Friday, August 9, 2019

Dragonwell Dead by Laura Childs, 290 pages

It's springtime in Charleston and just about every species of South Carolina's flora is in full and glorious bloom at the Spring Plantation Ramble. Once a year, the upper crust open their sprawling gardens to the public, the site of flower shows, rare plant auctions, and a contagious spring fever. Although Theodosia Browning barely knows a Phalinopsis from a Bog Rose, she still enjoys the Ramble, especially since she can pour tea and promote her Indigo Tea Shop-and her latest concoction, Dragonwell Sweet Tea.


The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner, 450 pages

Raised in a small village surrounded by vast forests, Liba and Laya have lived a peaceful sheltered life - even if they've heard of troubling times for Jews elsewhere. When their parents travel to visit their dying grandfather, the sisters are left behind in their home in the woods.

But before they leave, Liba discovers the secret that their Tati can transform into a bear, and their Mami into a swan. Perhaps, Liba realizes, the old fairy tales are true. She must guard this secret carefully, even from her beloved sister.

Soon a troupe of mysterious men appear in town and Laya falls under their spell-despite their mother's warning to be wary of strangers. And these are not the only dangers lurking in the woods...

The sisters will need each other if they are to become the women they need to be - and save their people from the dark forces that draw closer.


Behind the Shattered Glass by Tasha Alexander, 288 pages

A ruined abbey on a beautiful estate in Derbyshire, a murdered peer, and a most unlikely romance make New York Times bestseller Tasha Alexander's new novel Behind the Shattered Glass absolutely irresistible

Anglemore Park is the ancestral home of Lady Emily Hargreave's husband Colin. But the stately calm of country life is destroyed when their neighbor, the Marquess of Montagu, bursts through the French doors from the garden and falls down dead in front of the shocked gathering. But who has a motive for murdering the young aristocrat? The lovely cousin who was threatened by his engagement, the Oxford friend he falsely accused of cheating, the scheming vicar's daughter he shamelessly seduced or the relative no one knew existed who appears to claim the Montagu title? Who is the mysterious woman seen walking with him moments before he was brutally attacked?

The trail takes readers into the gilded world of a British manor house and below stairs to the servants who know all the secrets. One family's hidden past and a forbidden passion are the clues to a puzzle only Lady Emily can solve.


Miss Read's Christmas: Village Christmas and The Christmas Mouse by Miss Read, 173 pages

Miss Read's many fans will be delighted to renew acquaintance with two of her most popular Christmas novels, available here in one edition. In Village Christmas, a family new to Fairacre is viewed with suspicion by their elderly neighbors, the Waters sisters, until an unexpected turn of events works magic over both houses on Christmas Day. Meanwhile, Mrs. Berry, in the nearby village of Caxley, faces an equally eventful Christmas Eve in The Christmas Mouse when she is awakened by two unexpected intruders: a mouse and a bedraggled runaway boy, both taking refuge from a winter storm. Both stories are resolved in Miss Read's comforting style, as warm as the glowing coals of the cottage fire and the spirit of Christmas itself. Miss Read's Christmas Tales are a treat for those who already know Miss Read and a charming introduction to her books for those who do not. As in other books by Miss Read, this volume is complemented by John S. Goodall's delightful line drawings.


Tuesday, August 6, 2019

How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back by Diana Rowland, 328 pages

It’s zombie versus zombie as the Saberton Corporation declares war against the Zombie Mafia, kidnapping several of their party. It falls to Angel to lead the remnants of her gang halfway across the country to claw their way through corporate intrigue, zombie drugs, and undead trafficking to rescue her friends—and expose the traitor responsible for their abduction..


The Hello Girls: America's First Women Soldiers by Elizabeth Cobbs, 370 pages

In 1918, the U.S. Army Signal Corps sent 223 women to France to help win World War I. They were masters of the latest communications technology: the telephone switchboard. Top U.S. commander General John Pershing requested female “wire experts” when he discovered that inexperienced doughboys were unable to keep him connected with Allies and troops under fire. Men called them the Hello Girls. They were America’s first women soldiers.

While militant suffragettes picketed the White House, and President Woodrow Wilson struggled to persuade a segregationist Congress to give the vote to all women, an extraordinary cohort swore the Army oath. Elizabeth Cobbs reveals the day-to-day challenges these patriotic young women faced in a war zone where male soldiers resented, wooed, mocked, saluted, and ultimately celebrated them. The first received a baptism by fire as Germans bombarded Paris with their new heavy artillery, Big Bertha. A few followed “Black Jack” Pershing to battlefields where they served through shelling and bombardment. Their brave, impassioned 25-year-old leader won the Distinguished Service Medal.

The Army discharged the last Hello Girls in 1920, the year Congress ratified the Nineteenth Amendment granting women the ballot. When the uniformed operators sailed home, the Army unexpectedly dismissed them without veterans’ benefits. They began a new, sixty-year battle that a handful of undaunted survivors carried to triumph in 1979. With the help of the National Organization for Women, Senator Barry Goldwater, and a crusading young Seattle attorney, they defeated the U.S. Army to win their Victory Medals at last.


Saturday, August 3, 2019

The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse, 253 pages

The Inimitable Jeeves contains eleven interconnected stories featuring the luckless Bertie Wooster, his perennially lovelorn friend Bingo Little, and who else but our old pal, the indefatigable butler Jeeves. These tales are sure to quench one's thirst for cultured buffoonery.