Fiction

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It's 1825, four generations after Berggrund Island's women stood accused of witchcraft under the eye of their priest, now long dead. In his place is Pastor Silas, a widower with two wild young daughters. As the girls come of age, and the strictures of the community shift but never wane, their rebellions twist and sharpen. When an enigmatic outsider arrives at their door, his presence threatens their family bond and unearths - piece by piece - a buried history to shocking ends.

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When eleven-year-old Avery begins transforming into an eye-rolling zombie of a preteen who dreads spending time with her dad, a desperate John whisks her away for a weeklong father-daughter retreat to get their relationship back on track. But John's attempts to bond only seem to drive his daughter further away. Even worse, John finds himself navigating a group of toxic dads that can't seem to get along, cringe-worthy forced bonding activities, and a camp director that has it out for him. With camp and summer break slipping away fast, John's determined to conquer it all for a chance to become Avery's hero again.

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When fifteen-year-old Ella Fitzgerald's mother dies at the height of the Depression in 1932, the teenager goes to work for the mob to support herself and her family. When the law finally catches up, the "ungovernable" adolescent is incarcerated in the New York Training School for Girls. Determined to be free, Ella escapes and makes her way back to Harlem. Looking for a break into show business, Ella appears at the Apollo Theater's Amateur Night on November 21, 1934. Four years later, at barely twenty-one, Ella Fitzgerald has become the bestselling female vocalist in America.

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"Felt is a novel about remembrance -- what memories we cannot forget and what memories we lose -- and the lengths to which we go to recover the forgotten and erase the unforgettable. Matthew, a Toronto museum curator, returns home to New Brunswick to his mother who is wrestling with the challenges of living alone at age ninety-six. As mother and son face the prognosis of her developing Alzheimer’s disease, the pair begin to unfold a family saga marked by ingenuity, creativity, and resilience. Matthew pieces together the untold story, spanning three generations and two World Wars, of a Norwegian sardine-packer -- his grandmother -- who founded a handicraft empire in Loyalist territory. At the same time, his mother rearranges her past, her memory spinning and embroidering family history. A heart-rending and powerful story of three generations of a family in a small Maritime town in which shared and contested memories are woven, unraveled, and rewoven."-- Provided by publisher

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"In 1486, Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers in Murano, Italy. As a woman, she is not meant to blow glass--but when her father dies, she teaches herself to make beads in secret, and her work becomes the cornerstone of the Rosso family fortunes. Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss, from a plague rearing its head over Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano and its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists. In every era, the Rosso women ensure that their work, and their bonds, endure"-- Provided by publisher

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Emma and Agathe are sisters. They were thick as thieves when they were young but have always been as different as can be. Their relationship as adults is scarred by a tragedy that transformed their happy, ordinary childhoods into something much more complex and challenging. For a long time, Emma hasn't wanted to be involved in Agathe's life. But then they must return together to the Basque Country, to the house of their adored grandmother, to empty out her home and in the process to reconcile, to remember, and to pour out what is in their hearts.

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Pacific Hills, California: the new home of the Shah family. For the Shah parents, who came to America twenty years earlier with little more than an education and their new marriage, this move represents the culmination of years of hard work and dreaming. For their children, born and raised in America, success is not so simple. One Saturday night, the twelve-year-old son is arrested. The fallout from that event will shake each family member's perception of themselves as individuals, as community members, as Americans.

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Austria, 1940s: Yugoslavian Nico Antonov is just one of more than 200,000 people imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp. SS officers have charged Spanish POW and photographer Mateo Baca with recording the events and prisoners of Mauthausen. Mateo creates copies to be smuggled out of the camp. Australia, 1980s to present day: when Hannah Campbell discovers her grandfather Nico's mysterious photo album, filled with horrific visions of suffering and cruelty, she comes to understand how the photos not only capture history but reflect a shared humanity that must never be forgotten.

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For twenty years, Penelope and the women of Ithaca have kept their isle safe. But now Odysseus has returned--in disguise--to plot revenge and test his queen's loyalty.

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1926. Washington, D.C. The Coast Guard is losing the Prohibition Rum War, but they have a new, secret weapon to crack smuggler codes, intercept traffic, and destroy the rum trade one skiff at a time. That secret weapon is a 5'2" mastermind in heels, who also happens to be a wife and mother: Mrs. Elizebeth Smith Friedman, one half of the husband-and-wife pair who invented cryptanalysis. Bahamas. Cleo Lythogoe, The Bahama Queen, announces her retirement while regaling the thugs at the bar with tales of murder and mayhem on the high seas. Marie Waite, listening in, knows an opportunity when she hears it, and she wants the crown for herself so badly she can taste it. So begins Marie's plan to rise as rumrunner royalty long enough to get her family in the black. But the more sophisticated her operation grows, the more she appears on the radar of the feds. Meanwhile, Elizebeth is the only codebreaker battling scores of smugglers. Despite the strain of solving thousands of intercepted messages, traveling the country, and testifying in court, Elizabeth's work becomes personal―especially when she discovers the identity of her premier adversary is the notorious Marie Waite. From the glamorous world of D.C. Intelligence to the sultry shores of the Straits of Florida, The Last Twelve Miles is based on the true story of two women masterminds trying to outwit each other in a dangerous and fascinating high stakes game.

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Kit McKinley is born of February 29th, 1916, and it becomes apparent as she grows that something is amiss, as Kit ages one year for every four. Her family must keep moving to keep Kit safe from reporters, Nazi scientists, and doctors, but when Kit finally reaches an age where she can pass as an adult, she has to decide who she can trust and if she wants to continue to live life on the run.

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1896. Florence is not so easy to tame - and when she brings scandal to her father's door, he throws her onto the streets of Manchester. Florence talks her way into the remote, forbidding Rose Hall to restore its collection of rare books. Lord Francis Belfield's library is old and full of secrets - but none so intriguing as the whispers about his late wife. Then one night, the library is broken into. Florence discovers a half-burned book in the fireplace. She realizes that someone has found and set fire to the secret diary of Lord Belfield's wife - which may hold the clue to her past.

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The Historian has inspired a young professor to search for her own truths, while trying to understand the way fiction creates fact and how sometimes the past can only be understood by filling in holes with a new narrative. Together the protégé and the Historian find comfort in each other. Part of their homeland's myth tells of four gods who squabbled and argued and destroyed and rebuilt time and again. By fabricating the exploits of the gods, he could have set a course for certain events to unfold and a particular story to survive today.

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As Malika, a communist resistance fighter, prepares to assassinate the new governor in a village in the recently independent India, she recognizes the man riding in the car and hesitates. The man is Rayappa, who Malika had first met five years earlier. Fifty years later, Rayappa, now living in Canada as Irwin Peter, receives a letter asking for information about Malika. The lingering legacy of the caste system, the brutal invasion of the kingdom of Hyderabad by the nascent Indian state, and the encounter between Irwin and Malika would all have profound consequences.

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Cate Winter is a wildly successful neuroscientist and entrepreneur. But Cate has a secret: she grew up at the Cleckley Institute, a treatment facility for the rehabilitation of psychopathic children. And, as far as she knows, she is the institute's only success. Then Cate discovers the existence of another ex-patient and outlier. Though his identity is confidential, she breaks the rules and drops everything to track him down. But in the wake of a mysterious death, Cate can't avoid suspecting him. Ruthless herself, she's about to find out whether there are any moral lines she won't cross.

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Just as Luke Daniels manages to extract his friend from a Russian prison, CIA case officer John Vince tragically dies and his final words are rambling and incoherent. But enough to plunge Luke into a hunt for something lost since the 15th century. The legendary library of the first Tsar of All Russia, Ivan the Terrible. Within that priceless collection of rare manuscripts is the key to unravelling a modern-day cipher and stopping a secret Soviet satellite program that still exists. Luke's mission is clear. Find the lost library, solve the puzzle, and prevent Red Star falling.

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1954: in the quaint town of Mendol, Oklahoma, Bailey Dowery is a Black dressmaker for the wives and daughters of local oil barons. She also has a deeper talent: the gift of insight. With just a fleeting touch, Bailey glimpses the other person's past and future. What Bailey's intuition uncovers when she touches Elsa Grimes's hand horrifies her. And when the son of a prominent family turns up dead on the eve of Elsa's wedding, and the bride-to-be is arrested for his murder, Bailey is suddenly at the centre of a firestorm that threatens to overtake her and everyone she loves.

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Twin sisters Dot and Dash Wilson share many things, and while they are practically inseparable, they are nothing alike. Determined to do their duty, Dash jumps at the opportunity to train as a pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary. Meanwhile, Dot is drawn into the Allies' preparations for D-Day. But Dot's loyalties are put to the test once more when someone close to her goes missing in Nazi-occupied territory. With everyone's eyes on Operation Overlord, Dot must use every skill at her disposal to save those she loves before it's too late.

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Spain, 1812. Richard Sharpe, the most brilliant - but the most wayward - soldier in the British army, finds himself faced with an impossible task. Two French armies march towards each other. If they meet, the British are lost. And only Sharpe - with just his cunning, his courage and a small band of rogues to rely on - stands in their way.

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Cecilia Lapthorne always vowed she'd never go back to Dune Cottage. So no one is more surprised than Cecilia to find herself escaping her own seventieth birthday party to return to the remote but beautiful cottage on Cape Cod. Unoccupied for years, for aspiring artist Lily, the cottage seemed the perfect place to hide away - until Cecilia unexpectedly arrives. Despite an awkward beginning, Lily accepts Cecilia's invitation to stay on as her guest, and a flicker of kinship ignites. As surely as the tide erases past footprints, this summer is offering both Cecilia and Lily the chance to swap old dreams for new.

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October 1502. As Cesare Borgia sets out to invade the Florentine Republic, Niccoı̀ʺ Machiavelli is sent to spy on him and to glean details of his nefarious plan. But when Borgia asks Machiavelli to write his life story, their bond gains complexity and nuance: ultimately, they both aspire to everlasting fame and to achieve it, they need each other, for the one's sword can only rule in eternity via the pen of the other.

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Amanda Peters describes the Indigenous experience from an astonishingly wide spectrum in time and place - from contact with the first European settlers, to the forced removal of Indigenous children, to the present-day fight for the right to clean water. A young man returns from residential school only to realize he can no longer communicate with his own parents. A young woman finds purpose and healing on the front lines as a water protector. An old man remembers his life as he patiently waits for death. And a young girl nervously dances in her first Mawi'omi.

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"1917. Halifax, Nova Scotia. Nora Crowell wants more than her sister's life as a wife and mother. As WWI rages across the Atlantic, she becomes a lieutenant in the Canadian Army Nursing Corps. But trouble is looming and it won't be long before the truth comes to light. Having lost her beloved husband in the trenches and with no-one else to turn to, Charlotte Campbell now lives with his haughty relations who treat her like the help. It is baby Aileen, the joy and light of her life, who spurs her to dream of a better life. When tragedy strikes in Halifax Harbour, nothing for these two women will ever be the same again. Their paths will cross in the most unexpected way, trailing both heartbreak and joy its wake..."--Publisher.

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Visiting a fortune teller before her wedding, Carla Carter, when it is revealed that a different man holds the key to her happiness, someone she met 21 years ago, she embarks on a journey to find her perfect match, hoping a face from her past will help break her family's curse.

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