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SWAN SONG

One of our recommended books is Swan Song by Lisa Alther

A new novel, funny, wise, moving, true, as only Lisa Alther can write (“she had me laughing at 4 in the morning” –Doris Lessing), set on a cruise ship, about a woman, a doctor in charge of the ship’s clinic, recovering from the loss of her longtime female lover, a much-admired writer, and coping with the high-wire madcappery of cruise ship life as she reckons with her past and feels her way into the future.

Dr. Jessie Drake, in her mid-sixties, following the sudden deaths of her parents and Kat, her partner of twenty years, has fled the Vermont life she has known for decades.In an effort to escape the oppressive constancy of grief,

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THE ENCHANTED APRIL

One of our recommended books is The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim

The charming, slyly comic novel of romantic longing and transformation that inspired the Oscar-nominated film.

Four very different women, looking to escape dreary London for the sunshine of Italy, take up an offer advertised in the Times for a “small medieval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be let furnished for the month of April.” As each blossoms in the warmth of the Italian spring, quite unexpected changes occur.

An immediate bestseller upon its first publication, in 1922, The Enchanted April set off a craze for tourism to the Italian Riviera that continues today.

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DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE

One of our recommended books is Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende

From the revered New York Times bestselling author of The House of the Spirits and A Long Petal of the Sea comes a passionate tale of one young woman’s quest to save her lover, set against the chaos, greed, and promise of the 1849 California Gold Rush.

Raised in the British colony of Valparaíso, Chile, English orphan Eliza Sommers meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquín Andieta, a lowly clerk with ambitious dreams. When gold is discovered in the hills of northern California. Chileans, including Joaquín, head north to seek their fortune.

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MORE MIRACLE THAN BIRD

One of our recommended books is More Miracle Than Bird by Alice Miller

For fans of Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife and Amor Towles’s Rules of Civility, Alice Miller’s sweeping debut novel charts the love story of two of literature’s most fascinating characters: Georgie Hyde-Lees and her husband, W. B. Yeats.

On the eve of World War I, twenty-one-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees is introduced to the acclaimed poet W. B. Yeats at a soirée in London. Although Yeats is famously eccentric and many years her senior, Georgie is drawn to him, and when he extends a cryptic invitation to a secret society, her life is forever changed.

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AUSTENLAND

One of our recommended books is Austenland by Shannon Hale

For readers of Waiting for Tom Hanks and Well Met, a “gloriously satisfying” (Glamour) romantic comedy set at a Jane Austen fantasy resort from New York Times bestselling author Shannon Hale. Now a major motion picture starring Keri Russell and produced by Stephenie Meyer.

Jane Hayes is a young New Yorker with a real romantic problem: no man she meets can compare to her one true love–Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. But when a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort for Austen fanatics,

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IN AT THE DEEP END

One of our recommended books is In at the Deep End by Kate Davies

A deliciously disarming debut novel about a twenty-something Londoner who discovers that she may have been looking for love—and pleasure—in all the wrong places (i.e., from men).

Julia has had enough. Enough of the sex noises her roommate makes. Enough of her dead-end government job. Enough of the one-night stand who accused her of breaking his penis. The only thing she hasn’t had enough of is orgasms; she hasn’t had proper sex in three years.

So when Julia gets invited to a warehouse party in a part of town where trendy people who have lots of sex go on a Friday night,

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