tumultuous present.

In the wake of her mother's death, Shalini, a privileged and restless young woman from Bangalore, sets out for a remote Himalayan village in the troubled northern region of Kashmir. Certain that the loss of her mother is somehow connected to the decade-old disappearance of Bashir Ahmed, a charming Kashmiri salesman who frequented her childhood home, she is determined to confront him. But upon her arrival, Shalini is brought face to face with Kashmir's politics, as well as the tangled history of the local family that takes her in. And when life in the village turns volatile and old hatreds threaten to erupt into violence, Shalini finds herself forced to make a series of choices that could hold dangerous repercussions for the very people she has come to love.

With rare acumen and evocative prose, in The Far Field Madhuri Vijay masterfully examines Indian politics, class prejudice, and sexuality through the lens of an outsider, offering a profound meditation on grief, guilt, and the limits of compassion.]]> 432 Madhuri Vijay 0802128408 Nipuna 3 3.85 2019 The Far Field
author: Madhuri Vijay
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/13
date added: 2024/03/13
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]]> The Next Ship Home 55813959 Ellis Island, 1902: Two women band together to hold America to its promise: "Give me your tired, your poor..."

Ellis Island, 1902. Francesca arrives on the shores of America, her sights set on a better life than the one she left in Italy. That same day, aspiring linguist Alma reports to her first day of work at the immigrant processing center. Ellis, though, is not the refuge it first appears thanks to President Roosevelt's attempts to deter crime. Francesca and Alma will have to rely on each other to escape its corruption and claim the American dreams they were promised.

A thoughtful historical inspired by true events, this novel probes America's history of prejudice and exclusion—when entry at Ellis Island promised a better life but often delivered something drastically different, immigrants needed strength, resilience, and friendship to fight for their futures.]]> 421 Heather Webb 1728243149 Nipuna 3 4.10 2022 The Next Ship Home
author: Heather Webb
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/06
date added: 2024/03/06
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]]> The Other Black Girl 55711688 Get Out meets The Stepford Wives in this electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing.

Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.

Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.

It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realizes that there’s a lot more at stake than just her career.

A whip-smart and dynamic thriller and sly social commentary that is perfect for anyone who has ever felt manipulated, threatened, or overlooked in the workplace, The Other Black Girl will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last twist.]]> 357 Zakiya Dalila Harris 1982160136 Nipuna 3 3.34 2021 The Other Black Girl
author: Zakiya Dalila Harris
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/02
date added: 2024/03/02
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]]> The Victory Garden 40792781 From the bestselling author of The Tuscan Child comes a beautiful and heart-rending novel of a woman’s love and sacrifice during the First World War.

As the Great War continues to take its toll, headstrong twenty-one-year-old Emily Bryce is determined to contribute to the war effort. She is convinced by a cheeky and handsome Australian pilot that she can do more, and it is not long before she falls in love with him and accepts his proposal of marriage.

When he is sent back to the front, Emily volunteers as a “land girl,� tending to the neglected grounds of a large Devonshire estate. It’s here that Emily discovers the long-forgotten journals of a medicine woman who devoted her life to her herbal garden. The journals inspire Emily, and in the wake of devastating news, they are her saving grace. Emily’s lover has not only died a hero but has left her terrified—and with child. Since no one knows that Emily was never married, she adopts the charade of a war widow.

As Emily learns more about the volatile power of healing with herbs, the found journals will bring her to the brink of disaster, but may open a path to her destiny.]]> 390 Rhys Bowen 1542090113 Nipuna 4 4.29 2019 The Victory Garden
author: Rhys Bowen
name: Nipuna
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/26
date added: 2024/02/26
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]]> One Day 6280118
So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that?

And every year that follows?
--back cover]]> 435 David Nicholls 0340896965 Nipuna 0 3.86 2009 One Day
author: David Nicholls
name: Nipuna
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/26
shelves:
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