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The Healing

The Healing

by Jonathan Odell

Hardcover, 340 pages, Random House Inc, $26, published February 21 2012 | purchase
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  • Jonathan Odell

Mississippi plantation mistress Amanda Satterfield loses her daughter to cholera after her husband refuses to treat her for what he considers to be a "slave disease." Insane with grief, Amanda takes a newborn slave child as her own and names her Granada,much to the outrage of her husband and the amusement of their white neighbors. Seventy-five years later, Granada, now known as Gran Gran, is still living on the plantation and must revive the buried memories of her past in order to heal a young girl abandoned to her care. Together they learn the power of story to heal the body, the spirit and the soul.

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Coral Glynn

Coral Glynn

by Peter Cameron

Hardcover, 210 pages, Farrar Straus & Giroux, $24, published February 28 2012 | purchase
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  • Coral Glynn
  • Peter Cameron

Nursing an elderly cancer patient in an isolated English countryside manse in 1950, Coral interacts with a disgruntled housekeeper and her charge's sexually torn and war-ravaged son until a series of random events culminates in a complicated marriage.

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The Neruda Case

The Neruda Case

by Roberto Ampuero

Hardcover, 352 pages, Penguin Group USA, $26.95, published June 14 2012 | purchase
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  • Roberto Ampuero

The Neruda Case is Chilean author Roberto Ampuero's first novel to be published in English. Ampuero's trademark detective, Cayetano Brulé, embarks on a mysterious mission given to him by the dying poet Pablo Neruda. Translated from the Spanish by Carolina de Robertis.

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Train Dreams

Train Dreams

by Denis Johnson

Paperback, 116 pages, St Martins Pr, $12, published May 22 2012 | purchase
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  • Train Dreams
  • Denis Johnson

The National Book Award-winning author of Tree of Smoke presents the story of early 20th century day laborer Robert Grainer, who endures the harrowing loss of his family while struggling for survival against a backdrop of radical historical changes.NPR Bestseller

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Bring Up the Bodies

Bring Up the Bodies

by Hilary Mantel

Hardcover, 410 pages, Henry Holt & Co, $28, published May 8 2012 | purchase
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  • Bring Up the Bodies
  • Hilary Mantel

This sequel to the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Wolf Hall delves into the heart of Tudor history. King Henry becomes disenchanted with his new wife Anne Boleyn, which leads to her impending downfall.NPR Bestseller

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The Right-Hand Shore

The Right-Hand Shore

by Christopher Tilghman

Hardcover, 358 pages, Farrar Straus & Giroux, $27, published April 24 2012 | purchase
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  • The Right-Hand Shore
  • Christopher Tilghman

While visiting the dying owner of the family's estate in order to secure his inheritance, Edward hears stories about his family and land, from an ancestor's 1857 sale of soon-to-be emancipated slaves to a doomed effort to cultivate a peach orchard.

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Dissolution

Dissolution

by C. J. Sansom

Paperback, 389 pages, Penguin Group USA, $15, published April 1 2004 | purchase
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  • Dissolution
  • C. J. Sansom

Having worked to establish laws that protect the interests of the crown in 1537, Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's feared vicar-general, enlists fellow reformer and lawyer Matthew Shardlake to investigate a commissioner's murder, which may be tied to an impending rebellion.

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Never Fall Down

Never Fall Down

by Patricia McCormick

Hardcover, 216 pages, Harpercollins Childrens Books, $17.99, published May 8 2012 | purchase
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  • Never Fall Down
  • Patricia McCormick

Separated from his family and assigned to a labor camp when soldiers invade his home in Cambodia, young Arn volunteers to become a musician for the army and uses his wits to survive and steal food for other child prisoners before he is conscripted as a boy soldier. By the National Book Award finalist author of Sold. 75,000 first printing.

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Between Shades of Gray

Between Shades of Gray

by Ruta Sepetys

Paperback, 352 pages, Penguin Group USA, $8.99, published April 3 2012 | purchase
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  • Between Shades of Gray
  • Ruta Sepetys

In 1941, Lina and her family are pulled from their Lithuanian home by Soviet guards and sent to Siberia, where her father is sentenced to death in a prison camp while she fights for her life, vowing to honor her family and the thousands like hers.

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Home

Home

by Toni Morrison

Hardcover, 144 pages, Random House Inc, $24, published May 8 2012 | purchase
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  • Home
  • Toni Morrison

Embittered Korean War veteran Frank Money struggles against trauma and racism to rescue his medically abused sister and work through identity-shattering memories.NPR Bestseller

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Sacre Bleu

Sacre Bleu

A Comedy D'Art

by Christopher Moore

Hardcover, 403 pages, HarperCollins, $26.99, published April 3 2012 | purchase
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  • A Comedy D'Art
  • Christopher Moore

Baker turned painter Lucien Lessard and bon vivant Henri Toulouse-Lautrec vow to discover the truth behind the untimely death of their friend Vincent van Gogh, which leads them on a surreal odyssey into the art world of late 19th century Paris.NPR Bestseller

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The Chemistry of Tears

The Chemistry Of Tears

by Peter Carey

Hardcover, 229 pages, Random House Inc, $26, published May 15 2012 | purchase
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  • The Chemistry Of Tears
  • Peter Carey

Forced to hide her grief when her married lover dies unexpectedly, museum curator Catherine Gehrig works in solitude to restore a nineteenth-century automaton and finds comfort in the journals of its adventurous commissioner.

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Freeman

Freeman

by Leonard, Jr. Pitts

Paperback, 404 pages, Pgw, $16, published May 15 2012 | purchase
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  • Freeman
  • Leonard, Jr. Pitts

Shortly after the Confederates surrender, a runaway slave leaves the safety of Philadelphia in search of his wife who he left in Mississippi 15 years earlier, but who has been taken by gunpoint to Arkansas by her former landowner. Original.

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The Hand That First Held Mine

The Hand That First Held Mine

by Maggie O'Farrell

Hardcover, 341 pages, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $25, published April 12 2010 | purchase
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  • The Hand That First Held Mine
  • Maggie O'Farrell

Fifty years after an unconventional reporter of genteel origins becomes a single mother, present-day London painter Elina navigates the first weeks of motherhood upon surviving a dangerous labor and learns that her life is disconcertingly linked to the woman from the past.

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Caleb's Crossing

Caleb's Crossing

by Geraldine Brooks

Paperback, 318 pages, Penguin Group USA, $16, published April 24 2012 | purchase
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  • Caleb's Crossing
  • Geraldine Brooks

Forging a deep friendship with a Wampanoag chieftain's son on the Great Harbor settlement where her minister father is working to convert the tribe, Bethia follows her friend through his Ivy League education and his efforts to bridge cultures among the colonial elite.NPR Bestseller

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The Dovekeepers

The Dovekeepers

by Alice Hoffman

Paperback, 505 pages, Simon & Schuster, $16, published April 3 2012 | purchase
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  • The Dovekeepers
  • Alice Hoffman

Inspired by the tragic first century massacre of hundreds of Jewish people on the Masada mountain in the Judean desert, The Dovekeepers presents the stories of a hated daughter, a baker's wife, a girl disguised as a warrior, and a medicine woman who keeps doves and secrets while Roman soldiers draw near.NPR Bestseller

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The Education of Little Tree

The Education of Little Tree

by Forrest Carter

Paperback, 216 pages, University of New Mexico Press, $16.95, published September 1 2001 | purchase
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  • The Education of Little Tree
  • Forrest Carter

Forrest Carter recounts the childhood remembrances of an orphaned Native American boy living with his Cherokee grandparents in a mountain log cabin in eastern Tennessee during the 1930s.

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Gone to Texas

Gone to Texas

by Forrest Carter

Hardcover, 206 pages, Amereon Ltd, $28.95, published December 1 1976 | purchase
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  • Gone to Texas
  • Forrest Carter

Forrest Carter tells the fictional story of Josey Wales, who lost his family before the Civil War and went on to become the most wanted man in Texas.

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The Help

The Help

by Kathryn Stockett

Paperback, 534 pages, Penguin Group USA, $16, published June 28 2011 | purchase
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  • The Help
  • Kathryn Stockett

Limited and persecuted by racial divides in 1962 Jackson, Miss., three women — an African-American maid, her sassy and chronically unemployed friend (also a maid) and a recently graduated white woman — team up for a clandestine project.NPR Bestseller

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In Zanesville

In Zanesville

A Novel

by Jo Ann Beard

Paperback, 289 pages, Little Brown & Co, $14.99, published April 3 2012 | purchase
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  • In Zanesville
  • A Novel
  • Jo Ann Beard

Along with her best friend, the fourteen-year-old narrator navigates a 1970s American girlhood, including challenges from popular girls and the first hints of womanhood.

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Waiting for Sunrise

Waiting For Sunrise

by William Boyd

Hardcover, 353 pages, HarperCollins, $25.99, published April 17 2012 | purchase
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  • Waiting For Sunrise
  • William Boyd

Wrongly accused of rape, Lysander Rief, a young English actor, finds his life taking a dangerous turn when the men who help him escape a conviction recruit him for a lethal mission that leads him to a traitor who is linked to his family.

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The Dressmaker

The Dressmaker

by Kate Alcott

Hardcover, 306 pages, Random House Inc, $25.95, published February 21 2012 | purchase
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  • The Dressmaker
  • Kate Alcott

A spirited young maid on board the Titanic captures the attentions of two men including a kindhearted sailor and an enigmatic Chicago millionaire and barely escapes with her life before witnessing media scorn targeting her famous designer mistress.

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