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The maker of swans / by O'Donnell, Paraic,author.;
"In the dead of night, shots ring out over the grounds of a sprawling English estate. The world-weary butler Eustace recognizes the gunman-his longtime employer, Mr. Crowe-and knows he must think and act quickly. Who is the man lying dead on the lawn? Who is the woman in his company? Can he clean up his master's mess like he always has before? Or will this bring a new kind of reckoning? Mr. Crowe was once famed for his gifts-unaccountable gifts, known only to the members of a secretive order. Protected and privileged, he was courted by countesses and great men of letters. But he has long since retreated from that glittering world, living alone but for Eustace and Clara, his mysterious young ward. He has been content to live quietly, his great library gathering dust and his once magnificent gardens growing wild. He has left the past behind. Until now. Because there are rules, even for Mr. Crowe and his kind, that cannot be broken. And this single night of passion and violence will have consequences, stirring shadows from the past and threatening those in his care. He and the faithful Eustace will be tested as never before. So too will Clara, whose own extraordinary gifts remain hidden, even from herself. If she is to save them all, she must learn to use them quickly and unlock the secret of who she is. It is a secret beyond imagining. A secret that will change everything"--
Subjects: Paranormal fiction.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Aristocracy (Social class); Murder; Secrecy;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Gilded mountain : a novel / by Manning, Kate,author.;
In a voice spiked with sly humor, Sylvie Pelletier recounts leaving her family's snowbound mountain cabin to work in a manor house for the Padgetts, owners of the marble-mining company that employs her father and dominates the town. Sharp-eyed Sylvie is awed by the luxury around her; fascinated by her employer, the charming “Countess” Inge, and confused by the erratic affections of Jasper, the bookish heir to the family fortune. Her fairy-tale ideas of romance take a dark turn when she realizes the Padgetts' lofty philosophical talk is at odds with the unfair labor practices that have enriched them. Their servants, the Gradys, formerly enslaved people, have long known this to be true and are making plans to form a utopian community on the Colorado prairie. Outside the manor walls, the town of Moonstone is roiling with discontent. A handsome union organizer, along with labor leader Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, is stirring up the quarry workers. The editor of the local newspaper--a bold woman who takes Sylvie on as an apprentice--is publishing unflattering accounts of the Padgett Company. Sylvie navigates vastly different worlds and struggles to find her way amid conflicting loyalties. When the harsh winter brings tragedy, Sylvie must choose between silence and revenge. Drawn from true stories of Colorado history, Gilded Mountain is a tale of a bygone American West seized by robber barons and settled by immigrants, and is a story infused with longing--for self-expression and equality, freedom and adventure.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Household employees; Social classes; Social justice;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A secret never told / by Noble, Shelley,author.;
"Miss Fisher meets Downton Abbey in A Secret Never Told, the fourth installment in the critically acclaimed mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Shelley Noble. Philomena Amesbury, expatriate Countess of Dunbridge, is bored. Coney Island in the sweltering summer of 1908 offers no shortage of diversions for a young woman of means, but sea bathing, horse racing, and even amusement parks can't hold a candle to uncovering dastardly plots and chasing villains. Lady Dunbridge hadn't had a big challenge in months. Fate obliges when Phil is called upon to host a dinner party in honor of a visiting Austrian psychologist whose revolutionary theories may be of interest to the War Department, not to mention various foreign powers, and who may have already survived one attempt on his life. The guest list includes a wealthy industrialist, various rival scientists and academics, a party hypnotist, a flamboyant party-crasher, and a damaged beauty whose cloudy psyche is lost in a world of its own. Before the night is out, one of the guests is dead with a bullet between the eyes and Phil finds herself with another mystery on her hands, even if it's unclear who exactly the intended victim was meant to be. Worse yet, the police's prime suspect is a mystery man who Phil happens to be rather intimately acquainted with. Now it's up to Lady Dunbridge, with the invaluable assistance of her intrepid butler and lady's maid, to find the real culprit before the police nab the wrong one ..."--
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Historical fiction.; Aristocracy (Social class); British; Murder; Nobility; Rich people; Widows;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Somewhere in France / by Robson, Jennifer,1970-;
Includes bibliographical references."Lady Elizabeth Neville-Ashford, has struggled against both her mother's expectations and the restrictions early 20th-century British society imposes upon women of "gentle breeding". Lilly longs to make a difference, to have a life of substance and meaning. Only one person other than her beloved brother Edward ever listened to what she really wanted-Robert Fraser, Edward's best friend. But that was many years ago when he was visiting and Lilly was young, and she is certain Robbie has long forgotten her. Robbie Fraser knows he shouldn't have come to the lavish ball given by Edward's parents, the Earl and Countess of Cumberland. This world is far removed from the hospital in Whitechapel where he works as a surgeon. In his work, he is fêted and admired by his colleagues and friends, yet his accomplishments count for nothing to the privileged few attending the Neville-Ashford gala. As he plots his quiet escape, he is stopped by a vision of loveliness-Lilly. He finds her utterly captivating. She believes he is the man of her dreams. In a few short weeks, the world is engulfed by war. As the lights go out across Europe, Robbie becomes a trauma surgeon in a field hospital on the Western Front, while Lilly breaks free of convention, as well as from her disapproving parents, leaving home and eventually becoming an ambulance driver with the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. When she is transferred to the same field hospital where Robbie works, she hopes to strengthen the growing bond between them. Yet how can love survive the class restrictions that separate them and the horrors and suffering of the Great War?"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Love stories.; Social classes; World War, 1914-1918;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 3
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Hemingway's widow : the life and legacy of Mary Welsh Hemingway / by Christian, Timothy J.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A stunning portrait of the complicated woman who was Ernest Hemingway's fourth wife, exploring the tumultuous years of their marriage, and evoking her merry widowhood as she shapes Hemingway's literary legacy. Mary Welsh, a celebrated wartime journalist during the London Blitz and the liberation of Paris, meets Ernest Hemingway in May 1944. He becomes so infatuated with Mary that he asks her to marry him the third time they meet-although they are married to other people. Eventually, she succumbs to Ernest's campaign, and in the last days of the war joined him at his estate in Cuba. Through Mary's eyes, we see Ernest Hemingway in a fresh light. Their turbulent marriage survives his cruelty and abuse, perhaps because of their sexual compatibility and her essential contribution to his writing. She reads and types his work each day-and makes plot suggestions. She becomes crucial to his work and he depends upon her critical reading of his work to know if he has it right. We watch the Hemingways as they travel to the ski country of the Dolomites, commute to Harry's Bar in Venice; attend bullfights in Pamplona and Madrid; go on safari in Kenya in the thick of the Mau Mau Rebellion; and fish the blue waters of the gulf stream off Cuba in Ernest's beloved boat Pilar. We see Ernest fall in love with a teenaged Italian countess and wonder at Mary's tolerance of the affair. We witness Ernest's sad decline and Mary's efforts to avoid the stigma of suicide by claiming his death was an accident. In the years following Ernest's death, Mary devotes herself to his literary legacy, negotiating with Castro to reclaim Ernest's manuscripts from Cuba, publishing one-third of his work posthumously. She supervises Carlos Baker's biography of Ernest, sues A. E. Hotchner to try and prevent him from telling the story of Ernest's mental decline, and spends years writing her memoir in her penthouse overlooking the New York skyline. Her story is one of an opinionated woman who smokes Camels, drinks gin, swears like a man, sings like Edith Piaf, loves passionately, and experiments with gender fluidity in her extraordinary life with Ernest. This true story reads like a novel-and the reader will be hard pressed not to fall for Mary."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Hemingway, Mary Welsh, 1908-1986; Hemingway, Mary Welsh, 1908-1986.; Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961; Authors' spouses; Journalists; Women journalists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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