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The personal librarian / by Benedict, Marie,author.; Murray, Victoria Christopher,author.;
"The remarkable, little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan's personal librarian-who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray. In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. Pierpont Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps build a world-class collection. But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and well-known advocate for equality. Belle's complexion isn't dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white-her complexion is dark because she is African American. The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths she must go-for the protection of her family and her legacy-to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives"--
Subjects: Biographical fiction.; Historical fiction.; Greene, Belle da Costa; Pierpont Morgan Library; African American women; Passing (Identity); Women librarians;
Available copies: 3 / Total copies: 3
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Picture in the sand / by Blauner, Peter,author.;
"'On rare occasions I read a book that reminds me of why I fell in love with storytelling in the first place. This is such a book.'--Stephen King. Peter Blauner's epic Picture in the Sand is a sweeping intergenerational saga told through a grandfather's passionate letters to his grandson, passing on the story of his political rebellion in 1950s Egypt in order to save his grandson's life in a post-9/11 world. When Alex Hassan gets accepted to an Ivy League university, his middle-class Egyptian-American family is filled with pride and excitement. But that joy turns to shock when they discover that he's run off to the Middle East to join a holy war instead. When he refuses to communicate with everyone else, his loving grandfather Ali emails him one last plea. If Alex will stay in touch, his grandfather will share with Alex--and only Alex--a manuscript containing the secret story of his own life that he's kept hidden from his family, until now. It's the tale of his romantic and heartbreaking past rooted in Hollywood and the post-revolutionary Egypt of the 1950s, when young Ali was a movie fanatic who attained a dream job working for the legendary director Cecil B. DeMille on the set of his epic film, The Ten Commandments. But Ali's vision of a golden future as an American movie mogul gets upended when he is unwittingly caught up in a web of politics, espionage, and real-life events that change the course of history. It's a narrative he's told no one for more than a half-century. But now he's forced to unearth the past to save a young man who's about to make the same tragic mistakes he made so long ago"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Historical fiction.; Novels.; DeMille, Cecil B. (Cecil Blount), 1881-1959; Ikhwān al-Muslimūn; Ten commandments (Motion picture : 1956); College students; Egyptian Americans; Family secrets; Grandparent and child; Jihad; Letters; Motion picture industry; Motion pictures; Terrorism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The most beautiful girl in Cuba / by Cleeton, Chanel,author.;
"At the end of the nineteenth century, three revolutionary women fight for freedom in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton's captivating new novel inspired by real-life events and the true story of a legendary Cuban woman-Evangelina Cisneros-who changed the course of history. A feud rages in Gilded Age New York City between newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. When Grace Harrington lands a job at Hearst's newspaper in 1896, she's caught in a cutthroat world where one scoop can make or break your career, but it's a story emerging from Cuba that changes her life. Unjustly imprisoned in a notorious Havana women's jail, eighteen-year-old Evangelina Cisneros dreams of a Cuba free from Spanish oppression. When Hearst learns of her plight and splashes her image on the front page of his paper, proclaiming her, "The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba," she becomes a rallying cry for American intervention in the battle for Cuban independence. With the help of Marina Perez, a courier secretly working for the Cuban revolutionaries in Havana, Grace and Hearst's staff attempt to free Evangelina. But when Cuban civilians are forced into reconcentration camps and the explosion of the USS Maine propels the United States and Spain toward war, the three women must risk everything in their fight for freedom"--
Subjects: Biographical fiction.; Historical fiction.; Cossio y Cisneros, Evangelina, 1879-1970; Newspapers; Women; Revolutions;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A midnight puzzle / by Pandian, Gigi,1975-author.;
"Secret Staircase Construction is under attack, and Tempest Raj feels helpless. After former client Julian Rhodes tried to kill his wife, he blamed her "accident" on the home renovation company's craftsmanship. Now the family business - known for bringing magic into homes through hidden doors, floating staircases, and architectural puzzle walls - is at a breaking point. No amount of Scottish and Indian meals from her grandfather can distract Tempest from the truth: they're being framed. When Tempest receives an urgent midnight phone call from Julian, she decides to meet him at the historic Whispering Creek Theater - only to find his dead body, a sword through his chest. After a blade appears from thin air to claim another victim, Tempest is certain they're dealing with a booby trap ... something Secret Staircase Construction could easily build. Tempest refuses to wait for the investigation to turn to her or her loved ones. She knows the pieces of the puzzle are right in front of her, she just has to put them together correctly before more disaster strikes. Multiple award-winning author Gigi Pandian and her sleuth Tempest Raj return in A Midnight Puzzle, where an old theater reveals a deadly booby trap, secrets, and one puzzle of a mystery"--
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Recipes.; Novels.; Architectural firms; Blessing and cursing; Dwellings; East Indian Americans; Family-owned business enterprises; Grandfathers; Interior decoration; Magicians; Murder; Women detectives;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The girls of good fortune : a novel / by McMorris, Kristina,author.;
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Sold on a Monday and The Ways We Hide She came from a lineage known for good fortune ... by those who don't know the whole story. Portland, 1888. Amid the subterranean labyrinth of the notorious Shanghai Tunnels, a woman awakens in an underground cell, drugged and disguised. Celia soon realizes she's a "shanghaied" victim on the verge of being shipped off as forced labor, leaving behind those she loves most. Although well accustomed to adapting for survival -- being half-Chinese, passing as white during an era fraught with anti-Chinese sentiment -- she fears that far more than her own fate hangs in the balance. As she pieces together the twisting path that led to her abduction, from serving as a maid for the family of a dubious mayor to becoming entwined in the case of a goldminers' massacre, revelations emerge of a child left in peril. Desperate, Celia must find a way to escape and return to a place where unearthed secrets can prove deadlier than the dark recesses of Chinatown. A captivating tale of resilience and hope, The Girls of Good Fortune explores the complexity of family and identity, the importance of stories that echo through generations, and the power of strength found beneath the surface"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Asian Americans; Forced labor; Kidnapping; Motherhood; Passing (Identity); Racism against Asians;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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A mind of her own : a novel / by Steel, Danielle,author.;
"Alexandra Bouvier is born in Paris in 1900, at the dawn of a new century. From an early age, she is encouraged to think for herself by her enlightened family: her father, a French doctor; her mother, an American nurse; and her maternal grandfather a highly regarded newspaperman back in the Midwest. At age fourteen, Alex's comfortable life is upended as war erupts across Europe. Her parents follow their sense of duty to the front, performing triage at a field hospital and confronting the horrors of poison gas and trench warfare. The merciless fighting, coupled with the fast-spreading Spanish flu, wreaks havoc on the continent, as well as on Alex's loved ones. By the time she is eighteen, she has suffered unimaginable losses. With her grandfather's support, she attends the University of Chicago and decides to follow his footsteps into journalism. As a newspaper intern she meets reporter Oliver Foster, who is covering the gang wars sparked by Prohibition. He too has known devastating loss, and the two are drawn to each other, though both fear any attachment. As it turns out, Alex has good reason to be cautious."--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Families; Influenza Epidemic, 1918-1919; Interpersonal relations; Journalists; Man-woman relationships; World War, 1914-1918; Young women;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 4
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Fayne / by MacDonald, Ann-Marie,1958-author.;
In the late nineteenth century, Charlotte Bell is growing up at Fayne, a vast and lonely estate straddling the border between England and Scotland, where she has been kept from the world by her adoring father, Lord Henry Bell, owing to a mysterious condition. Charlotte, strong and insatiably curious, revels in the moorlands, and has learned the treacherous and healing ways of the bog from the old hired man, Byrn, whose own origins are shrouded in mystery. Her idyllic existence is shadowed by the magnificent portrait on the landing in Fayne House which depicts her mother, a beautiful Irish-American heiress, holding Charlotte's brother, Charles Bell. Charlotte has grown up with the knowledge that her mother died in giving birth to her, and that her older brother, Charles, the long-awaited heir, died soon afterwards at the age of two. When Charlotte's appetite for learning threatens to exceed the bounds of the estate, her father breaks with tradition and hires a tutor to teach his daughter "as you would my son, had I one." But when Charlotte and her tutor's explorations of the bog turn up an unexpected artefact, her father announces he has arranged for her to be cured of her condition, and her world is upended. Charlotte's passion for knowledge and adventure will take her to the bottom of family secrets and to the heart of her own identity.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Families; Family secrets; Identity (Psychology); Immortalism; Young women;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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The Phoenix Pencil Company [text (large print)] : a novel / by King, Allison,author.;
"Monica Tsai spends her days analyzing data for a new computer program that seeks to connect strangers with the world around them. But one day the very program she's helping to build pings a result for her beloved grandmother Yun's long-estranged cousin: a photograph of two women in Shanghai. One of them, Louise Sun, is a digital archivist who holds keys to Yun's past, and whose gift of a single pencil upends Monica's day-to-day. Monica's discoveries of a hidden family history are exquisitely braided with her grandmother Yun's own memories, recounting her time growing up in the Phoenix Pencil Company in the 1940s. While Japan invades China, Yun's cousin Meng moves in with them-but when the government discovers their family can Reforge a pencil's words, magically reviving the memories they hold, the cousins are separated and forced into a life of betraying stories in order to survive. Combining the cross-generational family saga and epistolary form of Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being with the uplifting magic of Matt Haig's The Midnight Library, King's stunningly layered debut novel asks: who owns a story? The answers and secrets that surface on the page have the unerasable power to unite or threaten Monica, Yun, and their most valued relationships for good"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Large print books.; Magic realist fiction.; Novels.; Chinese Americans; Espionage; Families; Family secrets; Intergenerational relations; Magic; Memory; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Lipstick Bureau : a novel / by Gable, Michelle,author.;
"1944, Rome. Newlywed Niki Novotná is recruited by a new American spy agency to establish a secret branch in Italy's capital. One of the OSS's few female operatives abroad and multilingual, she's tasked with crafting fake stories and distributing propaganda to lower the morale of enemy soldiers. Despite limited resources, Niki and a scrappy team of artists, forgers, and others--now nicknamed The Lipstick Bureau--find success, forming a bond amid the cobblestoned streets and storied villas of the newly liberated city. But her work is also a way to escape devastating truths about the family she left behind in Czechoslovakia and a future with her controlling American husband. As the war drags on and the pressure intensifies, Niki begins to question the rules she's been instructed to follow, and a colleague unexpectedly captures her heart. But one step out of line, one mistake, could mean life or death ... "--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; War fiction.; Novels.; United States. Office of Strategic Services; Americans; Anti-Nazi propaganda; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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The apprentice [videorecording] / by Donovan, Martin,1957-actor.; McNally, Catherine,actor.; Carrick, Charlie,actor.; Rendall, Mark,1988-actor.; Abbasi, Ali,film director.; Bakalova, Maria,1996-actor.; Sherman, Gabriel,screenwriter.; Stan, Sebastian,1982-actor.; Strong, Jeremy,1978-actor.; Briarcliff Entertainment (Firm),publisher.;
Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick, Mark Rendall.The Apprentice is a dive into the underbelly of the American empire. It charts a young Donald Trump's ascent to power through a Faustian deal with the influential right-wing lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn.Canadian Home Video Rating: 14A.MPAA rating: R; for violence, sex, and drug use.DVD.
Subjects: Fiction films.; Feature films.; Biographical films.; Historical films.; Cohn, Roy M.; Trump, Donald, 1946-; Trump family; Apprentice (Television program); Businessmen; Lawyers; Male friendship; Man-woman relationships; Real estate developers; Television personalities;
For private home use only.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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