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THE EXECUTION OF NOA P. SINGLETON

An unforgettable and unpredictable debut novel of guilt, punishment, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive

Noa P. Singleton never spoke a word in her own defense throughout a brief trial that ended with a jury finding her guilty of first-degree murder. Ten years later, having accepted her fate, she sits on death row in a maximum-security penitentiary, just six months away from her execution date.

Meanwhile, Marlene Dixon, a high-powered Philadelphia attorney who is also the mother of the woman Noa was imprisoned for killing. She claims to have changed her mind about the death penalty and will do everything in her considerable power to convince the governor to commute Noa’s sentence to life in prison,

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MAGNOLIA CITY

Houston in the 1920s is a city of established cotton kings and newly rich oil barons, where the elite live in beaux art mansions behind the gates of Courtlandt Place. Kirby Augustus Allen, grandson of the Allen brothers who founded Houston as a real estate deal, is grooming his daughter Hetty to marry Lamar Rusk, scion of the Splendora oil fortune. Instead, at the No-Tsu-Oh Carnival of 1928, beautiful, rebellious Hetty encounters a mysterious man from Montana dressed in the gear of a wildcatter–an outsider named Garret MacBride.

Hetty is torn between Lamar's lavish courtship and her instinctive connection to Garret.

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THE READING CIRCLE

Welcome to the quirky town of Cherico, Mississippi, where potluck meetings at the local library provide a feast for mind and stomach alike. . .

If some folks had their way, the Cherico library would have shut down long ago. Councilman Durden Sparks aims to divert funding to a cause dear to his heart–and his wallet. With the aid of gumption and good friends, librarian Maura Beth Mayhew has finagled a one-year reprieve, and the burgeoning book club is raising the library's profile one mouthwatering meeting at a time. But more members mean more opinions. . .

While the Forrest Gump-themed shrimp dishes are a universal hit,

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THE RED LILY CROWN

Elizabeth Loupas returns with her most ambitious historical novel yet, a story of intrigue, passion, and murder in the Medici Court…

April, 1574, Florence, Italy. Grand Duke Cosimo de’ Medici lies dying. The city is paralyzed with dread, for the next man to wear the red lily crown will be Prince Francesco: despotic, dangerous, and obsessed with alchemy.

Chiara Nerini, the troubled daughter of an anti-Medici bookseller, sets out to save her starving family by selling her dead father’s rare alchemical equipment to the prince. Instead she is trapped in his household—imprisoned and forcibly initiated as a virgin acolyte in Francesco’s quest for power and immortality.

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NO ONE COULD HAVE GUESSED THE WEATHER

Sometimes what you want in your twenties isn't what you want or need in your forties…

When Lucy's husband loses his job, she is forced to give up her posh life and move their family to a tiny apartment in Manhattan, where he has managed to secure a lowly position. Lucy soon finds herself living in the epicenter of cool and hip. Across from their apartment is a bar called PDT-when Lucy passes by she thinks, “Please Don't Tell anyone I'm a middle-aged woman.”

Homesick and resentful at first, Lucy soon embarks on the love affair of her life-no,

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BEACH PLUM ISLAND

“Your brother should know the truth.”

These are the last cryptic words that Ava Barrett’s father says before he dies. But Ava doesn’t have a brother, as far as she knows, so how can she tell him the truth? She dismisses the conversation and dedicates herself to bringing her family together for her father’s funeral. This is no easy task, since her sister, Elaine, has been estranged from the family and still harbors resentment against their stepmother and half-sister, Gigi. Ava, on the other hand, is a single mother who sees Gigi as a troubled teen in need of love and connection.

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