"It's 1961, and for Margo Hightower, everything is about to change. True, her engagement is off, her family has fallen in scandal, and she's completely broke. But she's just been hired as an assistant to photographer Slim Aarons--famous for his vibrant pictures of high society, royalty, and Hollywood stars--and she knows this opportunity is her ticket to something better. From the bright beaches of Acapulco to glitzy parties in New York, Margo is...

"Waste not, want not! A patterned flour sack becomes a clever creation in this story set in the late 1930's featuring a crafty girl with a gift for repurposing her favorite daisy print. When the family flour sack is emptied, Nancy Bess remakes it into a dress. But little girls grow as little girls do, and soon that dress is too small. Bit by bit, Nancy Bess fashions the material into new creations, until finally, all that is left of the flour sack...

"From the author of the critically acclaimed The Illness Lesson ("astoundingly original"--NYTBR), comes a a page-turning and psychologically penetrating tale about the rules that govern women's bodies and lives. In 1948, Irene Willard, who's had five previous miscarriages in a quest to give her beloved husband the child he desperately desires and is now pregnant again, comes to an isolated house-cum-hospital in the Berkshires, run by a husband-and-wife...

"Set in Syracuse, Sicily, during the Peloponnesian War but told in contemporary Irish dialect, Glorious Exploits follows Lampo and Gelon, best friends since childhood. Thrilled to have survived the Athenians' recent invasion and as shocked by the Syracusan victory as everyone else, these unemployed potters are in a mood to celebrate. Of course, they hate the Athenians. Still, that doesn't mean you can't love the theatre of their great playwright Euripides,...

"Dr. Wiltse leaves behind his beloved Canada in the mid-1850s with wife Phebe and three young children to establish new roots in America. Only Phebe knows of his attraction to murder... His well-oiled black canvas bag simply allows him into emplacements where others may not go. Still, his fellow French Canadians called him 'Guerisseur,' (Healer). Perhaps, the pioneer physician is also running from entanglements of the past."--

"In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family's social position. What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when...

It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. But for Omar, whose upbringing was quiet and lonely, this job offers a chance to finally find connection. Ada Bunting is a bold sixteen-year-old...

A TODAY Show Read With Jenna Book Club Pick!

A powerful novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, casting light on the unsung people who lived, loved, and labored there

It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more

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"The paths of three young Black women in pre-Civil War Philadelphia unexpectedly-and dangerously-collide in this dramatic debut novel inspired by the explosive history of a city at war with itself. Philadelphia, 1837. When nineteen-year-old Charlotte escaped from the deteriorating White Oaks plantation four years ago, she'd expected freedom to look completely different from her former life as an enslaved housemaid. Instead, she's locked away playing...

"John, an impoverished Scottish minister, has accepted a job evicting the lone remaining occupant of an island north of Scotland--Ivar, who has been living alone for decades, with only the animals and the sea for company. Though his wife, Mary, has serious misgivings about the errand, he decides to go anyway, setting in motion a chain of events that neither he nor Mary could have predicted. Shortly after John reaches the island, he falls down a cliff...