Amy's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 02 May 2025 17:13:31 -0700 60 Amy's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Two Nights with the Duke (The Silver Dukes, #3)]]> 223436473 A runaway bride. A duke with a sinful reputation. Can she trust his offer of love and protection?

Malcolm MacRae, Duke of Camborne, is one of the ton’s most sought-after bachelors. But when his latest scandal is too much even for him, he decides to return home to Scotland to contemplate his rakehell ways. However, a broken coach wheel strands him in the seacoast village of Arbroth, where he secures accommodations at an inn for the next two nights. What he does not expect is to find the loveliest lady he has ever set eyes upon fast asleep in his bed. Is it a sign? Is he ready to reform his rakish ways? And when Lady Jocelyn MacRaine can only be saved by finding herself a husband, will he step up and offer her marriage?

Lady Jocelyn had no idea being a runaway bride could be so difficult. She is now short of funds, cold, hungry, and stranded in Arbroth—quite a fall for an earl’s coddled daughter. When she overhears two maids at the inn discussing one of their guests and learns he is not expected to return for the night, she convinces the innkeeper’s naïve son that she is the guest’s wife. She falls asleep in the comfort of his bed, intending to leave before he returns—and is then rudely awakened when the impossibly handsome man returns early. What is she to do now?

Two Nights with the Duke is a lighthearted Regency historical romance, the third in the Silver Duke series. Enjoy the read as these heroes who seem to have it all find the one thing that has eluded them throughout their lives…love.

Read in Kindle Unlimited!

The Silver Dukes
Book 1 - Cherish and the Duke
Book 2 - Moonlight and the Duke
Book 3 - Two Nights with the Duke
Book 4 - Snowfall and the Duke
Book 5 - Starlight and the Duke
Book 6 - Crash Landing on the Duke]]>
309 Meara Platt Amy 0 currently-reading 4.40 2025 Two Nights with the Duke (The Silver Dukes, #3)
author: Meara Platt
name: Amy
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: currently-reading
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How to Read a Book 74872758 A charming, deeply moving novel about second chances, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.

Our Reasons meet us in the morning and whisper to us at night. Mine is an innocent, unsuspecting, eternally sixty-one-year-old woman named Lorraine Daigle�

Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn’t yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed.

When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland—Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman—their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways.

How to Read a Book Ěýis an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt, seizing second chances, and the power of books to change our lives. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.Ěý .Ěý]]>
283 Monica Wood Amy 5 4.45 2024 How to Read a Book
author: Monica Wood
name: Amy
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/01
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<![CDATA[A Duty To The Dead (Bess Crawford #1)]]> 6940381
Back home in England, Bess receives an unexpected response from the dead soldier's family, for neither Jonathan Graham� his mother� nor his younger brother admit to understanding what the message means.

But the Grahams are harboring a grim secret, and Bess must, somehow, get to the bottom of it. It is her sacred duty to the dead, no matter how painful, or dangerous, that obligation might be.]]>
329 Charles Todd 0061791776 Amy 5 historical, who-done-it
Bess Crawford is one of my favorite literary characters. She is a strong intelligent woman, whose sense of duty continues to pull her into the most difficult situations. The books in this series never disappoint. ]]>
3.86 2009 A Duty To The Dead (Bess Crawford #1)
author: Charles Todd
name: Amy
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2012/01/01
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: historical, who-done-it
review:
This book created a new obsession in me. Not only have a read all of these but I've also being searching out more English and American war time novels.

Bess Crawford is one of my favorite literary characters. She is a strong intelligent woman, whose sense of duty continues to pull her into the most difficult situations. The books in this series never disappoint.
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<![CDATA[The Book of Life (All Souls, #3)]]> 16054217 The #1 New York Times bestselling series finale and sequel to A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night

Bringing the magic and suspense of the All Souls Trilogy to a deeply satisfying conclusion, this highly anticipated finale went straight to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In The Book of Life, Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London to make a dramatic return to the present—facing new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home, Sept-Tours, they reunite with the beloved cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency.]]>
561 Deborah Harkness 0670025593 Amy 4 4.15 2014 The Book of Life (All Souls, #3)
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Amy
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2014/07/30
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves:
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This is a great ending point for the trilogy. Harkness does a great job bringing the story full circle. We meet a couple new characters as well as favorite older ones. There is a heap of science and adventure, and a poignant moment of two. I am sad that the ride is over, but now I can start over and read them all again, with no waiting, and that's always a good thing!
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Wool - Holston (Wool, #1) 12287209
Or you'll get what you wish for.]]>
56 Hugh Howey Amy 0 to-read 4.14 2012 Wool - Holston (Wool, #1)
author: Hugh Howey
name: Amy
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Perfect Duke (Georgians Beyond the Pale, #2)]]> 20616119
Cara believes fairy tales really can come true, until she meets the unrelenting and arrogant Duke of Kendal. He looks like a Prince, but acts like a Beast. Why must he challenge her at every turn? Her greatest peril is her attraction to the vulnerable, seductive man behind the title. A match between them would be impossible. But can she show him, without losing her heart, that “perfect� is in the eye of the beholder?]]>
328 Dawn Ireland Amy 0 4.10 2013 The Perfect Duke (Georgians Beyond the Pale, #2)
author: Dawn Ireland
name: Amy
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/20
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<![CDATA[Tempting Mr. Townsend (Dashing Widows #2)]]> 220996251 The opposite attracts novel and second book of the romantic Regency series by bestselling author Anna Campbell

The beautiful widow and the man somewhere between hero and beast �

Fenella, Lady Deerham, has rejoined society after five years of mourning her beloved husband’s death at Waterloo. Now she’s fêted as a diamond of the first water and London’s perfect lady. But beneath her exquisite exterior, this delicate blond beauty conceals depths of courage and passion nobody has ever suspected. So when her son and his school friend go missing, she vows to find them whatever it takes. Including setting off alone in the middle of the night with high-handed bear of a man, Anthony Townsend �

When Anthony Townsend bursts into Lady Deerham’s fashionable Mayfair mansion demanding the return of his orphaned nephew, the lovely widow’s beauty and spirit turn his world upside down. But surely such a refined and aristocratic creature will scorn a rough, self-made man’s courtship, even if that man is now one of the richest magnates in England. But when Fenella insists on joining the desperate search for the boys, fate offers Anthony a chance to play the hero and change her mind about him. Will reluctant proximity convince Fenella that perhaps Mr. Townsend isn’t so beastly after all? Or will Anthony and Fenella remain forever opposites fighting their attraction?]]>
181 Anna Campbell 1917417241 Amy 0 currently-reading 4.32 Tempting Mr. Townsend (Dashing Widows #2)
author: Anna Campbell
name: Amy
average rating: 4.32
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #16)]]> 50617046
On their first night in Paris, the Gamaches gather as a family for a bistro dinner with Armand’s godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. Walking home together after the meal, they watch in horror as Stephen is knocked down and critically injured in what Gamache knows is no accident, but a deliberate attempt on the elderly man’s life.

When a strange key is found in Stephen’s possession it sends Armand, his wife Reine-Marie, and his former second-in-command at the Sûreté, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, from the top of the Tour d’Eiffel, to the bowels of the Paris Archives, from luxury hotels to odd, coded, works of art.

It sends them deep into the secrets Armand’s godfather has kept for decades.

A gruesome discovery in Stephen’s Paris apartment makes it clear the secrets are more rancid, the danger far greater and more imminent, than they realized.

Soon the whole family is caught up in a web of lies and deceit. In order to find the truth, Gamache will have to decide whether he can trust his friends, his colleagues, his instincts, his own past. His own family.

For even the City of Light casts long shadows. And in that darkness devils hide.]]>
443 Louise Penny Amy 5 4.62 2020 All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #16)
author: Louise Penny
name: Amy
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/08
date added: 2024/11/08
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Sandwich 199124697 From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.]]>
236 Catherine Newman 0063345188 Amy 5 3.76 2024 Sandwich
author: Catherine Newman
name: Amy
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/20
date added: 2024/09/20
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Pink Slime 199797823
In a city ravaged by a mysterious plague, a woman tries to understand why her world is falling apart. An algae bloom has poisoned the previously pristine air that blows in from the sea. Inland, a secretive corporation churns out the only food anyone can afford—a revolting pink paste, made of an unknown substance. In the short, desperate breaks between deadly windstorms, our narrator stubbornly tends to her few remaining with her difficult but vulnerable mother; with the ex-husband for whom she still harbors feelings; with the boy she nannies, whose parents sent him away even as terrible threats loomed. Yet as conditions outside deteriorate further, her commitment to remaining in place only grows—even if staying means being left behind.

An evocative elegy for a safe, clean world, Pink Slime is buoyed by humor and its narrator’s resiliency. This unforgettable novel explores the place where love, responsibility, and self-preservation converge, and the beauty and fragility of our most intimate relationships.]]>
240 Fernanda TrĂ­as 1668049775 Amy 0 currently-reading 3.36 2020 Pink Slime
author: Fernanda TrĂ­as
name: Amy
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves: currently-reading
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The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]>
490 Liz Moore Amy 5 4.15 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Amy
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/18
date added: 2024/07/18
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The Fury 123206645 A masterfully paced thriller about a reclusive ex–movie star and her famous friends whose spontaneous trip to a private Greek island is upended by a murder � from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient.

This is a tale of murder.

Or maybe that’s not quite true. At its heart, it’s a love story, isn’t it?

Lana Farrar is a reclusive ex–movie star and one of the most famous women in the world. Every year, she invites her closest friends to escape the English weather and spend Easter on her idyllic private Greek island.

I tell you this because you may think you know this story. You probably read about it at the time � it caused a real stir in the tabloids, if you remember. It had all the necessary ingredients for a press a celebrity; a private island cut off by the wind…and a murder.

We found ourselves trapped there overnight. Our old friendships concealed hatred and a desire for revenge. What followed was a game of cat and mouse � a battle of wits, full of twists and turns, building to an unforgettable climax. The night ended in violence and death, as one of us was found murdered.

But who am I?

My name is Elliot Chase, and I’m going to tell you a story unlike any you’ve ever heard.]]>
298 Alex Michaelides 125075898X Amy 0 to-read 3.34 2024 The Fury
author: Alex Michaelides
name: Amy
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/10
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Women 127305853
Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm's way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]>
471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Amy 0 to-read 4.58 2024 The Women
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Amy
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/10
shelves: to-read
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Remarkably Bright Creatures 58733693 Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

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

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

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

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]>
368 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204150 Amy 5 4.35 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Amy
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/07/07
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Jackpot Summer 110985271 After the Jacobson siblings win a life-changing fortune in the lottery, they assume their messy lives will transform into sleek, storybook perfection–but they couldn’t be more wrong.

The four Jacobson children were raised to respect the value of a dollar. Their mother reused tea bags and refused to pay retail; their father taught them to budget before he taught them to ride a bike. And yet, now that they’re adults, their financial lives are in disarray.

The siblings reunite when their newly widowed father puts their Jersey Shore beach house on the market. Packing up childhood memories isn’t easy, especially when there’s other drama brewing. Matthew is miserable at his corporate law job and wishes he had more time with his son; Laura’s marriage is imploding in spectacular fashion; Sophie’s art career is stalled while her boyfriend’s is on the rise; and Noah’s total failure to launch has him doing tech repair for pennies.

When Noah sees an ad for a Powerball drawing, he and his sisters go in on tickets while their brother Matthew passes. All hell breaks loose when one of the tickets is a winner and three of the four Jacobsons become overnight millionaires. Without their mother’s guidance, and with their father busy playing pickleball in a Florida retirement village, the once close-knit siblings search for comfort in shiny new toys instead of each other.

It’s not long before the Jacobsons start to realize that they’ll never feel rich unless they can pull their family back together.]]>
382 Elyssa Friedland 0593638557 Amy 5 3.76 2024 Jackpot Summer
author: Elyssa Friedland
name: Amy
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/01
date added: 2024/07/01
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<![CDATA[Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich]]> 32279524
The Nazi regime preached an ideology of physical, mental, and moral purity. Yet as Norman Ohler reveals in this gripping history, the Third Reich was saturated with drugs: cocaine, opiates, and, most of all, methamphetamines, which were consumed by everyone from factory workers to housewives to German soldiers.

In fact, troops were encouraged, and in some cases ordered, to take rations of a form of crystal meth—the elevated energy and feelings of invincibility associated with the high even help to account for the breakneck invasion that sealed the fall of France in 1940, as well as other German military victories. Hitler himself became increasingly dependent on injections of a cocktail of drugs—ultimately including Eukodal, a cousin of heroin—administered by his personal doctor.

Thoroughly researched and rivetingly readable, Blitzed throws light on a history that, until now, has remained in the shadows.]]>
306 Norman Ohler Amy 0 to-read 4.06 2015 Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich
author: Norman Ohler
name: Amy
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/31
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Angels and Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)]]> 578587
A devastating new weapon of destruction.
When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol -- seared into the chest of a murdered physicist -- he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati...the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy -- the Catholic Church.

Langdon's worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the Vatican's holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.
Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair...a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.

An explosive international thriller, Angels & Demons careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war.]]>
620 Dan Brown 0552150738 Amy 4 who-done-it 3.82 2000 Angels and Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)
author: Dan Brown
name: Amy
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/04/23
shelves: who-done-it
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The Berry Pickers 143399923 A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years.

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.]]>
320 Amanda Peters 1646221966 Amy 5 4.34 2023 The Berry Pickers
author: Amanda Peters
name: Amy
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/15
date added: 2024/04/15
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Cold People 59554394
Cold PeopleĚýfollows the journeys of a handful of those who endure the frantic exodus to the most extreme environment on the planet. But their goal is not merely to survive the present. Because as they cling to life on the ice, the remnants of their past swept away, they must also confront the urgent challenge: can they change and evolve rapidly enough to ensure humanity’s future? Can they build a new society in the sub-zero cold?]]>
320 Tom Rob Smith 1982198427 Amy 4 3.78 2023 Cold People
author: Tom Rob Smith
name: Amy
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/11
date added: 2024/02/11
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The Shipping News 77470
A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, The Shipping News shows why Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.
--back cover

Cover illustration by David Blackwood

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337 Annie Proulx 0671510053 Amy 0 to-read 3.76 1993 The Shipping News
author: Annie Proulx
name: Amy
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/16
shelves: to-read
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Year of Wonders 4965
Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition.

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

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

Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history. ]]>
304 Geraldine Brooks 0142001430 Amy 5 historical 4.00 2001 Year of Wonders
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Amy
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/11/11
shelves: historical
review:

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<![CDATA[The Beekeeper's Apprentice (Mary Russell, #1)]]> 1024275 An Agatha Award Best Novel Nominee
Named One of the Century's Best 100 Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association

From New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King comes the book that introduced us to the ingenious Mary Russell–Sherlock Holmes mysteries

In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees in Sussex when a young woman literally stumbles into his lap on the Sussex downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern twentieth-century woman proves a deft protégée, and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective. This first book of the Mary Russell–Sherlock Holmes mysteries is full of brilliant deduction, disguises, and danger.]]>
346 Laurie R. King 0312427360 Amy 0 to-read 3.92 1994 The Beekeeper's Apprentice (Mary Russell, #1)
author: Laurie R. King
name: Amy
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/02
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Humanimal: How Homo Sapiens Became Nature’s Most Paradoxical Creature—A New Evolutionary History]]> 40591933 We like to think of ourselves as exceptional beings, but is there really anything special about us that sets us apart from other animals? Humans are the slightest of twigs on a single family tree that encompasses four billion years, a lot of twists and turns, and a billion species. All of those organisms are rooted in a single origin, with a common code that underwrites our existence. This paradox - that our biology is indistinct from all life, yet we consider ourselves to be special - lies at the heart of who we are.

In this original and entertaining tour of life on Earth, Adam Rutherford explores how many of the things once considered to be exclusively human are not: we are not the only species that communicates, makes tools, utilises fire, or has sex for reasons other than to make new versions of ourselves. Evolution has, however, allowed us to develop our culture to a level of complexity that outstrips any other observed in nature.

THE BOOK OF HUMANS tells the story of how we became the creatures we are today, bestowed with the unique ability to investigate what makes us who we are. Illuminated by the latest scientific discoveries, it is a thrilling compendium of what unequivocally fixes us as animals, and reveals how we are extraordinary among them.

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256 Adam Rutherford 1615195319 Amy 0 to-read 3.79 2016 Humanimal: How Homo Sapiens Became Nature’s Most Paradoxical Creature—A New Evolutionary History
author: Adam Rutherford
name: Amy
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/08
shelves: to-read
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Mouth to Mouth 58438631
Jeff reveals that after that traumatic, galvanizing morning on the beach, he was compelled to learn more about the man whose life he had saved, convinced that their fates were now entwined. But are we agents of our fate—or are we its pawns? Upon discovering that the man is renowned art dealer Francis Arsenault, Jeff begins to surreptitiously visit his Beverly Hills gallery. Although Francis does not seem to recognize him as the man who saved his life, he nevertheless casts his legendary eye on Jeff and sees something worthy. He takes the younger man under his wing, initiating him into his world, where knowledge, taste, and access are currency; a world where value is constantly shifting and calling into question what is real, and what matters. The paths of the two men come together and diverge in dizzying ways until the novel’s staggering ending.

Sly, suspenseful, and engrossing, Mouth to Mouth masterfully blurs the line between opportunity and exploitation, self-respect and self-delusion, fact and fiction—exposing the myriad ways we deceive each other, and ourselves.]]>
179 Antoine Wilson 198218180X Amy 3 3.62 2022 Mouth to Mouth
author: Antoine Wilson
name: Amy
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/17
date added: 2023/03/20
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The Cloisters 61054804 On the wheel of fortune, who will emerge on top... and who will die?

When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she hopes to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its collection of medieval and Renaissance art.

There she is drawn into a small circle of charismatic but enigmatic researchers, including Patrick Roland, the museum's mercurial curator who specializes in the history of tarot; Rachel Mondray, Patrick's beautiful curatorial associate and sometime muse; and Leo Bitburg, the gardener who nurtures the museum's precious collection of medicinal and poison plants.

Relieved to have left her troubled past in rural Washington behind her, Ann longs for the approbation of her colleagues and peers and is happy to indulge their more outlandish theories, only to find that their fascination with fortune-telling runs deeper than academic obsession. Patrick is determined to prove that ancient divination holds the key to the foretelling of the future. And when Ann stumbles across a breakthrough in the form of a mysterious and previously-believed lost deck of 15th-century Italian tarot cards, she finds herself at the centre of a dangerous game of power, toxic friendship and ambition.

Then there is an unexpected and devastating death, and suddenly everyone becomes a suspect. As the game being played within the Cloisters spirals out of control, Ann must decide if the tarot cards can not only teach her about the past, but also about her future.]]>
387 Katy Hays 1668004402 Amy 4 3.35 2022 The Cloisters
author: Katy Hays
name: Amy
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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Babel 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]>
544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 Amy 5 4.17 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Amy
average rating: 4.17
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rating: 5
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The Island of Sea Women 40538657 9781501154850

Set on the Korean island of Jeju, The Island of Sea Women follows Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from very different backgrounds, as they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective. Over many decades—through the Japanese colonialism of the 1930s and 1940s, World War II, the Korean War, and the era of cellphones and wet suits for the women divers—Mi-ja and Young-sook develop the closest of bonds. Nevertheless, their differences are impossible to ignore: Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, forever marking her, and Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers. After hundreds of dives and years of friendship, forces outside their control will push their relationship to the breaking point.

This beautiful, thoughtful novel illuminates a unique and unforgettable culture, one where the women are in charge, engaging in dangerous physical work, and the men take care of the children. A classic Lisa See story—one of women’s friendships and the larger forces that shape them�The Island of Sea Women introduces readers to the fierce female divers of Jeju Island and the dramatic history that shaped their lives.]]>
374 Lisa See Amy 0 to-read 4.29 2019 The Island of Sea Women
author: Lisa See
name: Amy
average rating: 4.29
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The Weight of Air 61140851
Isabella Moreau, the nation's most feted aerialist, has given everything to the circus. But age and injury now threaten her security, and Isabella, stalked by old fears, makes a choice that risks everything. When her daughter Mabel appears alongside the man who never wanted to see Isabella again, Isabella is forced to face the truth of where, and in what, she derives her worth.

In this evocative novel from Kimberly Duffy, the meaning of strength takes center stage as the lives of three circus performers become entangled beneath the glittering lights and flying trapeze of Madison Square Garden.]]>
384 Kimberly Duffy 0764240382 Amy 0 to-read 4.01 2023 The Weight of Air
author: Kimberly Duffy
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average rating: 4.01
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A Separate Peace 5148 A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to the second world war.

Set at a boys boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.

A bestseller for more than thirty years, A Separate Peace is John Knowles crowning achievement and an undisputed American classic.]]>
208 John Knowles Amy 0 to-read 3.60 1959 A Separate Peace
author: John Knowles
name: Amy
average rating: 3.60
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Orwell's Roses 56557019
Sparked by her unexpected encounter with the surviving roses he planted in 1936, Solnit's account of this understudied aspect of Orwell's life journeys though his writing and his actions—from going deep into the coal mines of England, fighting in the Spanish Civil War, critiquing Stalin when much of the international left still supported him (and then critiquing that left), to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism.

Through Solnit’s celebrated ability to draw unexpected connections, readers encounter the photographer Tina Modotti’s roses and her Stalinism, Stalin’s obsession with forcing lemons to grow in impossibly cold conditions, Orwell’s slave-owning ancestors in Jamaica, Jamaica Kincaid’s critique of colonialism and imperialism in the flower garden, and the brutal rose industry in Colombia that supplies the American market. The book draws to a close with a rereading of Nineteen Eighty-Four that completes her portrait of a more hopeful Orwell, as well as a reflection on pleasure, beauty, and joy as acts of resistance.]]>
320 Rebecca Solnit Amy 0 to-read 4.18 2021 Orwell's Roses
author: Rebecca Solnit
name: Amy
average rating: 4.18
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<![CDATA[Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond: Safe, Easy Recipes for Preserving Tomatoes, Vegetables, Beans and Meat]]> 59339558 Create Your Home-Preserved Pantry with Nearly 100 Recipes & Beautiful Photographs ThroughoutImagine lining your shelves with made-from-scratch jars of garlicky tomato sauce, flavor-packed baked beans, ready-to-eat stew or peak-summer veggies. Pressure canning is an easy, delicious way to feed your family, and with the wisdom of preserving expert Angi Schneider, anyone can master this affordable, time-saving practice.Start with Pressure Canning 101, where Angi shares all of her best tips and tricks from 25+ years of experience. You’ll learn the ins and outs of your canner, as well as how to avoid botulism to ensure that your canned goods are safe to eat. Angi then shares in-depth guides and tons of creative, safe recipes for the most popular foods for canning—tomatoes, veggies, legumes (including beans), meats and soups. Everything you need to know is presented in Angi’s ultra-practical, easy-to-follow style. Forget overpriced takeout and premade grocery store meals. Instead, enjoy dinner in an instant with Butternut Squash and White Bean Soup, Swedish Meatballs or Pot Roast in a Jar. Share shelf-stable chicken broth with an under-the-weather neighbor or gift a grab-and-go gumbo to a friend. As Angi says, canning and community go hand in hand!This trusty, all-in-one handbook, packed with information and recipes, is one you will return to again and again as you create your very own self-sufficient pantry.]]> 502 Angi Schneider Amy 5 4.51 Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond: Safe, Easy Recipes for Preserving Tomatoes, Vegetables, Beans and Meat
author: Angi Schneider
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average rating: 4.51
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Flight 57958232 "Arresting and powerful, Flight examines the possibility and pain of fierce love and hope in our time of looming existential threats." -- Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers

"Suspenseful, dazzling and moving." -- Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind

It's December twenty-second and siblings Henry, Kate, and Martin have converged with their spouses on Henry's house in upstate New York. This is the first Christmas the siblings are without their mother, the first not at their mother's Florida house. Over the course of the next three days, old resentments and instabilities arise as the siblings, with a gaggle of children afoot, attempt to perform familiar rituals, while also trying to decide what to do with their mother's house, their sole inheritance. As tensions rise, the whole group is forced to come together unexpectedly when a local mother and daughter need help.

With the urgency and artfulness that cemented her previous novel Want as "a defining novel of our age" (Vulture), Strong once again turns her attention to the structural and systemic failings that are haunting Americans, but also to the ways in which family, friends, and strangers can support each other through the gaps. Flight is a novel of family, ambition, precarity, art, and desire, one that forms a powerful next step from a brilliant chronicler of our time.]]>
240 Lynn Steger Strong 0063135175 Amy 5 3.67 2022 Flight
author: Lynn Steger Strong
name: Amy
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[River of the Gods: Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile]]> 58777696 From the New York Times bestselling author of RIVER OF DOUBT and DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC, the stirring story of one of the great feats of exploration of all time, and its complicated legacy

The Nile River is the longest in the world. Its fertile floodplain allowed for rise to the great civilization of ancient Egypt, but for millennia the location of its headwaters was shrouded in mystery. Pharaonic and Roman attempts to find it were stymied by a giant labyrinthine swamp, and subsequent expeditions got no further. In the 19th century, the discovery and translation of the Rosetta Stone set off a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe - and extend their colonial empires.

Two British men - Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke - were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England. Burton was already famous for being the first non-Muslim to travel to Mecca, disguised as an Arab chieftain. He spoke twenty-nine languages, was a decorated soldier, and literally wrote the book on sword-fighting techniques for the British Army. He was also mercurial, subtle, and an iconoclastic atheist. Speke was a young aristocrat and Army officer determined to make his mark, passionate about hunting, Burton's opposite in temperament and beliefs.

From the start the two men clashed, Speke chafing under Burton's command and Burton disapproving of Speke's ignorance of the people whose lands through which they traveled. They would endure tremendous hardships, illness, and constant setbacks. Two years in, deep in the African interior, Burton became too sick to press on, but Speke did, and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christened Lake Victoria. When they returned to England, Speke rushed to take credit, disparaging Burton. Burton disputed his claim, and Speke launched another expedition to Africa to prove it. The two became venomous enemies, with the public siding with the more charismatic Burton, to Speke's great envy. The day before they were to publicly debate, Speke shot himself.

Yet there was a third man on both expeditions, his name obscured by imperial annals, whose exploits were even more extraordinary. This was Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who was enslaved and shipped from his home village in East Africa to India. When the man who purchased him died, he made his way into the local Sultan's army, and eventually traveled back to Africa, where he used his resourcefulness, linguistic prowess and raw courage to forge a living as a guide. Without his talents, it is likely that neither Englishman would have come close to the headwaters of the Nile, or perhaps even survived.

In RIVER OF THE GODS Candice Millard has written another peerless story of courage and adventure, set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers.
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349 Candice Millard 052552407X Amy 0 to-read 3.77 2022 River of the Gods: Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile
author: Candice Millard
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<![CDATA[The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human]]> 60321392
N amed a New York Times Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by The Economist , Oprah Daily, BookPage, Book Riot, the New York Public Library, and more!

In The Song of the Cell , the extraordinary author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Emperor of All Maladies and the #1 New York Times bestseller The Gene “blends cutting-edge research, impeccable scholarship, intrepid reporting, and gorgeous prose into an encyclopedic study that reads like a literary page-turner� ( Oprah Daily ).

Mukherjee begins this magnificent story in the late 1600s, when a distinguished English polymath, Robert Hooke, and an eccentric Dutch cloth-merchant, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek looked down their handmade microscopes. What they saw introduced a radical concept that swept through biology and medicine, touching virtually every aspect of the two sciences, and altering both forever. It was the fact that complex living organisms are assemblages of tiny, self-contained, self-regulating units. Our organs, our physiology, our selves—hearts, blood, brains—are built from these compartments. Hooke christened them � cells. �

The discovery of cells—and the reframing of the human body as a cellular ecosystem—announced the birth of a new kind of medicine based on the therapeutic manipulations of cells. A hip fracture, a cardiac arrest, Alzheimer’s dementia, AIDS, pneumonia, lung cancer, kidney failure, arthritis, COVID pneumonia—all could be reconceived as the results of cells, or systems of cells, functioning abnormally. And all could be perceived as loci of cellular therapies.

Filled with writing so vivid, lucid, and suspenseful that complex science becomes thrilling, The Song of the Cell tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that knowledge to create new humans. Told in six parts, and laced with Mukherjee’s own experience as a researcher, a doctor, and a prolific reader, The Song of the Cell is both panoramic and intimate—a masterpiece on what it means to be human.

“In an account both lyrical and capacious, Mukherjee takes us through an evolution of human from the seventeenth-century discovery that humans are made up of cells to our cutting-edge technologies for manipulating and deploying cells for therapeutic purposes� ( The New Yorker).]]>
473 Siddhartha Mukherjee 1982117354 Amy 0 to-read 4.25 2022 The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human
author: Siddhartha Mukherjee
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The Trayvon Generation 58848151 From a Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author and poet comes a galvanizing meditation on the power of art and culture to illuminate America's unresolved problem with race.

*Named a Most Anticipated Title of 2022 by °Ő±ő˛Ń·ˇĚýmagazine, New York Times, Bustle, and more*

In the midst of civil unrest in the summer of 2020 and following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, Elizabeth Alexander—one of the great literary voices of our time—turned a mother's eye to her sonsâ€� and studentsâ€� generation and wrote a celebrated and moving reflection on the challenges facing young Black America. Originally published in the New Yorker, the essay incisively and lovingly observed the experiences, attitudes, and cultural expressions of what she referred to as the Trayvon Generation, who even as children could not be shielded from the brutality that has affected the lives of so many Black people.Ěý

The Trayvon Generation expands the viral essay that spoke so resonantly to the persistence of race as an ongoing issue at the center of the American experience. Alexander looks both to our past and our future with profound insight, brilliant analysis, and mighty heart, interweaving her voice with groundbreaking works of art by some of our most extraordinary artists. At this crucial time in American history when we reckon with who we are as a nation and how we move forward, Alexander's lyrical prose gives us perspective informed by historical understanding, her lifelong devotion to education, and an intimate grasp of the visioning power of art.
Ěý
This breathtakingĚý book is essential reading and an expression of both the tragedies and hopes for the young people of this era that is sure to be embraced by those who are leading the movement for change and anyone rising to meet the moment.Ěý]]>
146 Elizabeth Alexander 1538737892 Amy 0 to-read 4.37 2022 The Trayvon Generation
author: Elizabeth Alexander
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average rating: 4.37
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<![CDATA[The Book of Flora (The Road to Nowhere, #3)]]> 41026414 In this Philip K. Dick Award–winning series, one woman’s unknowable destiny depends on a bold new step in human evolution.

In the wake of the apocalypse, Flora has come of age in a highly gendered post-plague society where females have become a precious, coveted, hunted, and endangered commodity. But Flora does not participate in the economy that trades in bodies. An anathema in a world that prizes procreation above all else, she is an outsider everywhere she goes, including the thriving all-female city of Shy.

Now navigating a blighted landscape, Flora, her friends, and a sullen young slave she adopts as her own child leave their oppressive pasts behind to find their place in the world. They seek refuge aboard a ship where gender is fluid, where the dynamic is uneasy, and where rumors flow of a bold new reproductive strategy.

When the promise of a miraculous hope for humanity’s future tears Flora’s makeshift family asunder, she must choose: protect the safe haven she’s built or risk everything to defy oppression, whatever its provenance.]]>
332 Meg Elison 1542042089 Amy 0 to-read 3.79 2019 The Book of Flora (The Road to Nowhere, #3)
author: Meg Elison
name: Amy
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2019
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<![CDATA[The Book of Etta (The Road to Nowhere, #2)]]> 31548533 In the gripping sequel to the Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, one woman undertakes a desperate journey to rescue the future.

Etta comes from Nowhere, a village of survivors of the great plague that wiped away the world that was. In the world that is, women are scarce and childbearing is dangerous…yet desperately necessary for humankind’s future. Mothers and midwives are sacred, but Etta has a different calling. As a scavenger. Loyal to the village but living on her own terms, Etta roams the desolate territory beyond: salvaging useful relics of the ruined past and braving the threat of brutal slave traders, who are seeking women and girls to sell and subjugate.

When slavers seize those she loves, Etta vows to release and avenge them. But her mission will lead her to the stronghold of the Lion—a tyrant who dominates the innocent with terror and violence. There, with no allies and few weapons besides her wits and will, she will risk both body and spirit not only to save lives but also to liberate a new world’s destiny.]]>
314 Meg Elison 1503941825 Amy 0 to-read 3.73 2017 The Book of Etta (The Road to Nowhere, #2)
author: Meg Elison
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average rating: 3.73
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The Power 29751398 The Power the world is a recognizable place: There's a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; and a tough London girl from a tricky family. But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power: They can cause agonizing pain and even death. With this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets.]]> 341 Naomi Alderman 0670919985 Amy 0 to-read 3.75 2016 The Power
author: Naomi Alderman
name: Amy
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2016
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<![CDATA[World Made by Hand (World Made by Hand #1)]]> 1689657
A captivating, utterly realistic novel, World Made by Hand takes speculative fiction beyond the apocalypse and shows what happens when life gets extremely local.]]>
317 James Howard Kunstler 0871139782 Amy 0 to-read 3.65 2007 World Made by Hand (World Made by Hand #1)
author: James Howard Kunstler
name: Amy
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2007
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The Lottery 6219656
“The Lottery� stands out as one of the most famous short stories in American literary history. Originally published in The New Yorker, the author immediately began receiving letters from readers who demanded an explanation of the story’s meaning. “The Lottery� has been adapted for stage, television, radio and film.
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30 Shirley Jackson 1563127873 Amy 0 4.08 1948 The Lottery
author: Shirley Jackson
name: Amy
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1948
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<![CDATA[Herland (The Herland Trilogy, #2)]]> 531509
When three American men discover a community of women, living in perfect isolation in the Amazon, they decide there simply must be men somewhere. How could these women survive without man's knowledge, experience and strength, not to mention reproductive power? In fact, what they have found is a civilisation free from disease, poverty and the weight of tradition. All alone, the women have created a society of calm and prosperity, a feminist utopia that dares to threaten the very concept of male superiority.]]>
147 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 0394736656 Amy 0 3.46 1915 Herland (The Herland Trilogy, #2)
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: Amy
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1915
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Into the Forest 86236 Into the Forest is a powerfully imagined novel that focuses on the relationship between two teenage sisters living alone in their Northern California forest home.

Over 30 miles from the nearest town, and several miles away from their nearest neighbor, Nell and Eva struggle to survive as society begins to decay and collapse around them. No single event precedes society's fall. There is talk of a war overseas and upheaval in Congress, but it still comes as a shock when the electricity runs out and gas is nowhere to be found. The sisters consume the resources left in the house, waiting for the power to return. Their arrival into adulthood, however, forces them to reexamine their place in the world and their relationship to the land and each other.

Reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, Into the Forest is a mesmerizing and thought-provoking novel of hope and despair set in a frighteningly plausible near-future America.]]>
243 Jean Hegland 0553379615 Amy 0 to-read 3.77 1996 Into the Forest
author: Jean Hegland
name: Amy
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1996
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<![CDATA[Life As We Knew It (Last Survivors, #1)]]> 213753
Told in journal entries, this is the heart-pounding story of Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world.]]>
337 Susan Beth Pfeffer Amy 0 to-read 3.89 2006 Life As We Knew It (Last Survivors, #1)
author: Susan Beth Pfeffer
name: Amy
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2006
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How High We Go in the Dark 57850265
Among those adjusting to this new normal are an aspiring comedian, employed by a theme park designed for terminally ill children, who falls in love with a mother trying desperately to keep her son alive; a scientist who, having failed to save his own son from the plague, gets a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects-a pig-develops human speech; a man who, after recovering from his own coma, plans a block party for his neighbours who have also woken up to find that they alone have survived their families; and a widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter who must set off on cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.

From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead, How High We Go in the Dark follows a cast of intricately linked characters spanning hundreds of years as humanity endeavours to restore the delicate balance of the world. This is a story of unshakable hope that crosses literary lines to give us a world rebuilding itself through an endless capacity for love, resilience and reinvention. Wonderful and disquieting, dreamlike and all too possible.]]>
293 Sequoia Nagamatsu 0063072645 Amy 0 to-read 3.81 2022 How High We Go in the Dark
author: Sequoia Nagamatsu
name: Amy
average rating: 3.81
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The Other Einstein 28389305 A vivid and mesmerizing novel about the extraordinary woman who married and worked with one of the greatest scientists in history, written by New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict!

In the tradition of The Paris Wife and Mrs. Poe, The Other Einstein offers us a window into a brilliant, fascinating woman whose light was lost in Einstein's enormous shadow. It is the story of Einstein's wife, a brilliant physicist in her own right, whose contribution to the special theory of relativity is hotly debated and may have been inspired by her own profound and very personal insight.

Mitza Maric has always been a little different from other girls. Most twenty-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitza is smart enough to know that, for her, math is an easier path than marriage. And then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage.]]>
304 Marie Benedict 1492637254 Amy 0 to-read 3.80 2016 The Other Einstein
author: Marie Benedict
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average rating: 3.80
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Her Hidden Genius 58108269 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie and co-author of The Personal Librarian.

Rosalind Franklin has always been an outsider―brilliant, but different. Whether working at the laboratory she adored in Paris or toiling at a university in London, she feels closest to the science, those unchanging laws of physics and chemistry that guide her experiments. When she is assigned to work on DNA, she believes she can unearth its secrets.

Rosalind knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture―one more after thousands―she can unlock the building blocks of life. Never again will she have to listen to her colleagues complain about her, especially Maurice Wilkins who'd rather conspire about genetics with James Watson and Francis Crick than work alongside her.

Then it finally happens―the double helix structure of DNA reveals itself to her with perfect clarity. But what unfolds next, Rosalind could have never predicted.

Marie Benedict's powerful new novel shines a light on a woman who sacrificed her life to discover the nature of our very DNA, a woman whose world-changing contributions were hidden by the men around her but whose relentless drive advanced our understanding of humankind.]]>
284 Marie Benedict 1728229391 Amy 0 to-read 3.84 2022 Her Hidden Genius
author: Marie Benedict
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average rating: 3.84
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The Overnight Guest 60164470 A woman receives an unexpected visitor during a deadly snowstormĚýin this chilling thriller fromĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling author Heather Gudenkauf

She thought she was alone�

True crime writer Wylie Lark doesn’t mind being snowed in at the isolated farmhouse where she’s retreated to write her new book. A cozy fire, complete silence. It would be perfect, if not for the fact that decades earlier, at this very house, two people were murdered in cold blood and a girl disappeared without a trace.

As the storm worsens, Wylie finds herself trapped inside the house, haunted by the secrets contained within its walls—haunted by secrets of her own. Then she discovers a small child in the snow just outside. After bringing the child inside for warmth and safety, she begins to search for answers. But soon it becomes clear that the farmhouse isn’t as isolated as she thought, and someone is willing to do anything to find them.]]>
316 Heather Gudenkauf 0778311937 Amy 0 to-read 4.01 2022 The Overnight Guest
author: Heather Gudenkauf
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average rating: 4.01
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<![CDATA[Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book]]> 48932367 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and pioneering journalist, an expansive look at how history has been shaped by humanity’s appetite for food, farmland, and the money behind it all—and how a better future is within reach.

The story of humankind is usually told as one of technological innovation and economic influence—of arrowheads and atomic bombs, settlers and stock markets. But behind it all, there is an even more fundamental driver: Food.

In Animal, Vegetable, Junk, trusted food authority Mark Bittman offers a panoramic view of how the frenzy for food has driven human history to some of its most catastrophic moments, from slavery and colonialism to famine and genocide—and to our current moment, wherein Big Food exacerbates climate change, plunders our planet, and sickens its people. Even still, Bittman refuses to concede that the battle is lost, pointing to activists, workers, and governments around the world who are choosing well-being over corporate greed and gluttony, and fighting to free society from Big Food’s grip.

Sweeping, impassioned, and ultimately full of hope, Animal, Vegetable, Junk reveals not only how food has shaped our past, but also how we can transform it to reclaim our future.]]>
384 Mark Bittman 1328974626 Amy 0 to-read 3.89 2021 Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book
author: Mark Bittman
name: Amy
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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Sea of Tranquility 58446227 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

"One of [Mandel's] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet." --The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]>
259 Emily St. John Mandel 0593321448 Amy 0 to-read 4.04 2022 Sea of Tranquility
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Amy
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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Notes on an Execution 57773248
Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. He knows what he’s done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood. He hoped it wouldn’t end like this, not for him.

Through a kaleidoscope of women—a mother, a sister, a homicide detective—we learn the story of Ansel’s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel’s wife, inseparable since birth, forced to watch helplessly as her sister’s relationship threatens to devour them all; and finally, Saffy, the homicide detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy, exploring the rippling fissures that such destruction inevitably leaves in its wake.

Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes on an Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice and our cultural obsession with crime stories, asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men.]]>
306 Danya Kukafka 0063052733 Amy 5 4.04 2022 Notes on an Execution
author: Danya Kukafka
name: Amy
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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Black Cake 57926137 We can’t choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become?

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.

Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor’s true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right�? Will their mother’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?

Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.]]>
385 Charmaine Wilkerson Amy 0 to-read 4.06 2022 Black Cake
author: Charmaine Wilkerson
name: Amy
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Amy 4 4.23 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Amy
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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The Sentence 56816904
Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written]]>
387 Louise Erdrich 006267112X Amy 5 3.92 2021 The Sentence
author: Louise Erdrich
name: Amy
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2021
rating: 5
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Demon Copperhead 60194162 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780063251922.

"Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]>
560 Barbara Kingsolver Amy 0 to-read 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Amy
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism (Live Girls)]]> 61442 403 Bushra Rehman 1580050670 Amy 0 to-read 4.18 2002 Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism (Live Girls)
author: Bushra Rehman
name: Amy
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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The Light Pirate 60468332 Set in the near future, this hopeful story of survival and resilience follows Wanda—a luminous child born out of a devastating hurricane—as she navigates a rapidly changing world.

Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state’s infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker, his pregnant wife, Frida, and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the worst. When the boys go missing just before the hurricane hits, Kirby heads out into the high winds in search of his children. Left alone, Frida goes into premature labor and gives birth to an unusual child, Wanda, whom she names after the catastrophic storm that ushers her into a society closer to collapse than ever before.

As Florida continues to unravel, Wanda grows. Moving from childhood to adulthood, adapting not only to the changing landscape, but also to the people who stayed behind in a place abandoned by civilization, Wanda loses family, gains community, and ultimately, seeks adventure, love, and purpose in a place remade by nature.

Told in four parts—power, water, light, and time�The Light Pirate mirrors the rhythms of the elements and the sometimes quick, sometimes slow dissolution of the world as we know it. It is a meditation on the changes we would rather not see, the future we would rather not greet, and a call back to the beauty and violence of an untamable wilderness.

Includes a Reading Group Guide.]]>
336 Lily Brooks-Dalton 1538708272 Amy 0 to-read 4.01 2022 The Light Pirate
author: Lily Brooks-Dalton
name: Amy
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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My Darkest Prayer 60827561
“S.A. Cosby’s reissued debut thriller proves he was a master from the start…Cosby has in three books emerged as one of the genre’s best living practitioners...its reissue is a brilliant idea.� ―Los Angeles Times

“I handle the bodies.�

Whether it's working at his cousin's funeral home or tossing around the local riffraff at his favorite bar, Nathan Waymaker is a man who knows how to handle the bodies. A former marine and sheriff's deputy, Nathan has built a reputation in his small Southern town as a man who can help when all other avenues have been exhausted. When a beloved local minister is found dead, his parishioners ask Nathan to make sure the death isn’t swept under the rug.

What starts out as an easy payday soon descends into a maze of mayhem filled with wannabe gangsters, vicious crime lords, porn stars, crooked police officers, and a particularly treacherous preacher and his mysterious wife. Nathan must use all his varied skills and some of his wit to navigate the murky waters of small town corruption even as dark secrets of his own threaten to come to the surface.

“[A] colorful tale of small-town corruption...[Cosby's] powerful storytelling skills shine through.�
―Washington Post]]>
288 S.A. Cosby 1250867630 Amy 0 to-read 3.93 2019 My Darkest Prayer
author: S.A. Cosby
name: Amy
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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House of Cotton 60784369
One night while working at her dead-end gas station job, a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton walks in and offers to turn Magnolia’s luck around. He offers her a lucrative “modeling� job at his family’s funeral home. Magnolia accepts. But despite things looking up, Magnolia’s problems fatten along with her wallet. When Cotton’s requests become increasingly weird, Magnolia discovers there’s a lot more at stake than just her rent.

Sharp as a belted knife, this sly social commentary cuts straight to the bone, revealing the aftermath of the American plantation and what it means to be poor, Black, and a woman in the God fearing south.]]>
304 Monica Brashears 1250851912 Amy 0 to-read 2.99 2023 House of Cotton
author: Monica Brashears
name: Amy
average rating: 2.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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Verity 43225180
Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of what really happened the day her daughter died.

Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents would devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen's feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife's words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue to love her.]]>
323 Colleen Hoover 1791392792 Amy 3 4.27 2018 Verity
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Amy
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2018
rating: 3
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Wrong Place Wrong Time 59947696
It is midnight on the morning of Halloween, and Jen anxiously waits up for her 18-year-old son, Todd, to return home. But worries about his broken curfew transform into something much more dangerous when Todd finally emerges from the darkness. As Jen watches through the window, she sees her funny, seemingly happy teenage son stab a total stranger.

She doesn’t know who the victim is, or why Todd has committed such a devastating act of violence. All she knows is that her life, and Todd’s, have been shattered.

After her son is taken into custody, Jen falls asleep in despair. But when she wakes up� it is yesterday. The murder has not happened yet—and there may be a chance to stop it. Each morning, when Jen wakes, she is further back in the past, first weeks, then years, before the murder. And Jen realizes that somewhere in the past lies the trigger for Todd’s terrible crime…and it is her mission to find it, and prevent it from taking place.]]>
416 Gillian McAllister 0063252341 Amy 5 3.94 2022 Wrong Place Wrong Time
author: Gillian McAllister
name: Amy
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[Creating the Homestead Orchard: A self-reliance guide from Backwoods Home Magazine]]> 30057345 163 Jackie Clay-Atkinson Amy 5 4.67 Creating the Homestead Orchard: A self-reliance guide from Backwoods Home Magazine
author: Jackie Clay-Atkinson
name: Amy
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/29
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<![CDATA[Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #14)]]> 38232379
None of them had ever met the elderly woman.

The will is so odd and includes bequests that are so wildly unlikely that Gamache and the others suspect the woman must have been delusional. But what if, Gamache begins to ask himself, she was perfectly sane?

When a body is found, the terms of the bizarre suddenly seem less peculiar and far more menacing.

But it isn't the only menace Gamache is facing.

The investigation into what happened six months ago—the events that led to his suspension—has dragged on, into the dead of winter. And while most of the opioids he allowed to slip through his hands, in order to bring down the cartels, have been retrieved, there is one devastating exception.

Enough narcotic to kill thousands has disappeared into inner-city Montréal. With the deadly drug about to hit the streets, Gamache races for answers.

As he uses increasingly audacious, even desperate, measures to retrieve the drug, Armand Gamache begins to see his own blind spots. And the terrible things hiding there.]]>
389 Louise Penny 1250066204 Amy 5 4.25 2018 Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #14)
author: Louise Penny
name: Amy
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2021/03/01
date added: 2022/10/23
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The Book of Essie 36723245 A debut novel of family, fame, and religion that tells the emotionally stirring, wildly captivating story of the seventeen-year-old daughter of an evangelical preacher, star of the family's hit reality show, and the secret pregnancy that threatens to blow their entire world apart.

Esther Ann Hicks--Essie--is the youngest child on Six for Hicks, a reality television phenomenon. She's grown up in the spotlight, both idolized and despised for her family's fire-and-brimstone brand of faith. When Essie's mother, Celia, discovers that Essie is pregnant, she arranges an emergency meeting with the show's producers: Do they sneak Essie out of the country for an abortion? Do they pass the child off as Celia's? Or do they try to arrange a marriage--and a ratings-blockbuster wedding? Meanwhile, Essie is quietly pairing herself up with Roarke Richards, a senior at her school with a secret of his own to protect. As the newly formed couple attempt to sell their fabricated love story to the media--through exclusive interviews with an infamously conservative reporter named Liberty Bell--Essie finds she has questions of her own: What was the real reason for her older sister leaving home? Who can she trust with the truth about her family? And how much is she willing to sacrifice to win her own freedom?]]>
319 Meghan MacLean Weir Amy 3 3.91 2018 The Book of Essie
author: Meghan MacLean Weir
name: Amy
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2018/07/17
date added: 2022/10/22
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The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1) 55196813
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly's orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it's too late?

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.]]>
304 Nita Prose 0593356152 Amy 0 to-read 3.71 2022 The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1)
author: Nita Prose
name: Amy
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes, #1)]]> 60222807
Орчиця Вів ŃтомилаŃŃŹ від деŃятиліть роботи мечем та кровопролить. ПіŃля ĐľŃтаннього завдання вона виріŃŃŃ” розпрощатиŃŃŹ Đ· минŃлим життям. ЗабŃта легенда, казковий артефакт Ń– примарна надія заводять Ń—Ń— на вŃлиці Тьюна, де Вів ŃподіваєтьŃŃŹ відкрити перŃŃ Đ˛ ĐĽŃ–Ńті кав’ярню.

Однак Đ·Đ´Ń–ĐąŃнити мрію почати вŃе Đ· чиŃтого аркŃŃа Đą змінити меч на ĐşĐ°Đ˛ĐľĐ˛Đ°Ń€ĐşŃ Đ˝Đµ так легко. Đ—Ń€ŃйнŃвати плани Вів прагнŃть давні закляті Đ´Ń€ŃĐ·Ń– та неглаŃні гоŃподарі Тьюна. Щоб збŃĐ´Ńвати нареŃті щоŃŃŚ Ńтале, орчиці потрібні нові Đ´Ń€ŃĐ·Ń– та нові підходи Đ´Đľ розв'язання проблем.

На читачів чекає гаряче горня фантаŃтичного ŃĐ˛Ń–Ń‚Ń Đ· романтичною пінкою!]]>
296 Travis Baldree Amy 0 to-read 4.33 2022 Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes, #1)
author: Travis Baldree
name: Amy
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon (Mead Mishaps, #1)]]> 58648147
After saving the demon Fallon in a wine-drunk stupor, all he wanted to do was kill an evil witch enslaving his people.

I mean, I get it, don't get me wrong. But he's dragging me along for the ride, and I'm kind of peeved about it. On the bright side, he keeps burning off his shirt.]]>
260 Kimberly Lemming Amy 0 to-read 3.87 2021 That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon (Mead Mishaps, #1)
author: Kimberly Lemming
name: Amy
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4)]]> 1162543 "Don't be afraid," I murmured. "We belong together."
I was abruptly overwhelmed by the truth of my own words.
This moment was so perfect, so right, there was no way to doubt it.
His arms wrapped around me,
holding me against him....
It felt like every nerve ending in my body was a live wire.
"Forever," he agreed.

WHEN YOU LOVED THE ONE WHO WAS KILLING YOU, IT LEFT YOU NO OPTIONS. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?

TO BE IRREVOCABLY IN LOVE WITH A VAMPIRE is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates of two tribes hangs.

NOW THAT BELLA HAS MADE HER DECISION, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating, and unfathomable, consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life - first discovered in Twilight, then scattered and torn in New Moon and Eclipse - seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed... forever?

THE ASTONISHING, BREATHLESSLY anticipated conclusion to the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.]]>
756 Stephenie Meyer 031606792X Amy 0 3.74 2008 Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Amy
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2)]]> 49041 There is an alternate cover edition for ISBN13 9780316160193 here.

I knew we were both in mortal danger. Still, in that instant, I felt well. Whole. I could feel my heart racing in my chest, the blood pulsing hot and fast through my veins again. My lungs filled deep with the sweet scent that came off his skin. It was like there had never been any hole in my chest. I was perfect - not healed, but as if there had never been a wound in the first place.

I FELT LIKE I WAS TRAPPED IN ONE OF THOSE TERRIFYING NIGHTMARES, the one where you have to run, run till your lungs burst, but you can't make your body move fast enough.... But this was no dream, and, unlike the nightmare, I wasn't running for my life; I was racing to save something infinitely more precious. My own life meant little to me today.

FOR BELLA SWAN THERE IS ONE THING more important than life itself: Edward Cullen. But being in love with a vampire is even more dangerous than Bella could ever have imagined. Edward has already rescued Bella from the clutches of one evil vampire, but now, as their daring relationship threatens all that is near and dear to them, they realize their troubles may be just beginning....

LEGIONS OF READERS ENTRANCED BY THE New York Times bestseller Twilight are hungry for the continuing story of star-crossed lovers Bell and Edward. In New Moon, Stephanie Meyer delivers another irresistible combination of romance and suspense with a supernatural spin. passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga is well on its way to literary immortality.]]>
563 Stephenie Meyer 0316160199 Amy 0 3.61 2006 New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Amy
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans—except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]>
390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 Amy 0 4.10 2010 Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Amy
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 2767052
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]>
374 Suzanne Collins Amy 0 4.34 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Amy
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/07
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Mexican Gothic 53152636
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And NoemĂ­, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.]]>
320 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0525620788 Amy 0 3.66 2020 Mexican Gothic
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Amy
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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After (After, #1) 22557520
But she’s barely moved into her freshman dorm when she runs into Hardin. With his tousled brown hair, cocky British accent, tattoos, and lip ring, Hardin is cute and different from what she’s used to.

But he’s also rude—to the point of cruelty, even. For all his attitude, Tessa should hate Hardin. And she does—until she finds herself alone with him in his room. Something about his dark mood grabs her, and when they kiss it ignites within her a passion she’s never known before.

He’ll call her beautiful, then insist he isn't the one for her and disappear again and again. Despite the reckless way he treats her, Tessa is compelled to dig deeper and find the real Hardin beneath all his lies. He pushes her away again and again, yet every time she pushes back, he only pulls her in deeper.

Tessa already has the perfect boyfriend. So why is she trying so hard to overcome her own hurt pride and Hardin’s prejudice about nice girls like her?

Unless…could this be love?

Now newly revised and expanded, Anna Todd’s After fanfiction racked up 1 billion reads online and captivated readers across the globe. Experience the Internet’s most talked-about book for yourself!

There was the time before Tessa met Hardin, and then there’s everything AFTER ... Life will never be the same.]]>
582 Anna Todd 1476792488 Amy 0 to-read 3.70 2014 After (After, #1)
author: Anna Todd
name: Amy
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[It Ends with Us (It Ends with Us, #1)]]> 27362503
Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up � she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating� rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place.

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan � her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.]]>
386 Colleen Hoover 1668021048 Amy 0 to-read 4.11 2016 It Ends with Us (It Ends with Us, #1)
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Amy
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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The Echo Wife 52379735 I’m embarrassed, still, by how long it took me to notice. Everything was right there in the open, right there in front of me, but it still took me so long to see the person I had married.

It took me so long to hate him.

Martine is a genetically cloned replica made from Evelyn Caldwell’s award-winning research. She’s patient and gentle and obedient. She’s everything Evelyn swore she’d never be.

And she’s having an affair with Evelyn’s husband.

Now, the cheating bastard is dead, and both Caldwell wives have a mess to clean up.

Good thing Evelyn Caldwell is used to getting her hands dirty.]]>
256 Sarah Gailey 125017466X Amy 4 3.59 2021 The Echo Wife
author: Sarah Gailey
name: Amy
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/25
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State of Terror 57191645 State of Terror follows a novice Secretary of State who has joined the administration of her rival, a president inaugurated after four years of American leadership that shrank from the world stage. A series of terrorist attacks throws the global order into disarray, and the secretary is tasked with assembling a team to unravel the deadly conspiracy, a scheme carefully designed to take advantage of an American government dangerously out of touch and out of power in the places where it counts the most.

This high-stakes thriller of international intrigue features behind-the-scenes global drama informed by details only an insider could know.]]>
506 Hillary Rodham Clinton Amy 0 4.34 2021 State of Terror
author: Hillary Rodham Clinton
name: Amy
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/09
date added: 2022/02/09
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The Downstairs Girl 33224061 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781524740955.

From the founding member of We Need Diverse Books comes a powerful novel about identity, betrayal, and the meaning of family.

By day, seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan works as a lady's maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. But by night, Jo moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper advice column for the genteel Southern lady, "Dear Miss Sweetie." When her column becomes wildly popular, she uses the power of the pen to address some of society's ills, but she's not prepared for the backlash that follows when her column challenges fixed ideas about race and gender. While her opponents clamor to uncover the secret identity of Miss Sweetie, a mysterious letter sets Jo off on a search for her own past and the parents who abandoned her as a baby. But when her efforts put her in the crosshairs of Atlanta's most notorious criminal, Jo must decide whether she, a girl used to living in the shadows, is ready to step into the light. With prose that is witty, insightful, and at times heartbreaking, Stacey Lee masterfully crafts an extraordinary social drama set in the New South.]]>
374 Stacey Lee Amy 0 3.92 2019 The Downstairs Girl
author: Stacey Lee
name: Amy
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2021/03/01
date added: 2022/02/04
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<![CDATA[The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #17)]]> 56269078 You’re a coward.

Time and again, as the New Year approaches, that charge is leveled against Armand Gamache.

It starts innocently enough.

While the residents of the Québec village of Three Pines take advantage of the deep snow to ski and toboggan, to drink hot chocolate in the bistro and share meals together, the Chief Inspector finds his holiday with his family interrupted by a simple request.

He’s asked to provide security for what promises to be a non-event. A visiting Professor of Statistics will be giving a lecture at the nearby university.

While he is perplexed as to why the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec would be assigned this task, it sounds easy enough. That is until Gamache starts looking into Professor Abigail Robinson and discovers an agenda so repulsive he begs the university to cancel the lecture.

They refuse, citing academic freedom, and accuse Gamache of censorship and intellectual cowardice. Before long, Professor Robinson’s views start seeping into conversations. Spreading and infecting. So that truth and fact, reality and delusion are so confused it’s near impossible to tell them apart.

Discussions become debates, debates become arguments, which turn into fights. As sides are declared, a madness takes hold.

Abigail Robinson promises that, if they follow her, ça va bien aller. All will be well. But not, Gamache and his team know, for everyone.

When a murder is committed it falls to Armand Gamache, his second-in-command Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and their team to investigate the crime as well as this extraordinary popular delusion.

And the madness of crowds.]]>
436 Louise Penny 1250145260 Amy 0 to-read 4.05 2021 The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #17)
author: Louise Penny
name: Amy
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #15)]]> 44034500 Catastrophic spring flooding, blistering attacks in the media, and a mysterious disappearance greet Chief Inspector Armand Gamache as he returns to the Sûreté du Québec in the latest novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny.

It's Gamache's first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Floodwaters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil, a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter.

As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter of his own, he finds himself developing a profound, and perhaps unwise, empathy for her distraught father.

Increasingly hounded by the question, how would you feel..., he resumes the search.

As the rivers rise, and the social media onslaught against Gamache becomes crueler, a body is discovered. And in the tumult, mistakes are made.

In the next novel in this "constantly surprising series that deepens and darkens as it evolves" (The New York Times Book Review), Gamache must face a horrific possibility, and a burning question.

What would you do if your child's killer walked free?]]>
437 Louise Penny 1250066212 Amy 0 to-read 4.20 2019 A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #15)
author: Louise Penny
name: Amy
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #11)]]> 24586590
But when the boy disappears, the villagers are faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might have been true.

And so begins a frantic search for the boy and the truth. What they uncover deep in the forest sets off a sequence of events that leads to murder, leads to an old crime, leads to an old betrayal. Leads right to the door of an old poet.

And now it is now, writes Ruth Zardo. And the dark thing is here.

A monster once visited Three Pines. And put down deep roots. And now, Ruth knows, it is back.

Armand Gamache, the former head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, must face the possibility that, in not believing the boy, he himself played a terrible part in what happens next.]]>
376 Louise Penny 1250022088 Amy 4 4.17 2015 The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #11)
author: Louise Penny
name: Amy
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2015
rating: 4
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date added: 2022/02/04
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<![CDATA[Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #13)]]> 33602101
From the moment the creature's shadow falls over the village, Gamache, now Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Quebec, suspects it has deep roots and a dark purpose. Yet he does nothing. What can he do? Only watch and wait. And hope his mounting fears are not realized.

But when the figure vanishes overnight and a body is discovered, it falls to Gamache to discover if a debt has been paid or levied.

Months later, on a steamy July day, as the trial for the accused begins in Montréal, Chief Superintendent Gamache continues to struggle with actions he set in motion that bitter November from which there is no going back. More than the accused is on trial. Gamache's own conscience is standing in judgment.

In her latest utterly gripping book, number-one New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny shatters the conventions of the crime novel to explore what Gandhi called the court of conscience. A court that supersedes all others.]]>
391 Louise Penny 1250066190 Amy 4 4.24 2017 Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #13)
author: Louise Penny
name: Amy
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2021/04/01
date added: 2022/02/04
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The Whispering House 48721353
Driven to find out more about her sister’s secrets, Freya is drawn into the world of Byrne Hall and its owners: charismatic artist Cory and his sinister, watchful mother. But as Freya’s relationship with Cory crosses the line into obsession, the darkness behind the locked doors of Byrne Hall threatens to spill out.]]>
352 Elizabeth Brooks 0857525603 Amy 3 2.85 2020 The Whispering House
author: Elizabeth Brooks
name: Amy
average rating: 2.85
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2021/08/01
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If We Were Villains 30319086
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.]]>
354 M.L. Rio 125009528X Amy 4 4.11 2017 If We Were Villains
author: M.L. Rio
name: Amy
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2021/09/01
date added: 2022/02/04
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reminiscent of the Secret History
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The Kitchen House 6837103
Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk.]]>
369 Kathleen Grissom 1439153663 Amy 4 to-read 4.21 2010 The Kitchen House
author: Kathleen Grissom
name: Amy
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2021/05/01
date added: 2022/02/04
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Cool twist on a trope I thought I knew
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<![CDATA[In the Country We Love: My Family Divided]]> 25666051 The star of Orange is the New Black and Jane the Virgin presents her personal story of the real plight of undocumented immigrants in this country.

Diane Guerrero, the television actress from the megahit Orange is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, was just fourteen years old on the day her parents and brother were arrested and deported while she was at school. Born in the U.S., Guerrero was able to remain in the country and continue her education, depending on the kindness of family friends who took her in and helped her build a life and a successful acting career for herself, without the support system of her family.

In the Country We Love is a moving, heartbreaking story of one woman's extraordinary resilience in the face of the nightmarish struggles of undocumented residents in this country. There are over 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US, many of whom have citizen children, whose lives here are just as precarious, and whose stories haven't been told. Written with Michelle Burford, this memoir is a tale of personal triumph that also casts a much-needed light on the fears that haunt the daily existence of families likes the author's and on a system that fails them over and over.]]>
259 Diane Guerrero 1627795278 Amy 4 4.16 2016 In the Country We Love: My Family Divided
author: Diane Guerrero
name: Amy
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2021/01/01
date added: 2022/02/04
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<![CDATA[The Last House on Needless Street]]> 54621094
All these things are true. And yet they are all lies...

You think you know what's inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you've read this story before. That's where you're wrong.

In the dark forest at the end of Needless Street, lies something buried. But it's not what you think...]]>
337 Catriona Ward 1788166167 Amy 5 amazing POV 3.82 2021 The Last House on Needless Street
author: Catriona Ward
name: Amy
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/10/01
date added: 2022/02/04
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amazing POV
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Shiner 45697147 On a lush mountaintop trapped in time, two women vow to protect each other at all costs-and one young girl must defy her father to survive.

An hour from the closest West Virginia mining town, fifteen-year-old Wren Bird lives in a cloistered mountain cabin with her parents. They have no car, no mailbox, and no visitors-except for her mother's lifelong best friend. Every Sunday, Wren's father delivers winding sermons in an abandoned gas station, where he takes up serpents and praises the Lord for his blighted white eye, proof of his divinity and key to the hold he has over the community, over Wren and her mother.

But over the course of one summer, a miracle performed by Wren's father quickly turns to tragedy. As the order of her world begins to shatter, Wren must uncover the truth of her father's mysterious legend and her mother's harrowing history and complex bond with her best friend. And with that newfound knowledge, Wren can imagine a different future for herself than she has been told to expect.

Rich with epic love and epic loss, and diving deep into a world that is often forgotten but still part of America, Shiner reveals the hidden story behind two generations' worth of Appalachian heartbreak and resolve. Amy Jo Burns brings us a smoldering, taut debut novel about modern female myth-making in a land of men-and one young girl who must ultimately open her eyes.]]>
272 Amy Jo Burns 0525533648 Amy 5 3.83 2020 Shiner
author: Amy Jo Burns
name: Amy
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2020
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women]]> 31409135 The incredible true story of the women who fought America's Undark danger

The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.

Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive—until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.

But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come.

Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

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479 Kate Moore 149264935X Amy 0 4.12 2016 The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women
author: Kate Moore
name: Amy
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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Firestarter 233667 This a previously-published edition of ISBN 0451167805.

The Department of Scientific Intelligence (aka "The Shop") never anticipated that two participants in their research program would marry and have a child. Charlie McGee inherited pyrokinetic powers from her parents, who had been given a low-grade hallucinogen called "Lot Six" while at college. Now the government is trying to capture young Charlie and harness her powerful firestarting skills as a weapon.
--stephenking.com]]>
564 Stephen King Amy 4 3.92 1980 Firestarter
author: Stephen King
name: Amy
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1980
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1)]]> 228665
Moiraine Damodred arrives in Emond’s Field on a quest to find the one prophesized to stand against The Dark One, a malicious entity sowing the seeds of chaos and destruction. When a vicious band of half-men, half beasts invade the village seeking their master’s enemy, Moiraine persuades Rand al’Thor and his friends to leave their home and enter a larger unimaginable world filled with dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light.]]>
800 Robert Jordan 0812511816 Amy 0 currently-reading 4.19 1990 The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1)
author: Robert Jordan
name: Amy
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Monk & Robot, #2)]]> 40864030
They hope to find the answers they seek, while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe.

Becky Chambers's new series continues to ask: in a world where people have what they want, does having more even matter?

They're going to need to ask it a lot.]]>
152 Becky Chambers Amy 0 to-read 4.40 2022 A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Monk & Robot, #2)
author: Becky Chambers
name: Amy
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)]]> 40864002 ASIN B08H831J18 moved to the more recent edition

Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend.

Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers' series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?]]>
151 Becky Chambers Amy 4 4.25 2021 A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)
author: Becky Chambers
name: Amy
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[Messenger of Truth (Maisie Dobbs, #4)]]> 7433
The case soon takes Maisie to the desolate beaches of Dungeness in Kent, as well as the sinister underbelly of the city's art world. And while navigating her way into the heart of the aristocratic yet bohemian Bassington-Hopes, Maisie is deeply troubled by the tragedy of another, quite different family in need.

In Messenger of Truth, Maisie Dobbs again uncovers the dark legacy of the Great War in a society struggling to recollect itself in difficult times. But to solve the mystery of the artist's death, she will have to remain steady as the forces behind his death come out of the shadows to silence her.

Following on the bestselling Pardonable Lies, Jacqueline Winspear delivers another vivid, thrilling, and utterly unique episode in the life of Maisie Dobbs.]]>
322 Jacqueline Winspear 0805078983 Amy 0 to-read 3.97 2006 Messenger of Truth (Maisie Dobbs, #4)
author: Jacqueline Winspear
name: Amy
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[All This Could Be Yours: A Compelling Novel of Uncovering Dark Family Secrets in New Orleans]]> 43517590 240 Jami Attenberg 054482427X Amy 0 to-read 3.47 2019 All This Could Be Yours: A Compelling Novel of Uncovering Dark Family Secrets in New Orleans
author: Jami Attenberg
name: Amy
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Thousand-Miler: Adventures Hiking the Ice Age Trail]]> 34533247 Thousand-Miler takes you with her through Wisconsin's forests, prairies, wetlands, and farms, past the geologic wonders carved by long-ago glaciers, and into the neighborhood bars and gathering places of far-flung small towns. Follow along as she worries about wildlife encounters, wonders if her injured feet will ever recover, and searches for an elusive fellow hiker known as Papa Bear. Woven throughout her account are details of the history of the still-developing Ice Age Trail--one of just eleven National Scenic Trails--and helpful insight and strategies for undertaking a successful thru-hike.

In addition to chronicling McManus's hike, Thousand-Miler also includes the little-told story of the Ice Age Trail's first-ever thru-hiker Jim Staudacher, an account of the record-breaking thru-run of ultrarunner Jason Dorgan, the experiences of a young combat veteran who embarked on her thru-hike as a way to ease back into civilian life, and other fascinating tales from the trail. Their collective experiences shed light on the motivations of thru-hikers and the different ways hikers accomplish this impressive feat, providing an entertaining and informative read for outdoors enthusiasts of all levels.]]>
304 Melanie Radzicki McManus 0870207911 Amy 0 to-read 3.91 2017 Thousand-Miler: Adventures Hiking the Ice Age Trail
author: Melanie Radzicki McManus
name: Amy
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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Mrs. Everything 41592780 Alternate cover for ISBN# 9781501133503

Do we change or does the world change us?

Jo and Bethie Kaufman were born into a world full of promise.

Growing up in 1950s Detroit, they live in a perfect “Dick and Jane� house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. Jo is the tomboy, the bookish rebel with a passion to make the world more fair; Bethie is the pretty, feminine good girl, a would-be star who enjoys the power her beauty confers and dreams of a traditional life.

But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. Jo and Bethie survive traumas and tragedies. As their lives unfold against the background of free love and Vietnam, Woodstock and women’s lib, Bethie becomes an adventure-loving wild child who dives headlong into the counterculture and is up for anything (except settling down). Meanwhile, Jo becomes a proper young mother in Connecticut, a witness to the changing world instead of a participant. Neither woman inhabits the world she dreams of, nor has a life that feels authentic or brings her joy. Is it too late for the women to finally stake a claim on happily ever after?]]>
416 Jennifer Weiner Amy 0 to-read 3.81 2019 Mrs. Everything
author: Jennifer Weiner
name: Amy
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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The Female Persuasion 35672408 New York Times-bestselling author of The Interestings, an electric, multilayered novel about ambition, power, friendship, and mentorship, and the romantic ideals we all follow deep into adulthood, not just about who we want to be with, but who we want to be.

To be admired by someone we admire - we all yearn for the private, electrifying pleasure of being singled out by someone of esteem. But sometimes it can also mean entry to a new kind of life, a bigger world.

Greer Kadetsky is a shy college freshman when she meets the woman she hopes will change her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly persuasive and elegant at sixty-three, has been a central pillar of the women's movement for decades, a figure who inspires others to influence the world. Upon hearing Faith speak for the first time, Greer—madly in love with her boyfriend, Cory, but still full of longing for an ambition that she can't quite place—feels her inner world light up. And then, astonishingly, Faith invites Greer to make something out of that sense of purpose, leading Greer down the most exciting path of her life as it winds toward and away from her meant-to-be love story with Cory and the future she'd always imagined.

Charming and wise, knowing and witty, Meg Wolitzer delivers a novel about power and influence, ego and loyalty, womanhood and ambition. At its heart, The Female Persuasion is about the flame we all believe is flickering inside of us, waiting to be seen and fanned by the right person at the right time. It's a story about the people who guide and the people who follow (and how those roles evolve over time), and the desire within all of us to be pulled into the light.]]>
464 Meg Wolitzer 0525533222 Amy 0 to-read 3.78 2018 The Female Persuasion
author: Meg Wolitzer
name: Amy
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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With the Fire on High 38739562
Still, she knows she doesn’t have enough time for her school’s new culinary arts class, doesn’t have the money for the class’s trip to Spain—and shouldn’t still be dreaming of someday working in a real kitchen. But even with all the rules she has for her life—and all the rules everyone expects her to play by—once Emoni starts cooking, her only real choice is to let her talent break free.]]>
395 Elizabeth Acevedo 0062662856 Amy 4 4.18 2019 With the Fire on High
author: Elizabeth Acevedo
name: Amy
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/04
date added: 2022/02/04
shelves:
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<![CDATA[A Sunlit Weapon (Maisie Dobbs, #17)]]> 58444861 In the latest installment of the New York Times bestselling series, a series of possible attacks on British pilots leads Jacqueline Winspear's beloved heroine Maisie Dobbs into a mystery involving First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

October 1942. Jo Hardy, a 22-year-old ferry pilot, is delivering a Supermarine Spitfire--the fastest fighter aircraft in the world--to Biggin Hill Aerodrome, when she realizes someone is shooting at her aircraft from the ground. Returning to the location on foot, she finds an American serviceman in a barn, bound and gagged. She rescues the man, who is handed over to the American military police; it quickly emerges that he is considered a suspect in the disappearance of a fellow soldier who is missing.

Tragedy strikes two days later, when another ferry pilot crashes in the same area where Jo's plane was attacked. At the suggestion of one of her colleagues, Jo seeks the help of psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs. Meanwhile, Maisie's husband, a high-ranking political attach� based at the American embassy, is in the thick of ensuring security is tight for the first lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt, during her visit to the Britain. There's already evidence that German agents have been circling: the wife of a president represents a high value target. Mrs. Roosevelt is clearly in danger, and there may well be a direct connection to the death of the woman ferry pilot and the recent activities of two American servicemen.

To guarantee the safety of the First Lady--and of the soldier being held in police custody--Maisie must uncover that connection. At the same time, she faces difficulties of an entirely different nature with her young daughter, Anna, who is experiencing wartime struggles of her own.]]>
358 Jacqueline Winspear 0063142260 Amy 0 to-read 4.13 2022 A Sunlit Weapon (Maisie Dobbs, #17)
author: Jacqueline Winspear
name: Amy
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:

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Mrs. Kimble 88385 Baker Towers, The Condition, and Faith, tells the story of Birdie, Joan, and Dinah, three women who marry the same charismatic, predatory, and enigmatic opportunist: Ken Kimble. Resonating with emotional intensity and narrative innovation reminiscent of Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Haigh’s Mrs. Kimble is a timeless story of grief, passion, heartache, deception, and the complex riddle of love.]]> 394 Jennifer Haigh 0060858788 Amy 0 to-read 3.65 2003 Mrs. Kimble
author: Jennifer Haigh
name: Amy
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Sanatorium (Detective Elin Warner, #1)]]> 56935099 You won't want to leave...until you can't.

Half hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.

An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept.

Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge--there's something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.

Elin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And she's the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in...]]>
390 Sarah Pearse 0593296672 Amy 0 to-read 3.33 2020 The Sanatorium (Detective Elin Warner, #1)
author: Sarah Pearse
name: Amy
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/04
shelves: to-read
review:

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