Featured Guide

Neel Shah and Skye Chatham, author of Read Bottom Up

Madeline and Elliot meet at a New York City food event. Flirtation, online, ensues. A romance, potentially eternal, possibly doomed, begins. And, like most things in life today, their early exchanges are very public, available to be scrutinized and interpreted by well-intentioned friends (a.k.a. amateur love doctors) who are a mere click away. Madeline and Elliot’s relationship unfolds through a series of thrilling, confounding and funny exchanges with each other and with their best friends.

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Sarah Vaughan, author of The Art of Baking Blind

In 1966, Kathleen Eaden, cookbook writer and wife of a supermarket magnate, published The Art of Baking, her guide to nurturing a family by creating the most exquisite pastries, biscuits and cakes. Now, five amateur bakers are competing to become the New Mrs. Eaden.  As unlikely alliances are forged and secrets rise to the surface, making the choicest pastry seems the least of the contestants' problems. For they will learn --- just as Mrs. Eaden did before them --- that while perfection is possible in the kitchen, it's very much harder in life.

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Alan Cumming, author of Not My Father's Son: A Memoir

Acclaimed stage, television and film actor Alan Cumming shares the story of his complicated relationship with his emotionally and physically abusive father and the deeply buried family secrets that shaped his life and career. He integrates stories from his childhood with those detailing his experiences as a successful actor today in a memoir that is suspenseful, deeply moving and wickedly funny.

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Deeanne Gist, author of Tiffany Girl

As preparations for the 1893 World’s Fair set Chicago and the nation on fire, Louis Tiffany seizes the opportunity to unveil his state-of-the-art, stained glass, mosaic chapel. But when his dream is threatened by a glassworkers’ strike months before the Fair opens, he turns to the female students at the Art Students League of New York. Eager for adventure, the young women move to boarding houses and assume new identities as the “Tiffany Girls.” Flossie Jayne, a beautiful, budding artist, is handpicked by Louis to help complete the Tiffany chapel.

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Dorothea Benton Frank, author of The Hurricane Sisters

Dorothea Benton Frank once again takes us deep into the heart of her magical South Carolina Lowcountry. There we meet three generations of women buried in secrets. The determined matriarch, Maisie Pringle, will have the final word on everything, especially when she's dead wrong. Her daughter, Liz, has an emotionally demanding career that will eventually open all their eyes to a terrible truth. And Liz's daughter, Ashley, has dreamy ambitions of her unlikely future that keeps them all at odds.

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Elizabeth Berg, author of The Dream Lover

At the beginning of this powerful novel, we meet Aurore Dupin as she is leaving her estranged husband, a loveless marriage and her family’s estate in the French countryside, to start a new life in Paris. There, she gives herself a new name --- George Sand --- and pursues her dream of becoming a writer, embracing an unconventional and even scandalous lifestyle.

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Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Their life --- as she sees it --- is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost. And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything has changed.

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Linda Goodnight, author of The Memory House: A Honey Ridge Novel

Memories of motherhood and marriage are fresh for Julia Presley, though tragedy took away both years ago. Finding comfort in the routine of running the Peach Orchard Inn, she lets the historic, mysterious place fill the voids of love and family. No more pleasure of a man's gentle kiss. No more joy in hearing a child call her Mommy. Life is calm and unchanging…until a stranger with a young boy and soul-deep secrets shows up in her Tennessee town and disrupts the loneliness of her world.

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Philippa Gregory, author of The King's Curse

Margaret Pole is married off to a Lancaster supporter entrusted with the governorship of Wales. When Arthur, the young Prince of Wales, arrives with his bride Katherine of Aragon, Margaret soon becomes a trusted advisor and friend by hiding her own royal connections. Following Arthur’s death, Katherine marries his brother, Henry VIII. Margaret is summoned to court as the chief lady-in-waiting to Queen Katherine, and must choose between the king and queen, between her faith or the theology of her new masters.

Now in paperback!

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Judith Claire Mitchell, author of A Reunion of Ghosts

Sisters Lady, Vee and Delph share their family's apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. They love each other fiercely, but being an Alter isn't easy. Bad luck is in their genes, passed down through the generations. In the waning days of 1999, the trio decides it's time to close the circle of the Alter curse. But first, they must write the final chapter of a saga lifetimes in the making --- one that is inexorably intertwined with that of the 20th century itself.

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