Sheila Williams

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Pennsylvania

A Novel of the Spirited Women of the Six Triple Eight Central Postal Directory Battalion

The acclaimed author of The Secret Women and Things Past Telling returns with an engrossing historical novel about a little known aspect of World War II--the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only Black WACs to serve overseas during the conflict. In the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Dorothy Thom, Spelman graduate, librarian and Francophile, joins the Women's Army Corps wanting to do her part for the war effort. Longing for adventure, she has one question for the recruiter: "Do you think I'll get to go abroad?" As Dorothy and her sister WACs discover, life in the Army is an adventure filled with unexpected deprivations and culture shock. Women from all levels of society, secretaries, teachers, and sharecroppers, work together to navigate a military segregated by race and gender. At boot camp, the "colored girls" are separated for processing. At Ft. Riley, the women's barracks are rustic and heated by coal-burning pot-bellied stoves while German POWs spend their incarceration in buildings with central heat and hot water. In early 1945, Dorothy and eight hundred African American WACs cross the turbulent North Atlantic to their post in England. Their orders are to process the mail sent to GIs from their loved ones back home, an estimated 17 million pieces. The women arrive to find mail stockpiled for over two years in warehouses and airplane hangars, many pieces in poor condition, the names illegible. In England and France, the WACs traverse a landscape of unimagined possibilities. With their outlooks changed forever, they return to the United States as the catalysts for change in America and build lives that transcend anything their ancestors ever dreamed of. No Better Time illuminates a love of country and duty that has been overlooked until now.

No Better Time

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A. J. Pearce

A Novel

From the author of the bestselling "jaunty, heartbreaking winner" (People) Dear Mrs. Bird comes a charming and irresistible novel featuring plucky aspiring journalist Emmy Lake as she navigates life, love, and friendship in London during World War II.

London, April 1943. A little over a year since she married Captain Charles Mayhew and he went away to war, Emmy Lake is now in charge of "Yours Cheerfully," the hugely popular advice column in Woman's Friend magazine. Cheered on by her best friend Bunty, Emmy is dedicated to helping readers face the increasing challenges brought about by over three years of war. The postbags are full and Woman's Friend is thriving.

But Emmy's world is turned upside down when glamorous socialite, the Honorable Mrs. Cressida Porter, becomes the new publisher of the magazine, and wants to change everything the readers love. Aided by Mrs. Pye, a Paris-obsessed fashion editor with delusions of grandeur, and Small Winston, the grumpiest dog in London, Mrs. Porter fills the pages with expensive clothes and frivolous articles about her friends. Worst of all, she announces that she is cutting the "Yours Cheerfully" column and her vision for the publication's future seems dire. With the stakes higher than ever, Emmy and her friends must find a way to save the magazine that they love.

Heartwarming, funny, and joyfully uplifting, the third novel in the Emmy Lake Chronicles is a moving tribute to friendship and overcoming adversity.

Mrs. Porter Calling

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Max Ludington

"Now in his late-sixties, Daniel lives in quiet anonymity in a converted guest cottage in the Hollywood Hills. A legendary artist, he's known for one seminal work-Thorn Tree-a hulking, welded, scrap metal sculpture that he built in the Mojave desert in the 1970s. The work emerged from tragedy, but building it kept Daniel alive and catapulted him to brief, reluctant fame in the art world. Daniel is neighbors with Celia, a charismatic but fragile actress. She too experienced youthful fame, hers in a popular television series, but saw her life nearly collapse after a series of bad decisions. Now, a new movie with a notorious director might reignite her career. A single mother, Celia leaves her young son Dean for weeks at a time with her father, Jack, who stays at her house while she's on location. Jack and Daniel strike up a tentative friendship as Dean takes to visiting Daniel's cottage--but something about Jack seems off. Discomfiting, strangely intimate, with flashes of anger balanced by an almost philosophical bent, Jack is not the harmless grandparent he pretends to be."--

Thorn Tree

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Toni Bentley

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

A Balanchine Story

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

Serenade

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Christine Blasey Ford

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

A Memoir

The compelling true story behind the testimony that awed the nation On September 27, 2018, Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee which was considering the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court. She described an alleged sexual assault by the Supreme Court nominee that took place at a high school party in the 1980s. Her words and courage on that day provided some of the most credible and unforgettable testimony our country has ever witnessed. In One Way Back, Ford recounts the months she spent trying to get information into the right hands without exposing herself and her family to dangerous backlash. Drawing parallels to her life as a surfer, she explains the process of paddling out into unknown waters despite the risks and fears, knowing there is only one way back to shore. The book reveals riveting new details about the leadup to her testimony and its overwhelming aftermath and describes how she continues to navigate her way out of the storm. This is the real story behind the headlines and the soundbites, a complex, page-turning memoir of a scientist, a surfer, a mother, a patriot and an unlikely whistleblower. Ford’s experience shows that when one person steps forward to speak truth to power, she adds to a collective whole, causing "a ripple that might one day become a wave.”

One Way Back

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Kate Quinn

Janie Chang

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

From bestselling authors Janie Chang and Kate Quinn, a thrilling and unforgettable narrative about the intertwined lives of two wronged women, spanning from the chaos of the San Francisco earthquake to the glittering palaces of Versailles. San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage. Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing's fallen Summer Palace. His patronage offers Gemma and Suling the chance of a lifetime, but their lives are thrown into turmoil when a devastating earthquake rips San Francisco apart and Thornton disappears, leaving behind a mystery reaching further than anyone could have imagined . . . until the Phoenix Crown reappears five years later at a sumptuous Paris costume ball, drawing Gemma and Suling together in one last desperate quest for justice.

The Phoenix Crown

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Lindsay Starck

A poignant and evocative novel that explores the bounds of familial love, the high stakes of parenthood, and the tenuous divide between fiction and reality. Thirteen years ago, Sylvia Gray's young daughter, Faye, attacked her babysitter in order to impress the Kingman, a monster she and her best friend had encountered on the Internet. When the now twenty-three-year-old Faye goes missing, leaving her toddler behind, Sylvia launches a search that propels her back into the past and back into the Kingman's orbit. With the help of her estranged husband and a sister she hasn't spoken to in years, Sylvia draws dangerously closer not only to Faye, but also to the truth about the monster that once inspired her. Will Sylvia be able to reach her daughter before history repeats itself? Or will it be Sylvia, this time, who loses her grip on reality and succumbs to the dark powers of this monstrous fiction? Both literary and suspenseful, Monsters We Have Made confronts the terrors of parenthood and examines the boundaries of love. Most importantly, it reminds us of the power of stories to shape our lives.

Monsters We Have Made

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Ben Katt

Discovering the Hero's Journey to Wholeness at Midlife

The Way Home

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Helen Garner

Rumaan Alam

A masterful novel chronicling the steady unraveling of a content, yet cloistered suburban family, seduced by the counterculture of the 1980s "The Children’s Bach is [Garner’s] masterpiece."—Public Books Helen Garner has been a literary institution in Australia for decades. Her perfectly formed novels embodied Australia’s tumultuous 70s and 80s, and her incisive nonfiction evokes the keen eye of the New Journalists. The Atlantic dubbed her “the Joan Didion of Australia.” Now, The Children’s Bach, the beloved work that solidified her place among the masters of modern international letters, is available in a new US edition. The Children’s Bach follows Dexter and Athena Fox, a husband and wife who live with their two sons in the inner suburbs of early-1980s Melbourne. Dexter is gregarious, opinionated, and old fashioned. Athena is a dutiful wife and mother, stoic yet underestimated. Though their son’s disability strains the family at times, they appear to lead otherwise happy lives. But when a friend from Dexter’s past resurfaces, she and her cast of beguiling companions reveal another world to Dexter and Athena: a bohemian underground, unbound by routine and driven by desire, where choice seems to exist independent of consequence. And as Athena delves deeper into this other kind of life, the tenuous bonds that hold the Fox family together begin to fray. Painted on a small canvas and with a subtle musical backdrop, The Children’s Bach is “a jewel” among Garner’s revered catalog (Ben Lerner), a finely etched masterpiece that weighs the burdens of commitment against the costs of liberation.

The Children's Bach

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Mark Divine

Simple Principles for an Extraordinary Life

From former Navy SEAL, entrepreneur, father, and New York Times bestselling author Mark Divine comes Uncommon– an inspirational book following Mark Divine's trademark warrior monk philosophy that will lead you to the summit of personal development. To be common is to be an everyday person. It's to do the things that you are expected to do, whether that's what your parents want for you, or your employer, or your spouse, et cetera. But if you want to be more than you are, more than you think you can be, then you need to recognize and learn from your mistakes to lead a life of excellence. As an elite Navy SEAL, entrepreneur, author, speaker, professor of leadership, and philanthropist, as well as the creator of SEALFIT, Kokoro Yoga, and Unbeatable Mind, Mark Divine uses years of wisdom, business development, martial arts, eastern philosophy and military experience to take you through life's most important principles for finding your pursuit of excellence--so that you or anyone with the proper motivation can become uncommon.

Uncommon

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Rachel Ryan

"A domestic thriller about a nanny whose new job working for a picture-perfect family is not everything it seems"--

Someone You Trust

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Sarah Weinman

The Story of a Murder Trial

The engrossing true-crime classic from one of Australia’s most acclaimed writers "This House of Grief, in its restraint and control, bears comparison with In Cold Blood."—Kate Atkinson, author of Big Sky and Shrines of Gaiety On the evening of Father’s Day, 2005, separated husband Robert Farquharson was driving his three young sons back to their mom’s house when the car veered off the road and plunged into a dam. Farquharson survived the crash, but his boys drowned. Was this a tragic accident, or an act of revenge? The court case that followed became a national obsession—a macabre parade of witnesses, family members, and the defendant himself, each forced to relive the unthinkable for an audience of millions. In This House of Grief, celebrated writer Helen Garner tells the definitive and deeply absorbing story of it all, from crash to final verdict. Through a panoply of perspectives, including her own as a member of the public, Garner captures the exacting procedure and brutal spectacle of Australia’s criminal justice system. The result is a richly textured portrait—of a man and his broken life, of a community wracked by tragedy, and of the long and torturous road to closure. Considered a literary institution in Australia, Helen Garner’s incisive nonfiction evokes the keen eye of the New Journalists. Brisk, candid, and never dismissive of its flawed subjects, This House of Grief is a masterwork of literary journalism.

This House of Grief

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Pamela M. Kelley

One summer can change everything. Brooklyn-based Hannah is a bestselling author struggling to write her second book after personal losses. Her older sister, Sara, still lives in Chatham, Cape Cod, where they grew up, and is married with four children. Once a dedicated librarian, Sara dreams of reviving her love affair with literature, but instead, she is stuck with too many family responsibilities and a fizzling marriage. When Hannah gets the chance to retreat to her aunt's oceanfront house in Chatham for the summer, it seems like just the thing to get her creative juices flowing. And she’ll be able to spend more time with Sara, who is eager to find her way back into the workforce, to do something rewarding and book-related. The pair will spend the summer making friends, rekindling romance— especially Spencer, an old acquaintance from high school-turned very hot grump— and opening themselves up to the magic of books and the beach. Perfect for fans of Mary Kay Andrews, Susan Mallery and Brenda Novak, The Seaside Sisters will delight and charm you as easily as an ocean breeze.

The Seaside Sisters

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Jodi M. Savage

Essays on Mothers and Daughters and the Things They Leave Behind

Reminiscent of The Year of Magical Thinking and Somebody's Daughter, a deeply empathetic and often humorous collection of essays that explore the author's ever-changing relationships with her grandmother and mother, through sickness and health, as they experience the joys and challenges of Black American womanhood. Jodi M. Savage was raised in Brooklyn, New York, by her maternal grandmother. Her whip-smart, charismatic mother struggled with addiction and was unable to care for her. Granny--a fiery Pentecostal preacher who had a way with words--was Jodi's rock, until Alzheimer's disease turned the tables, and a 28-year-old Jodi stepped into the role of caretaker. It was up to Jodi to get them both through the devastations of a deteriorating mind. After Granny passed away, Jodi spent years trying to reckon with her grief. Jodi and her mother were both diagnosed with breast cancer nearly a decade later, and then Jodi lost her too. In this searing, candid collection of essays, Jodi illuminates the roles that identity and memory play in preserving those we love. Jodi explores the lives of modern Black women and communities through the prism of her personal experiences. With grace, creativity, and insight, she looks at femininity, family, race, mental illness, grief, healthcare, and faith. Jodi deftly portrays how trauma is inherited, and how the struggle to break a generational curse can last a lifetime. The Death of a Jaybird is a thoughtful examination of complicated family love, loss, and the liberating power of claiming our stories.

The Death of a Jaybird

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Jenny Adams

A serial killer is on the loose in Jazz Age Philadelphia in Jenny Adams’ debut historical mystery, perfect for fans of Deanna Raybourn and Rhys Bowen. Philadelphia, 1921. When Edie Shippen returns home after spending years in California recovering from Influenza, she’s shocked to discover that her childhood sweetheart is engaged to her twin sister. Heartbroken and adrift, Edie vows to begin living her life as a modern woman—and to hell with anyone who gets in her way. But as young women start to disappear from the city, her newfound independence begins to feel dangerous. Gilbert Lawless returned home from the Great War a shell of his former self. He hides away in the office of Philadelphia’s Coroner, content to keep to himself until a gruesome series of corpses come into the morgue. And when his sister, Lizzie, goes missing, he risks his career to beg help from the one person Lizzie seemed to trust: her employer, Edie Shippen. Fearing the worst, Edie and Gilbert desperately search for clues. It soon becomes clear that Lizzie’s disappearance is connected to the deaths rocking the City of Brotherly Love… and it’s only a matter of time until the killer strikes again. With a lush Roaring Twenties setting and a wickedly smart sleuth to cheer for, A Deadly Endeavor is the perfect puzzling romp for fans of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries.

A Deadly Endeavor

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Dolly Alderton

Collected Wisdom

"One of the foremost 'it' writers of our time. . . . There is no writer quite like Dolly."--Lisa Taddeo, author of #1 New York Times bestseller Three Women "Nora Ephron for the millennial generation."--Elizabeth Day, author of How to Fail and The Party Advice and answers to your questions about dating, love, sex, family, friendship and more from the author of Everything I Know About Love and longtime Sunday Times Style columnist For years, New York Times bestselling author Dolly Alderton has been sharing her wisdom, warmth, and wit with the diverse universe of fans who have turned to her "Dear Dolly" column seeking guidance on a host of life problems. Dolly has thoughtfully answered questions ranging from the painfully--and sometimes hilariously--relatable to the occasionally bizarre. They include breakups and body issues, families, relationships platonic and romantic, dating, divorce, the pleasures and pitfalls of social media, sex, loneliness, longing, love and everything in between. Without judgement, and with deep empathy informed by her own, much-chronicled adventures with love, friends, and dating, Dolly helps us navigate the labyrinths of life. In this wonderful collection, she brings together her collected knowledge in one invaluable volume that will make you think, make you laugh, and help you confront any conundrum or crisis.

Dear Dolly

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Alexandra Potter

"The new Bridget Jones for our time."-- Telegraph The funniest WTF AM I DOING?! story of the year--a novel for any woman who wonders how the hell she got here and why life isn't quite how she imagined it was going to be. The inspiration for NOT DEAD YET, ABC's "Most Watched Comedy Debut in More Than Four Years" (Deadline) Meet Nell. Her life is a mess. In a world of perfect Instagram lives, she feels like a f**k up. While she's desperately trying to figure it all out, everyone around her is making gluten-free brownies. But when she starts a secret podcast and forms an unlikely friendship with Cricket, an eighty-something widow, something unexpected happens--her life begins to change. Because Nell is determined. This time next year things will be very different. First, though, she has a confession . . . Full of laughter and a few tears, Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up is a novel for everyone who feels like they have no idea what they're doing (that is, all of us). Warm, witty, wise, it reminds us that we're not alone--we're all in this together.

Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up

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Alexander McCall Smith

No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (24)

The latest installment in Alexander McCall Smith's delightfully diverting No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, in which all of Mma Ramotswe's tact, affability, and good sense will be required to disentangle a delicate dispute “An escape from life’s woes as well as a suggestion for how to make the whole deal more palatable—fragility, fruit cake, and all.” —The Boston Globe This latest installment of the beloved No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series finds Botswana's premier detective agency as busy as ever, with no shortage of sensitve situations requiring Mma Ramotswe's keen eye and discerning input. Through it all, Mma Ramotswe will demonstrate that there are solutions to all manner of difficulties, there to be discovered as long as one is led by kindness, grace, and logic, and can rely on the wise counsel of close friends and loved ones. Sometimes, she reminds us, the best solutions to life's problems can be found with a bit of good humor, generosity of spirit, and a steaming cup of red bush tea.

From a Far and Lovely Country

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Mona Chollet

Susan Emanuel

How the Patriarchy Sabotages Heterosexual Relations

A new work by the author of “In Defense of Witches” that seeks to redefine heterosexual relationships and give women back their voice. As feminist principles have taken wider hold in society, and basic ideas about equality for women can seem a given, many women still struggle in one of the most important areas of life: love. Whether it’s finding a partner, seeking a commitment from one, or struggling in a relationship that is unfulfilling or even potentially abusive, women still find that deeply-engrained notions of gender and behavior can be obstacles to a healthy, loving relationship. In her new book, acclaimed French feminist Mona Chollet tackles some of these long-held and pervasive ideas that remain stumbling blocks for many women in heterosexual relationships. Drawing from popular culture, politics, and literature, Reinventing Love provides a provocative, accessible look at how heterosexual relationships can improve and evolve under a feminist lens.

Reinventing Love

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Mercury

Julien Saunders

Kiersten Saunders

Win the Wealth Game by Walking Away

Most of us are told to follow the same script: work hard, make money, save, and invest. Yet you end up making less than your White colleagues, routinely passed up for career opportunities, all while navigating racist hiring practices, and skewed wages. It's almost as if the corporate ladder is rigged against Black People. The truth is, you'll never win the wealth game playing by corporate America's rules. To win, you have to walk away and take up an entirely new model. Cashing Out shows you how to open the door to a new kind of prosperity both for yourself and for Black People everywhere.

Cashing Out

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Aimée Carter

The second book in the Royal Blood series about an American girl who threatens the royal family by exposing their darkest scandals—even as they get more sinister. American girl turned monarchy nightmare, Evan Bright, has gotten used to the press about her but the media attention has only seemed to get worse. From desperate clickbait articles about her and the President's son to Royal Record headlines pitting her against Princess Maisie, it seems everyone is dying for Evan to return back to America for good. Meanwhile Evan is receiving mysterious threats about her real story being reveiled in a tell-all biography. When more information is leaked about Evan, she fears she will always be Britain's media villain. But the threats escalate when there is an attempted assassination with no suspects...and Evan believes the person is in the palace's walls. They say what doesn't kill you will make you stronger...but what if it's the royal family who wants you dead?

Royal Scandal

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Olivia Blacke

The Record Shop Mysteries

Third in the oh-so-smooth Record Shop series by Olivia Blacke, Rhythm and Clues is a mystery that will have you dancing along. It's raining murder It's been five whole months since the last murder in Cedar River, Texas and sisters Juni, Tansy, and Maggie have settled into a routine. Their struggling vinyl records shop/coffee nook, Sip & Spin Records has attracted the attention of predatory investors, but the Jessup sisters have no intention of selling. When the pushy finance bro is killed outside their shop during a torrential Texas Thunderstorm that's washed out all the roads in and out of town, they find themselves trapped in town with a killer. Without power, Sip & Spin Records is relying on generators to provide great tunes and tasty beverages like Since U Bean Gone to a town thirsty for entertainment. When the river spits out an unexpected surprise, Detective Beau Russell asks for Juni's help, never imagining that her investigation will lead her straight into the clutches of a murderer. Up until now, the Jessup sisters have been playing it by ear, but with the whole town watching, can they catch a killer before he strikes again?

Rhythm and Clues

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Julie Abe

When a love potion gone wrong causes Cam to forget his best friend Remy completely, they travel through Tokyo to rediscover his memories, make new ones, and maybe even fall in love all over again.

Our Cursed Love

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Olivia Fink

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