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The Listeners A Novel [electronic resource] : by Stiefvater, Maggie.aut; CloudLibrary;
An Oprah Daily Best Summer Read of 2025 “Maggie Stiefvater is an exceptional talent, and The Listeners is a marvel of storytelling. I really couldn’t have loved it more.” —Chris Whitaker, author of All The Colors of the Dark “A novel that will remind readers of why they fell in love with reading in the first place.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review #1 New York Times bestselling novelist Maggie Stiefvater dazzles in this mesmerizing portrait of an irresistible heroine, an unlikely romance, and a hotel—and a world—in peril. January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles. Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her well. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the front lines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile. Meanwhile FBI Agent Tucker Minnick, whose coal tattoo hints at an Appalachian past, presses his ears to the hotel’s walls, listening for the diplomats’ secrets. He has one of his own, which is how he knows that June’s balancing act can have dangerous consequences: the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal. June has never met a guest she couldn’t delight, but the diplomats are different. Without firing a single shot, they have brought the war directly to her. As clashing loyalties crack the Avallon’s polished veneer, June must calculate the true cost of luxury.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Historical; Contemporary Women;
© 2025., Penguin Publishing Group,
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Lilac girls : a novel / by Kelly, Martha Hall,author.;
"On a September day in Manhattan in 1939, twenty-something Caroline Ferriday is consumed by her efforts to secure the perfect boutonniere for an important French diplomat and resisting the romantic advances of a married actor. Meanwhile across the Atlantic, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish Catholic teenager, is nervously anticipating the changes that are sure to come since Germany has declared war on Poland. As tensions rise abroad - and in her personal life - Caroline's interest in aiding the war effort in France grows and she eventually comes to hear about the dire situation at the Ravensbruck all-female concentration camp. At the same time, Kasia's carefree youth is quickly slipping away, only to be replaced by a fervor for the Polish resistance movement. Through Ravensbruck - and the horrific atrocities taking place there told in part by an infamous German surgeon, Herta Oberheuser - the two women's lives will converge in unprecedented ways and a novel of redemption and hope emerges that is breathtaking in scope and depth"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Ravensbrück (Concentration camp); Nazis; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
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The daughters of Yalta : the Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans : a story of love and war / by Katz, Catherine Grace,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The story of the fascinating and fateful "daughter diplomacy" of Anna Roosevelt, Sarah Churchill, and Kathleen Harriman, three glamorous young women who accompanied their famous fathers to the Yalta Conference with Stalin in the waning days of World War II"--
Subjects: Churchill, Sarah, 1914-1982.; Mortimer, Kathleen Lanier Harriman, 1917-2011.; Roosevelt, Anna, 1906-1975.; Yalta Conference (1945 : I͡Alta, Ukraine); World War, 1939-1945; Children of presidents; Children of prime ministers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The orphan girl : a novel / by Palka, Kurt,1941-author.;
"London, 1944-1945. Kate Henderson is an energetic and spirited young woman. As a trained paramedic and ambulance driver she does her work courageously and with determination, even though underneath she is still wrestling with grief after witnessing the shooting death of her diplomat father seven years earlier. Her father's murder was never properly investigated and it remains unsolved. Kate's life is drastically interrupted once more when she wakes up one night to the sound of the air raid alarm and the terror whistles of a bomb's stabilizers screaming toward the roof of her house. In the explosion, her mother and her aunt die; Kate survives, but she is injured. Her house is gone as well, and after her time in the hospital, Claire Giroux, a kind doctor and family friend, invites Kate to live with her as she recuperates. This arrangement works well for them until a few months later when Claire's husband comes home from the war. Within days the lives of both women are drastically changed, and events are set in motion, both in England and in Canada, that challenge Kate and Claire to their limits. The Orphan Girl is a moving and powerful story about friendship and courage, and about promises made and kept"--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Allied health personnel; Fathers; Female friendship; Women ambulance drivers; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Bryant & May. by Fowler, Christopher,author.;
"The brilliant duo of Arthur Bryant and John May uncover a nefarious plot behind the seemingly innocuous death of an old lady--and when the case leads them to the London Bridge, it all comes down on the Peculiar Crimes Unit. Ninety-one-year-old Alice Hoffman died alone in her top-floor flat. Social services say she slipped through the cracks in a failing system. But detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have their suspicions. Mrs. Hoffman was not as innocent as she appeared. A former government security expert, she had once worked for their own unit, but there's no one left who can remember her. And when they uncover a link between her and a diplomat desperate to leave the country, it begins to look as if someone might have committed an impossible murder. But Mrs. Hoffman wasn't acting alone. Arthur Bryant is convinced that a group of talented women have been working together for decades and now the others are in danger. With the help of some of his more certifiable contacts and historical experts, he and John May embark on an investigation that will lead them down forgotten alleyways to riverside buildings and on to the city's oldest bridge. But just when the case appears to have been solved and unit chief Raymond Land can congratulate everyone on ending a threat to international security, the detectives discover that they've been the victims of the biggest deception of all. For even after her death, Mrs. Hoffman would prove too clever for them ... Bryant and May's twentieth-anniversary case brings an ending and a new beginning to London's most peculiar crimes unit and all who work there"--
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Bryant, Arthur (Fictitious character); May, John (Fictitious character); Murder; Police; Secrecy;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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On a night of a thousand stars / by Clark, Andrea Yaryura,author.;
"New York, 1998. Santiago Larrea, a wealthy Argentine diplomat, is holding court alongside his wife, Lila, and their daughter, Paloma, a college student and budding jewelry designer, at their annual summer polo match and soiree. All seems perfect in the Larreas' world--until an unexpected party guest from Santiago's university days shakes his usually unflappable demeanor. The woman's cryptic comments spark Paloma's curiosity about her father's past, of which she knows little. When the family travels to Buenos Aires for Santiago's UN ambassadorial appointment, Paloma is determined to learn more about his life in the years leading up to the military dictatorship of 1976. With the help of a local university student, Franco Bonetti, an activist member of H.I.J.O.S.--a group whose members are the children of the Desaparecidos, or the "Disappeared," men and women who were forcibly disappeared by the state during Argentina's "Dirty War"--Paloma unleashes a chain of events that not only leads her to question her family and her identity, but also puts her life in danger. In compelling fashion, On a Night of a Thousand Stars speaks to relationships, morality, and identity during a brutal period in Argentinian history, and the understanding--and redemption--people crave in the face of unspeakable tragedy"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Dictatorship; Diplomats; Disappeared persons; Family secrets;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Death and the visitors / by Redmond, Heather,1969-author.;
"1814, London: Foreign diplomats are descending on London in advance of the Congress of Vienna meetings to formulate a new peace plan for Europe following Napoleon's downfall. Mary and Jane's father, political philosopher William Godwin, is hosting a gathering with an advance party of Russian royal staff. The Russians are enthusiastic followers of Mary's late mother, philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft, which leads to a lively dinner discussion. Following their visit, Jane overhears her father reassuring his pushiest creditor that the Russians have pledged diamonds to support his publishing venture, the Juvenile Library, relieving his financial burden. But when Godwin is told the man who promised the diamonds was pulled from the River Thames, his dire financial problems are further complicated by the suspicion that the family may have been involved in the murder. Stepsisters Mary and Jane resolve to find the real killer to clear the family name. Coming to their aid is Godwin's disciple, the dashing poet Percy Shelley, who seems increasingly devoted to Mary, despite the fact that he is married. And a young woman Jane befriends turns out to be the mistress of the celebrated poet--and infamous lover--Lord Byron. As both sisters find themselves perhaps dangerously captivated by the poets, their proximity to the truth of the Russian's murder puts them in far greater peril ... "--
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Novels.; Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824; Clairmont, Claire, 1798-1879; Godwin, William, 1756-1836; Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851; Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822; Man-woman relationships; Murder; Poets; Regency; Russians; Sisters; Stepsisters;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Getting lost / by Ernaux, Annie,1940-author.; Strayer, Alison L.,translator.; translation of:Ernaux, Annie,1940-Se perdre.English.;
"Getting Lost is the diary Annie Ernaux kept during the year and a half she had a secret love affair with a younger, married man, a Russian diplomat. Her novel, Simple Passion, was based on this affair, but here her writing is immediate, unfiltered. In these diaries it is 1989 and Annie is divorced with two grown sons, living outside of Paris and nearing fifty. Her lover escapes the city to see her there and Ernaux seems to survive only in expectation of these encounters, saying "his desire for me is the only thing I can be sure of." She cannot write, she trudges distractedly through her various other commitments in the world, she awaits his next call; she lives only to feel desire and for the next rendezvous. When he is gone and the desire has faded, she feels that she is a step closer to death. Lauded for her spare prose, Ernaux here removes all artifice, her writing pared down to its most naked and vulnerable. Getting Lost is as strong a book as any that she has written, a haunting, desperate view of strong and successful woman who seduces a man only to lose herself in love and desire"--
Subjects: Diaries.; Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Ernaux, Annie, 1940-; Ernaux, Annie, 1940-; Man-woman relationships; Middle-aged women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Stalin affair : the impossible alliance that won the war / by Milton, Giles,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From international bestselling historian Giles Milton comes the remarkable true story of the motley group of allied men and women who worked to manage Stalin's mercurial, explosive approach to diplomacy during four turbulent years of World War II. In the summer of 1941, Hitler did the unthinkable -- he invaded the Soviet Union, shattering what Stalin had until then considered an ironclad partnership. It was a shocking, urgent turning point in the war, in the wake of which a team of British and American men and women were assembled with one central goal: to keep the Red Army fighting on the Eastern Front. There were real fears that Stalin's forces would either be defeated (as looked increasingly likely as Hitler's army pushed forward at a merciless pace) or that the Soviet leader would once again strike a deal with Hitler. Either eventuality would spell catastrophe for both Britain and America. Hitler would be able to concentrate his vast military resources in Western Europe, making the continent's ultimate liberation virtually impossible. Enter Averell Harriman: a railroad magnate, and, at the start of the war, the fourth richest man in America. At Roosevelt's behest he traveled to Britain to serve as a liaison between him and Churchill and spearhead what became known as the Harriman mission. Together with his fashionable young daughter Kathy, an unforgettable cast of British diplomats, and Churchill himself, he managed to wrangle Stalin into the partnership the allies needed to finally defeat Hitler. Based on unpublished diaries, letters and secret reports, The Stalin Affair reveals troves of new material about the path to Allied victory, full of vivid scenes between celebrated and infamous World War II figures. Ultimately, it provides fascinating, richly nuanced portrait of one of history's most complicated and notorious dictators"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Stalin, Joseph, 1878-1953.; Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965.; Harriman, W. Averell (William Averell), 1891-1986.; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Sisters of the resistance : a novel of Catherine Dior's Paris spy network / by Wells, Christine,author.;
Paris, 1944: The war is nearly over, but for members of the Resistance in occupied France, it is more dangerous than ever before. Twenty-five-year-old Gabby Foucher loathes the Nazis, though as the concierge of 10 rue Royale, she does her best to avoid conflict--unlike her bolder sister Yvette, who finds trouble at every turn. Then they are both recruited into the Resistance by Catherine Dior and swept into a treacherous world of spies, fugitives, and intrigue. While Gabby risks everything for the man she is hiding from the Nazis, Yvette must decide whether to trust an enigmatic diplomat who seems to have guessed her secret. As the threat of betrayal draws ever-closer, one slip could mean the deaths of many, and both sisters must make choices they might regret. Paris, 1947: Yvette returns from New York to reunite with Gabby and begin life anew as a mannequin for Dior, who is revolutionizing fashion with the New Look. But first she must discover the truth behind Catherine's terrible fate, while Gabby finds that there are many kinds of courage, and that love is always worth fighting for.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Spy fiction.; Sisters; Women spies; Fashion designers; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
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