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HER HEART FOR A COMPASS

Name: HER HEART FOR A COMPASS
Author: Sarah Ferguson
ISBN: 978-0-06-297652-9

by Sarah Ferguson with Marguerite Kaye ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 3, 2021

Fans of Downton Abbey will revel in everything they love about a big, fat 19th-century yarn.

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A headstrong heroine—the daughter of a duke—fights her way through Victorian mores to self-realization.

Ferguson, the Duchess of York, author of many children's books, weight-loss guides, and memoirs, collaborates here with Marguerite Kaye, a Scottish writer of historical romances, to create a vivid, juicy, and well-researched novel set in Victorian England and New York City. When we first meet Lady Margaret Montagu Douglas Scott, it is 1865 and she is an 18-year-old with a 19-inch waist being led like a lamb to the slaughter to the London ballroom where everyone who's anyone has gathered to hear her father, the Duke of Buccleuch (a world-class asshole, not to put too fine a point on it), announce her engagement to the cold, repellent Earl of Killin. "Our estates have lots of sheep. He has woollen mills. In more ways than one, it will be a marriage made in heaven," says her father. Lady Margaret begs to differ—and rather than enter the hall, she bolts, though she has never before ventured beyond the garden gate of the manor. A friend of her father's tries to stop her to no avail as she rushes without a plan into the wilds of the urban landscape, strikingly evoked with particular attention to the olfactory. She meets her first poor person—a Crimean war veteran who has lost his legs—resulting in an awakening that will shape the rest of her life. We follow her into her late 20s, through exile in Ireland, across the Atlantic, and back, the narrative supplemented by newspaper articles and letters from her friends and family. Like her fictional contemporary Jo March, Margaret has great hair, a gift for writing, a feminist spirit, and a drive to help others; in a clever touch, she buys a stack of signed copies of Little Women for her friends back home. Several of the titled characters are based on Ferguson's ancestors, and her understanding of peerage protocol seems more than just research-based.

Fans of Downton Abbey will revel in everything they love about a big, fat 19th-century yarn.

Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-06-297652-9

Page Count: 560

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021

Categories:

HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION

- SEEN & HEARD
Sarah Ferguson Will Publish a Second Novel

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THE LITTLE LIAR

by Mitch Albom ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 14, 2023

A captivating allegory about evil, lies, and forgiveness.

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Truth and deception clash in this tale of the Holocaust.

Udo Graf is proud that the Wolf has assigned him the task of expelling all 50,000 Jews from Salonika, Greece. In that city, Nico Krispis is an 11-year-old Jewish boy whose blue eyes and blond hair deceive, but whose words do not. Those who know him know he has never told a lie in his life—“Never be the one to tell lies, Nico,” his grandfather teaches him. “God is always watching.” Udo and Nico meet, and Udo decides to exploit the child’s innocence. At the train station where Jews are being jammed into cattle cars bound for Auschwitz, Udo gives Nico a yellow star to wear and persuades him to whisper among the crowd, “I heard it from a German officer. They are sending us to Poland. We will have new homes. And jobs.” The lad doesn’t know any better, so he helps persuade reluctant Jews to board the train to hell. “You were a good little liar,” Udo later tells Nico, and delights in the prospect of breaking the boy’s spirit, which is more fun and a greater challenge than killing him outright. When Nico realizes the horrific nature of what he's done, his truth-telling days are over. He becomes an inveterate liar about everything. Narrating the story is the Angel of Truth, whom according to a parable God had cast out of heaven and onto earth, where Truth shattered into billions of pieces, each to lodge in a human heart. (Obviously, many hearts have been missed.) Truth skillfully weaves together the characters, including Nico; his brother, Sebastian; Sebastian’s wife, Fannie; and the “heartless deceiver” Udo. Events extend for decades beyond World War II, until everyone’s lives finally collide in dramatic fashion. As Truth readily acknowledges, his account is loaded with twists and turns, some fortuitous and others not. Will Nico Krispis ever seek redemption? And will he find it? Author Albom’s passion shows through on every page in this well-crafted novel.

A captivating allegory about evil, lies, and forgiveness.

Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023

ISBN: 9780062406651

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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by Mitch Albom

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THE BOARDWALK BOOKSHOP

by Susan Mallery ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 31, 2022

A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism.

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Three woman who join together to rent a large space along the beach in Los Angeles for their stores—a gift shop, a bakery, and a bookstore—become fast friends as they each experience the highs, and lows, of love.

Bree is a friendly but standoffish bookstore owner who keeps everyone she knows at arm’s length, from guys she meets in bars to her friends. Mikki is a settled-in-her-routines divorced mother of two, happily a mom, gift-shop owner, and co-parent with her ex-husband, Perry. And Ashley is a young, very-much-in-love bakery owner specializing in muffins who devotes herself to giving back to the community through a nonprofit that helps community members develop skills and find jobs. When the women meet drooling over a boardwalk storefront that none of them can afford on her own, a plan is hatched to divide the space in three, and a friendship—and business partnership—is born. An impromptu celebration on the beach at sunset with champagne becomes a weekly touchpoint to their lives as they learn more about each other and themselves. Their friendship blossoms as they help each other, offering support, hard truths, and loving backup. Author Mallery has created a delightful story of friendship between three women that also offers a variety of love stories as they fall in love, make mistakes, and figure out how to be the best—albeit still flawed—versions of themselves. The men are similarly flawed and human. While the story comes down clearly on the side of all-encompassing love, Mallery has struck a careful balance: There is just enough sex to be spicy, just enough swearing to be naughty, and just enough heartbreak to avoid being cloying.

A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism.