Download or read book The Secret of the Nightingale Palace written by Dana Sachs and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-02-19 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Struggling to move on after her husband's death, thirty-five-year-old Anna receives an unexpected phone call from her estranged grandmother, Goldie, summoning her to New York. A demanding woman with a sharp tongue and a devotion to fashion and etiquette, Goldie has not softened in the five years since she and her granddaughter last spoke. Now she wants Anna to drive her to San Francisco to return a collection of exquisite Japanese art to a long-lost friend. Hours of sitting behind the wheel of Goldie's Rolls-Royce soften Anna's attitude toward her grandmother, and as the miles pass, old hurts begin to heal. Yet no matter how close they become, Goldie harbors painful secrets about her youthful days in 1940s San Francisco that she cannot share. But if she truly wants to help her granddaughter find happiness again, she must eventually confront the truths of her life. Moving back and forth across time and told in the voices of both Anna and Goldie, The Secret of the Nightingale Palace is a searing portrait of family, betrayal, sacrifice, and forgiveness—and a testament to the enduring power of love.
Download or read book Winter Garden written by Kristin Hannah and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-02-02 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can a woman ever really know herself if she doesn't know her mother? From the author of the smash-hit bestseller Firefly Lane and True Colors comes Kristin Hannah's powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past. Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time—and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya's life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother's life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.
Download or read book Palace Beautiful written by Sarah DeFord Williams and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A secret room plus a hidden journal written during the Flu Pandemic of 1918 make for an emotional, magical middle-grade read. When sisters Sadie and Zuzu move to Salt Lake City, they discover an old journal in a secret room in their new house. Along with their neighbor, Bella, the girls take turns reading the story of a girl named Helen who lived during the flu epidemic of 1918. They soon become wrapped up in Helen's tale, which ends with a tragedy that has a scary parallel to Sadie and Zuzu's lives. Did Helen survive the flu? Is she still alive somewhere? Or could her ghost be watching them? A NYPL 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing
Download or read book The Golem and the Jinni written by Helene Wecker and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An intoxicating fusion of fantasy and historical fiction. . . . Wecker’s storytelling skills dazzle." —Entertainment Weekly A marvelous and absorbing debut novel about a chance meeting between two supernatural creatures in turn-of-the-century immigrant New York. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay by a disgraced rabbi knowledgeable in the ways of dark Kabbalistic magic. She serves as the wife to a Polish merchant who dies at sea on the voyage to America. As the ship arrives in New York in 1899, Chava is unmoored and adrift until a rabbi on the Lower East Side recognizes her for the creature she is and takes her in. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert and trapped centuries ago in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard. Released by a Syrian tinsmith in a Manhattan shop, Ahmad appears in human form but is still not free. An iron band around his wrist binds him to the wizard and to the physical world. Chava and Ahmad meet accidentally and become friends and soul mates despite their opposing natures. But when the golem’s violent nature overtakes her one evening, their bond is challenged. An even more powerful threat will emerge, however, and bring Chava and Ahmad together again, challenging their very existence and forcing them to make a fateful choice. Compulsively readable, The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable, in a wondrously inventive tale that is mesmerizing and unforgettable.
Download or read book The Nightingale written by Hans Christian Andersen and published by . This book was released on 1965 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Across the Nightingale Floor written by Lian Hearn and published by . This book was released on 2016-01-27 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across the Nightingale Floor is Book 1 in the five-part Tales of the Otori series. More than four million copies have been sold in over 36 countries.'The best story of magic, love, sex, revenge and suspense to have come this way since Philip Pullman' Independent On Sunday (UK) In his fortress at Inuyama, the murderous warlord Iida Sadamu surveys his famous nightingale floor. Constructed with exquisite skill, it sings at the tread of each human foot. No assassin can cross it unheard. Brought up in a remote village among the Hidden, a reclusive and spiritual people, Takeo has learned only the ways of peace. Why, then, does he possess the deadly skills that make him so valuable to the sinister Tribe? These supernatural powers will lead him to his violent destiny within the walls of Inuyama - and to an impossible longing for a girl who can never be his. His journey is one of revenge and treachery, beauty and magic, and the passion of first love. 'masterful storytelling ... a fantastic read' The Age Coming soon - the spellbinding new TALE OF SHIKANOKO, set 300 years before Otori: THE EMPEROR OF THE EIGHT ISLANDS (Books 1 & 2 in THE TALE OF SHIKANOKO) and THE LORD OF THE DARKWOOD (Books 3 & 4).PRAISE FOR THE TALES OF THE OTORI 'An engrossing fantasy saga of literary quality.' The Age'Lian Hearn's marvellous storytelling talent ... makes reading these books a moment of pure bliss.' Le Monde'an enthralling and original work of fantasy' The Times
Download or read book Nightingale written by Deva Fagan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After twelve-year-old Lark, determined to escape her squalid life, steals a magical sword from the Royal Museum, she reluctantly becomes the next Nightingale, destined to vanquish an ancient evil.
Download or read book The Djinn in the Nightingale s Eye written by A. S. Byatt and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-10-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The magnificent title story of this collection of fairy tales for adults describes the strange and uncanny relationship between its extravagantly intelligent heroine--a world renowned scholar of the art of story-telling--and the marvelous being that lives in a mysterious bottle, found in a dusty shop in an Istanbul bazaar. As A.S. Byatt renders this relationship with a powerful combination of erudition and passion, she makes the interaction of the natural and the supernatural seem not only convincing, but inevitable. The companion stories in this collection each display different facets of Byatt's remarkable gift for enchantment. They range from fables of sexual obsession to allegories of political tragedy; they draw us into narratives that are as mesmerizing as dreams and as bracing as philosophical meditations; and they all us to inhabit an imaginative universe astonishing in the precision of its detail, its intellectual consistency, and its splendor. "A dreamy treat.... It is not merely strange, it is wondrous." --Boston Globe "Alternatingly erudite and earthy, direct and playful.... If Scheherazade ever needs a break, Byatt can step in, indefinitely." --Chicago Tribune "Byatt's writing is crystalline and splendidly imaginative.... These [are] perfectly formed tales." --Washington Post Book World
Download or read book The Secret to Hummingbird Cake written by Celeste Fletcher McHale and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2016-02-09 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Friends since kindergarten, Carrigan, Ella Rae, and Laine thought they'd been through everything together. But when cancer threatens to rip the trio apart, their world spins in a way they've never known before. Through it all, will they discover the secret to the divine taste of hummingbird cake—and to friendships that never end? In the South you always say “yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am.” You know everybody’s business. Football is a lifestyle not a pastime. Food—especially dessert—is almost a religious experience. And you protect your friends as fiercely as you protect your family—even if the threat is something you cannot see. In this Southern novel brimming with wit and authenticity, Laine, Carrigan, Ella Rae first met on the playground when they were five years old. Now, as adults, they’re still almost inseparable as they handle the outrageous curveballs that life sometimes throws—from devastating pain to absolute joy. As the three friends navigate everything from a devastating medical diagnosis to the rocky path of marriage, their bond is tested. Through it all, you’ll experience the essence and the joy of true friendship. And if you’re lucky, you just may discover the secret to hummingbird cake along the way. Women’s fiction, focused on friendship, and set in the South Full length, stand-alone novel Includes discussion questions for book clubs
Download or read book Pasta for Nightingales written by Giovanni Pietro Olina and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Cassiano dal Pozzo, (1588-1657) now celebrated as one of the most important art patrons in Italy of the seventeenth century, commissioned a number of exquisite studies of birds as part of his famous "Paper Museum." In 1622 the lawyer and ornithologist Giovanni Pietro Olina used these drawings, which are now kept in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, as the basis for the illustrations in his Uccelliera. Pasta for Nightingales combines Cassiano's original artwork with selections from the first modern translation of Olina's text. It includes such enchanting insights as the idea that robins suffered from dizziness and that the hoopoe overindulged in grapes until it became "dazed and halfdrunk." However, it also includes much fascinating early natural history and ornithological observation--as well as the secret recipe for pasta to keep your nightingale happy and encourage it to sing. A historic and delightful gift book, which is bound to appeal to every bird-lover."--Dust jacket.
Download or read book Circe s Palace written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and published by BoD - Books on Demand. This book was released on 2023-10-15 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Circe's Palace" is a short story that draws inspiration from Greek mythology and the myth of Circe, a powerful sorceress from Homer's "Odyssey." In the story, Hawthorne reimagines the myth in his unique style. The narrative follows a group of sailors who, like Odysseus' men, encounter the enchantress Circe on an isolated island. She invites them into her palace and offers them a mysterious and alluring drink, much like the wine she gave to Odysseus' crew, which turned them into animals. As the sailors partake in the drink, they gradually undergo a transformation, experiencing altered states of being. The story explores themes of enchantment, illusion, and the power of desire. It delves into the idea of losing one's sense of self and reality when subjected to temptation and seduction. Hawthorne's "Circe's Palace" is emblematic of his fascination with myth, allegory, and the darker aspects of the human psyche. It serves as a literary reimagining of the classical myth, adding Hawthorne's own depth and symbolism to the narrative. The story is a prime example of Hawthorne's style and his interest in exploring the complexities of human nature, often through allegorical and symbolic storytelling. In "Circe's Palace," readers are invited to ponder the consequences of succumbing to seductive and enchanting illusions, with Hawthorne's characteristic blend of romantic and dark romantic themes.
Download or read book The People We Keep written by Allison Larkin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a run-down motorhome, flunking out of school, and picking up shifts at the local diner. But when April realizes she's finally had enough-enough of her selfish, absent father and barely surviving in an unfeeling town-she decides to make a break for it. Stealing a car and with only her music to keep her company, April hits the road, determined to live life on her own terms. She manages to scrape together a meaningful existence as she travels, encountering people and places she's never dreamed of, and could never imagine deserving. From lifelong friendships to tragic heartbreaks, April chronicles her journey in the beautiful music she creates as she discovers that home is with the people you choose to keep. "Allison Larkin knows her characters so well," (Rainbow Rowell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor Park) and brings her "tender, and real" (Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Daisy Jones The Six) prose to this unflinching, lyrical tale that is perfect for anyone who has ever yearned for the fierce power of belonging or to understand the profound beauty of a family found along the way"--
Download or read book The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle written by Janet Fox and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An enchanting, ghostly story that had me in its grip until the last page."—Jennifer A. Nielsen, New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of The False Prince “Keep calm and carry on.” That’s what Katherine Bateson’s father told her, and that’s what she’s trying to do: when her father goes off to the war, when her mother sends Kat and her brother and sister away from London to escape the incessant bombing, even when the children arrive at Rookskill Castle, an ancient, crumbling manor on the misty Scottish highlands. But it’s hard to keep calm in the strange castle that seems haunted by ghosts or worse. What’s making those terrifying screeches and groans at night? Why do the castle’s walls seem to have a mind of their own? And why do people seem to mysteriously appear and disappear? Kat believes she knows the answer: Lady Eleanor, who rules Rookskill Castle, is harboring a Nazi spy. But when her classmates begin to vanish, one by one, Kat must uncover the truth about what the castle actually harbors—and who Lady Eleanor really is—before it's too late.
Download or read book Secrets of the Tides written by Hannah Richell and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Moving and deeply suspenseful' - Sydney Morning Herald Every family has its secrets. Some are small, like telling a white lie or snooping through a private drawer. Others are more serious, like infidelity and betrayal. And some secrets are so terrible they must be hidden away in a deep, dark place, for if they ever came to light, they would surely tear a family apart... The Tides are a family full of secrets. Returning to Clifftops, the rambling family house perched high on the Dorset coastline, youngest daughter Dora hopes for a fresh start, for herself and the new life she carries. But can long-held secrets ever really be forgiven? And even if you can forgive, can you ever really learn to love again? Secrets of the Tides is the spellbinding debut from Hannah Richell, a rich and compelling family drama with a dark thread of suspense at its heart. This updated edition includes a chapter from Hannah's new novel, The Shadow Year, available now. 'A definite page-turner with unexpected depths' - The Australian Women's Weekly '...a tale of secrets, lies, betrayal and infidelity... Heartbreakingly good' - Herald Sun
Download or read book Church of Marvels written by Leslie Parry and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A ravishing first novel, set in vibrant, tumultuous turn-of-the-century New York City, where the lives of four outsiders become entwined, bringing irrevocable change to them all. New York, 1895. Sylvan Threadgill, a night soiler cleaning out the privies behind the tenement houses, finds an abandoned newborn baby in the muck. An orphan himself, Sylvan rescues the child, determined to find where she belongs. Odile Church and her beautiful sister, Belle, were raised amid the applause and magical pageantry of The Church of Marvels, their mother’s spectacular Coney Island sideshow. But the Church has burnt to the ground, their mother dead in its ashes. Now Belle, the family’s star, has vanished into the bowels of Manhattan, leaving Odile alone and desperate to find her. A young woman named Alphie awakens to find herself trapped across the river in Blackwell’s Lunatic Asylum—sure that her imprisonment is a ruse by her husband’s vile, overbearing mother. On the ward she meets another young woman of ethereal beauty who does not speak, a girl with an extraordinary talent that might save them both. As these strangers’ lives become increasingly connected, their stories and secrets unfold. Moving from the Coney Island seashore to the tenement-studded streets of the Lower East Side, a spectacular human circus to a brutal, terrifying asylum, Church of Marvels takes readers back to turn-of-the-century New York—a city of hardship and dreams, love and loneliness, hope and danger. In magnetic, luminous prose, Leslie Parry offers a richly atmospheric vision of the past in a narrative of astonishing beauty, full of wondrous enchantments, a marvelous debut that will leave readers breathless.
Download or read book The Women in the Castle written by Jessica Shattuck and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • FEATURING AN EXCLUSIVE NEW CHAPTER GoodReads Choice Awards Semifinalist "Moving . . . a plot that surprises and devastates."—New York Times Book Review "A masterful epic."—People magazine "Mesmerizing . . . The Women in the Castle stands tall among the literature that reveals new truths about one of history’s most tragic eras."—USA Today Three women, haunted by the past and the secrets they hold Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined—an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times Notable Book The Hazards of Good Breeding. Amid the ashes of Nazi Germany’s defeat, Marianne von Lingenfels returns to the once-grand castle of her husband’s ancestors, an imposing stone fortress now fallen into ruin following years of war. The widow of a resister murdered in the failed July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Marianne plans to uphold the promise she made to her husband’s brave conspirators: to find and protect their wives, her fellow resistance widows. First Marianne rescues six-year-old Martin, the son of her dearest childhood friend, from a Nazi reeducation home. Together, they make their way across the smoldering wreckage of their homeland to Berlin, where Martin’s mother, the beautiful and naive Benita, has fallen into the hands of occupying Red Army soldiers. Then she locates Ania, another resister’s wife, and her two boys, now refugees languishing in one of the many camps that house the millions displaced by the war. As Marianne assembles this makeshift family from the ruins of her husband’s resistance movement, she is certain their shared pain and circumstances will hold them together. But she quickly discovers that the black-and-white, highly principled world of her privileged past has become infinitely more complicated, filled with secrets and dark passions that threaten to tear them apart. Eventually, all three women must come to terms with the choices that have defined their lives before, during, and after the war—each with their own unique share of challenges. Written with the devastating emotional power of The Nightingale, Sarah’s Key, and The Light Between Oceans, Jessica Shattuck’s evocative and utterly enthralling novel offers a fresh perspective on one of the most tumultuous periods in history. Combining piercing social insight and vivid historical atmosphere, The Women in the Castle is a dramatic yet nuanced portrait of war and its repercussions that explores what it means to survive, love, and, ultimately, to forgive in the wake of unimaginable hardship.
Download or read book The Four Winds written by Kristin Hannah and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Bestselling Hardcover Novel of the Year."--Publishers Weekly From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them. “My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.” Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows. By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive. In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family. The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it—the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.
