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DAUGHTERS OF ROME

A.D. 69. Nero is dead. The Roman Empire is up for the taking. With bloodshed spilling out of the palace and on to the streets, chaos has become a way of life for Rome. The Year of Four Emperors will change everything—especially the lives of one family with a very personal stake in the outcome. Cornelia embodies the essence of the proper Roman wife. She patiently waits to one day see her loyal husband as Emperor of Rome, but instead witnesses his brutal demise at the hands of the Praetorian guard. Her sister Marcella is content merely to watch the politics and turmoil,

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HOME TO WOEFIELD

Susan Juby, already a reader-favorite YA author, makes her triumphant first foray into adult contemporary fiction with Home to Woefield, a hilarious, wildly original, and wonderfully insightful tale of no-so-ordinary life down on the farm. Told in four delightfully distinct narrative voices—a crusty 70-something farmer, a hair band-loving teen, a precocious 11-year old, and an earnest New Yorker in her 20s—Home to Woefield will enchant readers of all ages, as its motley cast struggles to avoid foreclosure with outlandish schemes and prize-winning chickens.

Prudence Burns, a well-intentioned New Yorker full of back-to-the-land ideals, just inherited Woefield Farm—thirty acres of scrubland,

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HEART OF DECEPTION

From M. L. Malcolm, the acclaimed author of Heart of Lies, comes a powerful sequel that spans the years from World War II to the turbulent 1960s—the riveting story of a family struggling with choices forced upon them by war . . . and the consequences that will take a generation to unfold.

A man of many contradictions, Leo Hoffman is a Hungarian national with a French passport, a wealthy businessman with no visible means of support, and a devoted father who hasn’t seen his daughter in years. He is also a spy.

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RUSSIAN WINTER

A mysterious jewel holds the key to a life-changing secret, in this breathtaking tale of love and art, betrayal and redemption.

When she decides to auction her remarkable jewelry collection, Nina Revskaya, once a great star of the Bolshoi ballet, believes she has drawn a curtain on her past. Instead, the aged dancer finds herself overwhelmed by memories of her homeland and of the events—both glorious and heartbreaking—that changed the course of her life half a century before.

It was in Russia that she discovered the magic of the theatre; that she fell in love with the poet Viktor Elsin;

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PEARL OF CHINA

From the bestselling author of Red Azalea and Empress Orchid comes the poignant story of the friendship of a lifetime, based on the life of Pearl S. Buck.

Willow never dreamed that her childhood friend would become a world-renowned writer. In the impoverished Chinese village of Chin-kiang, a young pickpocket meets her match in Pearl Sydenstricker, the daughter of the village’s only white man, a Christian missionary named Absalom. Willow and her Papa befriend Pearl’s family to get a hot meal, but eventually Papa and Absalom become partners in recruiting the villagers to join the church.

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THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS

One of our recommended books is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance.

Soon to be made into an HBO movie by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball, this New York Times bestseller takes readers on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers filled with HeLa cells,

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