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  Amherst

  William Nicholson

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  Alice Dickinson, a young advertising executive in London, decides to take time off work to research her idea for a screenplay: the true story of the scandalous, adulterous love affair that took place between a young, Amherst college faculty wife, Mabel Loomis Todd, and the college's treasurer, Austin Dickinson, in the 1880s. Austin, twenty-four years Mabel's senior and married, was the brother of the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson, whose house provided the setting for Austin and Mabel's trysts. Alice travels to Amherst, staying in the house of Nick Crocker, a married English academic in his fifties. As Alice researches Austin and Mabel's story and Emily's role in their affair, she embarks on her own affair with Nick, an affair that, of course, they both know echoes the affair that she's writing about in her screenplay.

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  On Leaving Charleston

  Alexandra Ripley

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  This installment of Alexandra Ripley's Old South saga—             begun in the bestselling Charleston—              traces the lives of the prominent South Carolina Tradd family from the turn of the century to 1935. From an ugly duckling love child, Garden Tradd became the glorious belle her mother, Margaret, had longed to be. With breathtaking abandon and dazzling innocence, Garden dances through Paris, London, and New York as the twenties roar—             until betrayal turns the glitter to bitter ash—             until vengeful secrets of the past send her home to Charleston, a city waiting to embrace its own or exact revenge.

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  Pomegranate Seed

  Amanda Cockrell

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  Elizabeth Sydney, Oscar-winning grande dame of Hollywood, known to friends as Liza Jane, is 80. She “isn’t ready to go. She doubts she ever will be, but she feels the tug as if someone is trying to hand her a rail ticket and the crowd is pushing her down the platform. So she’s making her will again, because this time she knows what she wants to say.”   An assortment of family and friends assemble for the funeral, leading to the spontaneous combustion that only the forced gathering of movie actors, directors, old and new flames, a rock star, and post-divorce combatants can produce.   Libby Novak, Liza Jane’s niece, returns to the turbulent and ephemeral world that encompassed her youth. Alex Murray, a Pittsburgh cop, has his life upended when he is named one of Liza Jane’s heirs. Producer Ben Zenovich and screenwriter Mike Rosen arrive, dragging a reluctant Frank Hill (box office gold, in the middle of a nasty divorce, and one of Liza Jane’s former lovers) behind them. Liza Jane herself is revealed through reminiscences and a series of flashbacks from the days of silent film through the blacklisting of the McCarthy era, and beyond.

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  The End of Asquith - The Downing...

  Michael Byrne

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  London, December 1916. In the middle of the world's most deadly war, a political coup grips Westminster. The carnage of the Somme, the failure of the Dardanelles campaign, and the Easter Rising in Dublin have all left Britain's coalition government in disarray. The press is in open revolt and the prime minister, Herbert Asquith, is under sustained attack from political opponents and key members of his own party. Against this backdrop of mounting chaos, four politicians meet to consider their options. Edward Carson, militant Ulster Unionist and former Conservative attorney-general. Max Aitken, the future Lord Beaverbrook, now a backbench Conservative MP and journalist. Andrew Bonar Law, leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party. And - most dangerous of all - David Lloyd George, the Liberal War Secretary. Over three weeks in the dying days of 1916 these four men engineer a stunning political coup. They force the prime minister to resign. The End of Asquith is a historically faithful, ?ctionalised account of Herbert Asquith's last days in office. It shows the prime minister slowly realising the emerging threat to his position and dealing with the concerns of his wife Margot, the friendship of those who stay loyal to him throughout the crisis, and the alarm of the king as his government collapses just as the war enters its most dangerous phase. An intimate and moving portrait of a politician facing the end of his long career, The End of Asquith recounts the dramatic removal from office of the last leader of a Liberal government in England.

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  The White Company

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  Set during the Hundred Years' War with France, The White Company tells the story of a young Saxon man who is learning what it is to be a knight. Raised by Cistercian Monks and rejected by a violent elder brother, Alleyn Edricson takes service with one of the foremost knights in the country. When Alleyn falls in love with the knight's daughter, he must prove himself to be a courageous and honourable knight before he can win her hand. Alleyn and his friends set forth with the other men-at-arms to join Prince Edward in Bordeaux, from where they will take part in the Prince's campaign into Spain. It is in Spain that Alleyn and others must prove themselves to be very valiant and hardy cavaliers. (Summary by Clive Catterall)

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  Victus - The Fall of Barcelona a...

  Albert Sanchez Pinol

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  A #1 international bestseller reminiscent of the works of Roberto Bolaño, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, and Edward Rutherford—a page-turning historical epic, set in early eighteenth-century Spain, about a military mastermind whose betrayal ultimately leads to the conquest of Barcelona, from the globally popular Catalonian writer Albert Sánchez Piñol.Why do the weak fight against the strong? At 98, Martí Zuviría ponders this question as he begins to tell the extraordinary tale of Catalonia and its annexation in 1714. No one knows the truth of the story better, for Martí was the very villain who betrayed the city he was commended to keep.The story of Catalonia and Barcelona is also Martí’s story. A prestigious military engineer in the early 1700s, he fought on both sides of the long War of the Spanish Succession between the Two Crowns—France and Spain—and aided an Allied enemy in resisting the consolidation of those two powers. Politically ambitious yet morally weak, Martí carefully navigates a sea of Machiavellian intrigue, eventually rising to a position of power that he will use for his own mercenary ends.A sweeping tale of heroism, treason, war, love, pride, and regret that culminates in the tragic fall of a legendary city, illustrated with battle diagrams, portraits of political figures, and priceless maps of the old city of Barcelona, Victus is a magnificent literary achievement that is sure to be hailed as an instant classic.

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