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The Specimen [electronic resource] : by Fixsen, Jaima.aut; cloudLibrary;
"An absorbing and expanding mystery... ripe for a bookclub discussion"— First Clue "Propulsive and lush, Fixsen weaves an exquisitely gothic tale." — Jess Armstrong, USA Today bestselling author of The Curse of Penryth Hall Walk carefully, lest you become a part of Dr. Burnett's collection… 1826. Isobel Tait finds herself, by chance, staring at a tiny human heart floating in a jar. It should be of little consequence; Dr. Burnett is renowned for his collection of oddities and medical specimens, and this, a juvenile heart with a damaged mitral valve, is not the strangest thing on display. Except that the condition is rare, and that Isobel's young son, who has been missing for months, suffered from the ailment.  A phantom pulse beats in Isobel's ears. She knows something here isn't right. Missing persons cases are all too common in Edinburgh, where people simply vanish like mist. But Burnett is obsessed with his specimens – how far would he go to acquire a new one? Determined to investigate, Isobel joins his staff as the keeper of his collection. What she'll unearth, though, is far worse than any of her nightmares… Based on true crimes, The Specimen is a mesmerizing story about one woman's search for truth and vengeance in the darkest of places—where the deadliest secrets lie hidden in plain sight, on a freshly dusted shelf. "The Specimen is a fantastic read! Tense, gripping and full of fabulous characters you grow to love or hate! I devoured it in two sittings."  – Gareth Brown, bestselling author of The Book of Doors
Subjects: Electronic books.; Gothic; Women Sleuths; Historical;
© 2024., Sourcebooks,

The guest book [sound recording] / by Blake, Sarah,1960-author.; Cassidy, Orlagh,narrator.; Macmillan Audio (Firm),publisher.;
Read by Orlagh Cassidy."A novel about past mistakes and betrayals that ripple throughout generations, The Guest Book examines not just a privileged American family, but a privileged America. It is a literary triumph. The Guest Book follows three generations of a powerful American family, a family that "used to run the world." And when the novel begins in 1935, they still do. Kitty and Ogden Milton appear to have everything--perfect children, good looks, a love everyone envies. But after a tragedy befalls them, Ogden tries to bring Kitty back to life by purchasing an island in Maine. That island, and its house, come to define and burnish the Milton family, year after year after year. And it is there that Kitty issues a refusal that will haunt her till the day she dies. In 1959 a young Jewish man, Len Levy, will get a job in Ogden's bank and earn the admiration of Ogden and one of his daughters, but the scorn of everyone else. Len's best friend, Reg Pauling, has always been the only black man in the room--at Harvard, at work, and finally at the Miltons' island in Maine. An island that, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, this last generation doesn't have the money to keep. When Kitty's granddaughter hears that she and her cousins might be forced to sell it, and when her husband brings back disturbing evidence about her grandfather's past, she realizes she is on the verge of finally understanding the silences that seemed to hover just below the surface of her family all her life. An ambitious novel that weaves the American past with its present, Sarah Blake's The Guest Book looks at the racism and power that has been systemically embedded in the U.S. for generations" --
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Domestic fiction.; Historical fiction.; Family secrets;

1945 : the year that made modern Canada / by Cuthbertson, Ken,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."1945 was a watershed year for Canada and the world. It ushered in the modern era and set Canada on a new course. With the momentous dropping of the Atomic bomb on Japan, everything had changed. There was a sense of relief at the ending of hostilities, but there was also great uncertainty and fear of the brave new world unfolding. On the eve of WWII, Canada's population was just 10 million. The country was a sleepy backwater where nothing of much significance ever happened. If we accept that the country forged its national identity in World War I, it's fair to say that it came of age in the six years of WWII. As a result, Canada stepped into the modern era in 1945 completely changed and ready to assume its place in the world as an independent nation, no longer under the colonial sway of the mother country. As he did with The Halifax Explosion, bestselling author Ken Cuthbertson has written a compelling narrative about the year 1945 and the events and personalities that shaped our country and created our future. From Mackenzie King, Rocket Richard, and Emily Carr to E.P. Taylor, Igor Gouzenko, Hugh MacLennan, Agnes McPhail and Gabrielle Roy, among others, 1945 weaves an unforgettable portrait of our nation at the moment of its modern birth. Just as writer Bill Bryson's recent bestseller One Summer: America, 1927 chronicled a pivotal year in American history by focusing on the experiences of a select group of American historical figures, 1945: The Year That Made Modern Canada will tell the stories of Canadians - some celebrated, some just ordinary people - who left their mark on this country during 1945 as they seeded its future."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: History.; Canadians;

The Barbizon : the hotel that set women free / by Bren, Paulina,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."The Barbizon tells the story of New York's most glamorous women-only hotel, and the women-both famous and ordinary-who passed through its doors. World War I had liberated women from home and hearth, setting them on the path to political enfranchisement and gainful employment. Arriving in New York to work in the dazzling new skyscrapers, they did not want to stay in uncomfortable boarding houses; they wanted what men already had-exclusive residential hotels that catered to their needs, with daily maid service, cultural programs, workout rooms, and private dining. The Barbizon would become the most famous residential hotel of them all, welcoming everyone from aspiring actresses, dancers, and fashion models to seamstresses, secretaries, and nurses. The Barbizon's residents read like a who's who: Titanic survivor Molly Brown; actresses Rita Hayworth, Joan Crawford, Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedron, Liza Minelli, Ali McGraw, Jaclyn Smith, and Phylicia Rashad; writers Sylvia Plath, Joan Didion, Diane Johnson, Gael Greene, and Meg Wolitzer; and so many more. But before they were household names, they were among the young women arriving at the Barbizon with a suitcase, and hope. Beautifully written and impeccably researched, The Barbizon weaves together a tale that has, until now, never been told. It is an epic story of women's ambition in the 20th century. The Barbizon Hotel offered its residents a room of their own and air to breathe, unfettered from family obligations and expectations. It gave women a chance to remake themselves however they pleased. No place had existed like it before, or has since"--
Subjects: Barbizon/63 (New York, N.Y.); Women; Women;

The wind knows my name : a novel / by Allende, Isabel,author.; Riddle, Frances,translator.; translation of:Allende, Isabel.Wind knows my name.English.;
"This powerful and moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea weaves together past and present, tracing the ripple effects of war and immigration on one child in Europe in 1938 and another in the United States in 2019. Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler was six years old when his father disappeared during Kristallnacht-the night their family lost everything. Samuel's mother secured a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to the United Kingdom, which he boarded alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin. Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz, a blind seven-year-old girl, and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. However, their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination she created with her sister back home. Anita's case is assigned to Selena Duran, a young social worker who enlists the help of a promising lawyer from one of San Francisco's top law firms. Together they discover that Anita has another family member in the United States: Leticia Cordero, who is employed at the home of now eighty-six-year-old Samuel Adler, linking these two lives. Spanning time and place, The Wind Knows My Name is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers-and never stop dreaming"--
Subjects: Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Emigration and immigration; Imagination; Immigrant children; Separation (Psychology);

The woman who climbed trees : a novel / by Smriti Ravindra,author.;
Weaving together ghost stories, myths, and song, this haunting novel follows a young bride as she leaves her life in India behind to move to Nepal with her new husband and his family, examining the loss she experiences as she gives up one home to become part of another.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Arranged marriage; Families; Married women; Women, East Indian;

Life on the line : young doctors come of age in a pandemic / by Goldberg, Emma,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.Weaving together in-depth interviews with doctors, their diaries, and notes, this page-turning account follows the medical students who received their degrees early to help treat thousands of critically ill COVID-19 patients in New York City during the height of the pandemic.
Subjects: COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-; COVID-19 (Disease); Emergency physicians;

The Vanishing Hour [electronic resource] : by Glass, Seraphina Nova.aut; Pressley, Brittany.nrt; cloudLibrary;
"Glass weaves a taut web of suspicion, murder and revenge in this chilling tale."—Liv Constantine, internationally bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish, on Someone's Listening From the Edgar Award–nominated author of On a Quiet Street comes a shocking thriller about secrets…and the lengths some people will go to keep them. Grace Holloway keeps to herself. Since narrowly escaping death at the hands of the man who kidnapped her, she’s thrown herself into the small inn she runs in Rock Harbor, Maine. It’s quiet, quaint and, in the off-season, completely isolated—the perfect place for Grace to keep her own secrets. But Grace isn’t the only one with something to hide, and Rock Harbor isn’t just a sleepy vacation town. Someone is taking young women—girls who look an awful lot like Grace did when she was kidnapped so many years ago. When a surge of disappearances brings the investigation to her door, Grace finds herself unwillingly at the center of it all and doing everything she can to keep her distance. Because Grace knows something…something that could change everything. And when the truth comes to light, getting justice for the vanished might be more than Grace can handle alone… Looking for another heart-pounding thriller? Find out how far the shady residents of the Sycamores will go to keep the stranger in their midst from uncovering their deadly secrets in bestselling author Seraphina Nova Glass’s upcoming thriller, THE VACANCY IN ROOM 10! Other thrillers from Seraphina to keep you up all night: On a Quiet Street Such a Good Wife Someone’s Listening
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Small Town & Rural; Psychological;
© 2023., HarperCollins,

If I knew then : finding wisdom in failure and power in aging / by Arden, Jann,author,illustrator.;
"Jann Arden--bestselling author, recording artist and late-blooming TV star--is back with this funny, heartfelt and fierce memoir on becoming a woman of a certain age. The power, gravity and freedom she's found at fifty-seven are superpowers she believes all of us can unleash. Digging deep into her strengths, her failures and her losses, Jann Arden brings us an inspiring account of how she has surprised herself, in her fifties, by at last becoming completely her own person. Like many women, it took Jann a long time to realize that trying to be pleasing and likeable and beautiful in the eyes of others was a loser's game. Letting it rip, and damning the consequences, is not only liberating, it's a hell of a lot of fun: "Being the age I am--that so many women are--is just the best time of my life." Jann weaves her own story together with tales of her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, and the father she came close to hating, to show her younger self--and all of us--that fear and avoidance is no way to live. "What I'm thinking about now aren't all the ways I can try to hang on to my youth or all the seconds ticking by in some kind of morbid countdown to death," she writes, "but rather how I keep becoming someone I always hoped I could be. If I'm lucky one day a very old face will look back at me from the mirror, a face I once shied away from. I will love that old woman ferociously, because she has finally figured out how to live a life of purpose--not in spite of but because of all her mistakes and failures.""--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Arden, Jann.; Actresses; Aging.; Singers;

Lucid dying : the new science revolutionizing how we understand life and death / by Parnia, Sam,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."A groundbreaking look at what happens to us when we die, based on the largest-ever research study run on recalled experiences of death. Today, for the first time in history, the scientific exploration of death and what happens when we die is real, active and ongoing. Contrary to popular perceptions, this subject is no longer the remit of philosophy, religion, or personal opinion. Truly remarkable scientific discoveries that will fundamentally affect everyone's lives now and in the future are taking place, yet very few people are aware of them. Most people -- including scientists and doctors-maintain strong beliefs about death and its experience. Those beliefs are rooted in traditional, and often cultural, notions of death. But what if all that we have come to believe about death is fundamentally wrong? What if the paradigm we have been operating within no longer exists? What if death is not the end we thought? Lucid Dying is the first book to share that science. Presenting data derived from multiple groundbreaking studies, Dr. Parnia shows that the entity we refer to as consciousness -- our Self -- does not seem to become annihilated when we die. In fact, during death, our consciousness vastly expands and leads to a vivid experience that follows a very specific narrative arc. These studies support that there really is a universal experience of death that is meaningful, transcendent, positive, and transformative -- not hallucinatory, delusional, or illusory as previously imagined. In his latest book, Dr. Parnia weaves empirical research with gripping stories to show us the truth of how death is not the end we all thought and how anyone can harness the newfound wisdom to lead deeper, more intentional lives."--
Subjects: Death (Biology); Death; Death.; Future life.; Near-death experiences.; Thanatology.;