New Releases: June 14th, 2016
NEW RELEASES IN HARDCOVER
THE AUDACIOUS CRIMES OF COLONEL BLOOD: The Spy Who Stole the Crown Jewels and Became the King's Secret Agent by Robert Hutchinson
One morning in May 1671, a man disguised as a parson daringly attempted to seize the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Astonishingly, he managed to escape with the regalia and crown before being apprehended. And yet he was not executed for treason. Instead, the king granted him a generous income, and he became a familiar strutting figure in the royal court's glittering state apartments. This man was Colonel Thomas Blood, a notorious turncoat and fugitive from justice. Historian Robert Hutchinson paints a vivid portrait of a double agent bent on ambiguous political and personal motivation. History
BARKSKINS by Annie Proulx
In the late 17th century, two penniless young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord for three years in exchange for land, they become woodcutters --- barkskins. Sel suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a Mi’kmaw woman, and their descendants live trapped between two inimical cultures. But Duquet runs away, becomes a fur trader and sets up a timber business. Annie Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over 300 years, the revenge of rivals, accidents, pestilence, Indian attacks and cultural annihilation. Historical Fiction
THE GIRLS by Emma Cline
At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park and is immediately caught by their freedom and dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, she is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic and thrilling --- a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence. Psychological Thriller
A HOUSE FULL OF DAUGHTERS: A Memoir of Seven Generations by Juliet Nicolson
All families have their myths and legends. For many years, Juliet Nicolson accepted hers --- the dangerous beauty of her flamenco-dancing great-great-grandmother Pepita, the flirty manipulation of her great-grandmother Victoria, the infamous eccentricity of her grandmother Vita Sackville-West, her mother’s Tory-conventional background. But then Juliet, a distinguished historian, started to question. As she did so, she sifted fact from fiction, uncovering details and secrets long held just out of sight. Memoir
MURDER ON THE QUAI: An Aimée Leduc Investigation by Cara Black
November 1989: Aimée Leduc is in her first year of college at Paris’s preeminent medical school. She lives in a 17th-century apartment that overlooks the Seine with her father, who runs the family detective agency. But the week the Berlin Wall crumbles, so does Aimée’s life as she knows it. First, someone has sabotaged her lab work, putting her at risk of failing out of the program. Her father takes off to Berlin on a mysterious errand and asks Aimée to help out at the detective agency while he’s gone. But the case Aimée finds herself investigating --- a murder linked to a transport truck of Nazi gold that disappeared in the French countryside during the height of World War II --- has gotten under her skin. Mystery
THE WHALE: A Love Story by Mark Beauregard
In the summer of 1850, Herman Melville finds himself hounded by creditors and afraid his writing career might be coming to an end. His last three novels have been commercial failures, and the critics have turned against him. In despair, Melville takes his family for a vacation to his cousin’s farm in the Berkshires, where he meets Nathaniel Hawthorne at a picnic --- and his life turns upside down. THE WHALE chronicles the fervent love affair that grows out of that serendipitous afternoon. The two develop a deep connection marked by tensions and estrangements, and feelings both shared and suppressed. Historical Fiction
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN: In the Service of My Country: A Life by James Lee McDonough
General Sherman’s 1864 burning of Atlanta solidified his legacy as a ruthless leader. Yet he proved far more complex than his legendary military tactics reveal. James Lee McDonough offers fresh insight into a man tormented by the fear that history would pass him by, who was plagued by personal debts, and who lived much of his life separated from his family. As a soldier, Sherman evolved from a spirited student at West Point into a general who steered the Civil War’s most decisive campaigns. Lamenting casualties, Sherman sought the war’s swift end by devastating Southern resources in the Carolinas and on his famous March to the Sea. Biography
NEW RELEASES IN PAPERBACK
A GREAT AND TERRIBLE KING: Edward I and the Forging of Britain by Marc Morris
Marc Morris examines afresh the forces that drove Edward I throughout his relentless career: his character, his Christian faith, and his sense of England's destiny --- a sense shaped in particular by the tales of the legendary King Arthur. He also explores the competing reasons that led Edward's opponents (including Robert Bruce) to resist him. The result is a sweeping story, immaculately researched yet compellingly told, and a vivid picture of medieval Britain at the moment when its future was decided. Biography / History
IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME by Beth Harbison
Ramie Phillips has led a very successful life, but she isn't necessarily happy. On a boat with friends, she tries to fight her feelings of discontent with steel will and hard liquor. No one even notices as she goes to the diving board and dives off. Ramie finds herself back on the eve of her 18th birthday, with a second chance to see the people she's lost and change the choices she regrets. How did she get back here? Is she really back in time? Above all, she'll have to answer the question that no one else can: What it is that she really wants from the past, and for her future? Fiction
THE MERMAID’S SECRET by Katie Schickel
Life on land is suffocating for Jess Creary, who wastes her summers flipping burgers for tourists on a fishing boat. After all, her older sister Kay died in a boating accident two years ago, her mother has disappeared, and her father isn't exactly dealing with things so well. Surfing and the handsome Captain Matthew are about the only bright spots in her life. When Jess catches the perfect wave on her 23rd birthday, she transforms into a mermaid and is reborn into a confident, powerful predator with superhuman strength. Now, she has 30 days to choose between land and sea; legs and fins; her humanity and her freedom. Fiction
SAINT MAZIE by Jami Attenberg
Mazie Phillips is the truth-telling proprietress of The Venice, the famed New York City movie theater. When the Great Depression hits, she opens the doors of The Venice to those in need, becoming the beating heart of the Lower East Side. More than 90 years after Mazie began her diary, it is discovered by a documentarian in search of a good story. Who was Mazie Phillips, really? A chorus of voices from the past and present fill in some of the mysterious blanks of her adventurous life. Historical Fiction
THE TRUTH ACCORDING TO US by Annie Barrows
In the summer of 1938, Layla Beck’s father, a United States senator, cuts off her allowance and demands that she find employment on the Federal Writers’ Project, a New Deal jobs program. Within days, Layla has been assigned to cover the history of the remote mill town of Macedonia, West Virginia. But once she secures a room in the home of the unconventional Romeyn family, she is drawn into their complex world and soon discovers that the truth of the town is entangled in the thorny past of the Romeyn dynasty. Historical Fiction
Peeking into the archives...today in:
2015: My Bonny Light Horseman (Bloody Jack #6) by L. A. Meyer
2014:
2013: News: The avant-garde art of book stacking in stores of Japan
2012: The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer
2011: Fashionista Piranha will be on hiatus for a while…
2010: The Boleyn Wife by Brandy Purdy
2009: Summary: Book Reviews from January - May 2009
THE AUDACIOUS CRIMES OF COLONEL BLOOD: The Spy Who Stole the Crown Jewels and Became the King's Secret Agent by Robert Hutchinson
One morning in May 1671, a man disguised as a parson daringly attempted to seize the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Astonishingly, he managed to escape with the regalia and crown before being apprehended. And yet he was not executed for treason. Instead, the king granted him a generous income, and he became a familiar strutting figure in the royal court's glittering state apartments. This man was Colonel Thomas Blood, a notorious turncoat and fugitive from justice. Historian Robert Hutchinson paints a vivid portrait of a double agent bent on ambiguous political and personal motivation. History
BARKSKINS by Annie Proulx
In the late 17th century, two penniless young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord for three years in exchange for land, they become woodcutters --- barkskins. Sel suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a Mi’kmaw woman, and their descendants live trapped between two inimical cultures. But Duquet runs away, becomes a fur trader and sets up a timber business. Annie Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over 300 years, the revenge of rivals, accidents, pestilence, Indian attacks and cultural annihilation. Historical Fiction
THE GIRLS by Emma Cline
At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park and is immediately caught by their freedom and dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, she is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic and thrilling --- a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence. Psychological Thriller
A HOUSE FULL OF DAUGHTERS: A Memoir of Seven Generations by Juliet Nicolson
All families have their myths and legends. For many years, Juliet Nicolson accepted hers --- the dangerous beauty of her flamenco-dancing great-great-grandmother Pepita, the flirty manipulation of her great-grandmother Victoria, the infamous eccentricity of her grandmother Vita Sackville-West, her mother’s Tory-conventional background. But then Juliet, a distinguished historian, started to question. As she did so, she sifted fact from fiction, uncovering details and secrets long held just out of sight. Memoir
MURDER ON THE QUAI: An Aimée Leduc Investigation by Cara Black
November 1989: Aimée Leduc is in her first year of college at Paris’s preeminent medical school. She lives in a 17th-century apartment that overlooks the Seine with her father, who runs the family detective agency. But the week the Berlin Wall crumbles, so does Aimée’s life as she knows it. First, someone has sabotaged her lab work, putting her at risk of failing out of the program. Her father takes off to Berlin on a mysterious errand and asks Aimée to help out at the detective agency while he’s gone. But the case Aimée finds herself investigating --- a murder linked to a transport truck of Nazi gold that disappeared in the French countryside during the height of World War II --- has gotten under her skin. Mystery
THE WHALE: A Love Story by Mark Beauregard
In the summer of 1850, Herman Melville finds himself hounded by creditors and afraid his writing career might be coming to an end. His last three novels have been commercial failures, and the critics have turned against him. In despair, Melville takes his family for a vacation to his cousin’s farm in the Berkshires, where he meets Nathaniel Hawthorne at a picnic --- and his life turns upside down. THE WHALE chronicles the fervent love affair that grows out of that serendipitous afternoon. The two develop a deep connection marked by tensions and estrangements, and feelings both shared and suppressed. Historical Fiction
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN: In the Service of My Country: A Life by James Lee McDonough
General Sherman’s 1864 burning of Atlanta solidified his legacy as a ruthless leader. Yet he proved far more complex than his legendary military tactics reveal. James Lee McDonough offers fresh insight into a man tormented by the fear that history would pass him by, who was plagued by personal debts, and who lived much of his life separated from his family. As a soldier, Sherman evolved from a spirited student at West Point into a general who steered the Civil War’s most decisive campaigns. Lamenting casualties, Sherman sought the war’s swift end by devastating Southern resources in the Carolinas and on his famous March to the Sea. Biography
NEW RELEASES IN PAPERBACK
A GREAT AND TERRIBLE KING: Edward I and the Forging of Britain by Marc Morris
Marc Morris examines afresh the forces that drove Edward I throughout his relentless career: his character, his Christian faith, and his sense of England's destiny --- a sense shaped in particular by the tales of the legendary King Arthur. He also explores the competing reasons that led Edward's opponents (including Robert Bruce) to resist him. The result is a sweeping story, immaculately researched yet compellingly told, and a vivid picture of medieval Britain at the moment when its future was decided. Biography / History
IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME by Beth Harbison
Ramie Phillips has led a very successful life, but she isn't necessarily happy. On a boat with friends, she tries to fight her feelings of discontent with steel will and hard liquor. No one even notices as she goes to the diving board and dives off. Ramie finds herself back on the eve of her 18th birthday, with a second chance to see the people she's lost and change the choices she regrets. How did she get back here? Is she really back in time? Above all, she'll have to answer the question that no one else can: What it is that she really wants from the past, and for her future? Fiction
THE MERMAID’S SECRET by Katie Schickel
Life on land is suffocating for Jess Creary, who wastes her summers flipping burgers for tourists on a fishing boat. After all, her older sister Kay died in a boating accident two years ago, her mother has disappeared, and her father isn't exactly dealing with things so well. Surfing and the handsome Captain Matthew are about the only bright spots in her life. When Jess catches the perfect wave on her 23rd birthday, she transforms into a mermaid and is reborn into a confident, powerful predator with superhuman strength. Now, she has 30 days to choose between land and sea; legs and fins; her humanity and her freedom. Fiction
SAINT MAZIE by Jami Attenberg
Mazie Phillips is the truth-telling proprietress of The Venice, the famed New York City movie theater. When the Great Depression hits, she opens the doors of The Venice to those in need, becoming the beating heart of the Lower East Side. More than 90 years after Mazie began her diary, it is discovered by a documentarian in search of a good story. Who was Mazie Phillips, really? A chorus of voices from the past and present fill in some of the mysterious blanks of her adventurous life. Historical Fiction
THE TRUTH ACCORDING TO US by Annie Barrows
In the summer of 1938, Layla Beck’s father, a United States senator, cuts off her allowance and demands that she find employment on the Federal Writers’ Project, a New Deal jobs program. Within days, Layla has been assigned to cover the history of the remote mill town of Macedonia, West Virginia. But once she secures a room in the home of the unconventional Romeyn family, she is drawn into their complex world and soon discovers that the truth of the town is entangled in the thorny past of the Romeyn dynasty. Historical Fiction
Peeking into the archives...today in:
2015: My Bonny Light Horseman (Bloody Jack #6) by L. A. Meyer
2014:
2013: News: The avant-garde art of book stacking in stores of Japan
2012: The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer
2011: Fashionista Piranha will be on hiatus for a while…
2010: The Boleyn Wife by Brandy Purdy
2009: Summary: Book Reviews from January - May 2009