Thirty year old Liang Xinhe broke up with her lover of seven years because the other cheated on her. Thirty-six year old Ning Xi finally broke up with her partner who had broken up and gotten back together with her several times. When they first met, they were both in poor states of mind. They both thought that the other was going to be another person who had brushed past their shoulder, not knowing that their affinity had started. Liang Xinhe: “So I press down the snow in my heart time and time again, as they are too white, too close to spring.” Ning Xi: “These emotional affairs of the mortal world flash by like a sparrow suddenly swooping past.” – Yu Xiuhua, from the poem “I Love You”

This radiant and thrilling debut follows a passionate love affair between two noblewomen who wish to free themselves from their repressive society, whatever the cost. In 17th century Paris, everyone has something to hide. The noblemen and women and writers consort with fortune tellers in the dark confines of their salons, servants practice witchcraft and black magic, and the titled poison family members to obtain inheritance. But for the Baroness Marie Catherine, the only thing she wishes to hide is how unhappy she is in her marriage, and the pleasures she seeks outside of it. When her husband is present, the Baroness spends her days tending to her children and telling them elaborate fairy tales, but when he's gone, Marie Catherine indulges in a more liberated existence, one of salons in grand houses, forward-thinking discussions with female scholars, and at the center of her freedom: Victoire Rose de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Conti, the androgynous, self-assured countess who steals Marie Catherine's heart and becomes her lover. Victoire possesses everything Marie Catherine does not--confidence in her love, and a brazen fearlessness in all that she's willing to do for it. But when Victoire's passion results in a shocking act of murder, she and Marie Catherine must escape from the tight clutches of Paris' eager chief of police. As they attempt to outwit him, they are led to the darkest corners of Paris and Versailles. What they discover is a city full of lies, mysticism, and people who have secrets they would also kill to keep.

In 1600s Amsterdam, two women—a painter and her assistant—defy the norms of their time as they take on the male-dominated art world and fall in love—from “fantastic prose writer” (Vulture) and “true master” (Guernica), Victoria Redel.“I loved it in a way that is no doubt different than other books I have loved. The period and touches on time, sexual politics, art, history, class, women’s rights and the significance of Amsterdam and all the details the author shares of this particularly rich period kept me thoroughly engaged and is a brilliant backdrop to Gerta and Maria’s story.” —Sarah Jessica Parker, SJP Lit At seven years old, Gerta’s hair is lopped off and she’s sent to work for the Oosterwijcks under the name Pieter because it’s a boy they need. As Pieter, she splits wood, minds the hens and rabbits, scrubs the wooden floors of the house, and tends the garden—all while the family’s teenage daughter, Maria, looks on, sketching Pieter’s every movement. A few years later at the dinner table Maria lays Gerta’s deception open alongside a demand that Gerta accompany her to Utrecht, where Maria will apprentice in the workshop of a famous painter.     In Utrecht, Maria learns to paint skilled still lives—though she is the only woman in her workshop and because of her gender will never be accepted into the painters’ guild. As Maria ascends to great heights of skill and fame, the relationship between maid and employer deepens and shifts, and it becomes clear that Gerta, too, possesses abilities far beyond what society expects.    Inspired by the little that is known about Maria van Oosterwijck’s actual life, I Am You is a love story, a meditation on gender—the ways it binds and frees us—and an ode to artistic creation. As beautifully wrought as Oosterwijck’s paintings delicate, blazing in color, and at times enveloped in shadow, Victoria Redel’s new novel brings to life the copious spoils of Amsterdam’s Golden Age, and the perils that lay hidden within them for women like Maria and Gerta.

Drawing on Maggie O'Farrell's long-term fascination with the little-known story behind Shakespeare's most enigmatic play, Hamnet is a luminous portrait of a marriage, at its heart the loss of a beloved child. Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet. Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell's new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes, a woman intriguingly absent from history. A New York Times Notable Book (2020), Best Book of 2020: Guardian, Financial Times, Literary Hub, and NPR.

A sharply intelligent novel about two college students and the strange, unexpected connection they forge with a married couple. Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed, and darkly observant. A college student and aspiring writer, she devotes herself to a life of the mind--and to the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi, her best friend and comrade-in-arms. Lovers at school, the two young women now perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where a journalist named Melissa spots their potential. Drawn into Melissa's orbit, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband. Private property, Frances believes, is a cultural evil--and Nick, a bored actor who never quite lived up to his potential, looks like patriarchy made flesh. But however amusing their flirtation seems at first, it gives way to a strange intimacy neither of them expect. As Frances tries to keep her life in check, her relationships increasingly resist her control: with Nick, with her difficult and unhappy father, and finally even with Bobbi. Desperate to reconcile herself to the desires and vulnerabilities of her body, Frances's intellectual certainties begin to yield to something new: a painful and disorienting way of living from moment to moment. Written with gem-like precision and probing intelligence, Conversations With Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth."

At the age of twelve, Jonas, a young boy from a seemingly utopian, futuristic world, is singled out to receive special training from The Giver, who alone holds the memories of the true joys and pain of life.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he?

Assuming no prior knowledge, this book introduces the reader to a selection of sites and temples, exploring them in detail and explaining all technical terms along the way. Intended for college-level students and the interested general reader, this book aims to equip the student of Greek architecture for further study, and can also serve as a handbook for visitors to the sanctuaries. The book covers many of the most popular sites, including Delphi, Olympia and the Athenian Acropolis. In this second edition there are new chapters on Western Greece, covering the site of Paestum in Magna Graecia (South Italy), and the unique temple of Olympian Zeus in Acragas, Sicily. The book also offers a concise account of the evolution of Greek architecture, explores aesthetic ideas underlying Greek architectural design, and gives consideration to specific buildings in their social and religious context. This second edition has expanded the discussion of the most important temples and lays emphasis on architectural sculpture as part of the meaning of the whole building. Along with an updated bibliography and a glossary, an abundance of plans, photos and drawings helps clarify the text.

At age 10, Luisa is separated from her birth country and family when she is adopted and transported from Colombia to Canada. Seven years later Luisa still has questions. Why did her mamá die of pneumonia when antibiotics could have saved her? Why did her papá disappear? When a long-awaited family trip to Bogotá is suddenly cancelled, Luisa leaves Toronto without permission to return to the orphanage she last knew as home. Determined to find answers and reconnect with her birth family, Luisa risks alienating her adopted family to make a place for herself in Bogotá, the home of her heart.At age 16, Luisa's adopted grandmother Nana Lottie flees Nazi Germany through the Kindertransport Program, where she comes to England to wait for her parents to rejoin her. Caught up in the brutal violence of the Shoah, they never come. After losing her entire family, Lottie needs to find a way to carry on.Spanning borders from Colombia to Canada, Germany to England, a grandmother and her granddaughter, both survivors of state violence, search for family and a place to call home.

L'io narrante è Mao, una ragazza che vive con la madre in una comunità religiosa sorta attorno alla carismatica figura della nonna, guaritrice e veggente. La setta, dopo la morte della fondatrice, ha cominciato a tradirne gli insegnamenti e si è trasformata in impresa a scopo di lucro. Mao se ne allontana sempre più e in occasione di una delle sue fughe incontra una coppia di motociclisti. Chiama lei "mamma"; lui invece si chiama Hachi, è stato abbandonato da piccolo dai genitori hippies giapponesi in India e ai religiosi genitori adottivi ha fatto voto di ritirarsi su una montagna per dedicarsi a una vita ascetica. Con i due Mao instaura una relazione d'amore.

L'io narrante è Mao, una ragazza che vive con la madre in una comunità religiosa sorta attorno alla carismatica figura della nonna, guaritrice e veggente. La setta, dopo la morte della fondatrice, ha cominciato a tradirne gli insegnamenti e si è trasformata in impresa a scopo di lucro. Mao se ne allontana sempre più e in occasione di una delle sue fughe incontra una coppia di motociclisti. Chiama lei "mamma"; lui invece si chiama Hachi, è stato abbandonato da piccolo dai genitori hippies giapponesi in India e ai religiosi genitori adottivi ha fatto voto di ritirarsi su una montagna per dedicarsi a una vita ascetica. Con i due Mao instaura una relazione d'amore.