English Womens Fiction

Lina Meisel, a retired librarian in Florida, is reading the newspaper one morning when she freezes. Her eyes lock on a photograph of a book she hasn’t seen in 65 years - a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names. The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II - an experience Lina remembers well - and the search to reunite people with the texts stolen from them so long ago. The book in the photograph is one of the most fascinating cases.

How can something so wrong be so perfect at the same time? Rule number five - I'm going to show you some things that you'll never forget. It's wrong. Not just this, but everything. I knew it was wrong, but I thought I could get away with it. Why, though? I'm not like this. I'm good. I'm the good girl, the girl with perfect grades, the girl who does everything right, prim and proper. I don't cause trouble, I don't get into trouble, I don't....

It's 16-year-old Edie who finds their mother, Marianne, dangling in the living room from an old jump rope, puddle of urine on the floor, barely alive. Upstairs, 14-year-old Mae had fallen into one of her trances, often a result of feeling too closely attuned to her mother's dark moods. After Marianne is unwillingly admitted to a mental hospital, Edie and Mae are forced to move from their childhood home in Louisiana to New York to live with their estranged father, Dennis, a former civil rights activist and literary figure on the other side of success.

Bad boys love bad ideas. It's kind of their thing, isn't it? Ethan's no exception. Rule Number Seven - I don't care what you've done before. It doesn't matter. It's about what you want to do now. I'm really bad at being a good girl, aren't I? I blame Ethan. He's corrupting me. It's the perfect excuse, but I'm not sure how much longer I can keep using it.

Barbara Holloway is a low-key attorney in Eugene, Oregon, who left her father’s high-powered firm to handle small legal problems for local residents and ponder her next move. But while trying to sort out her own future, two people, desperate for help, show up on her doorstep: former pro football player Martin Owens and his wife, Binnie. Binnie, who is mute, met her husband when she sneaked aboard his boat while it was docked in Haiti and smuggled herself into the US.

When a seemingly simple case turns complicated, respected attorney Barbara Holloway must rethink her game plan. Gregarious Las Vegas entertainer and ex-con Wally Lederer claims he's turned his life around. But when Jay Wilkins, a childhood friend, accuses Wally of stealing a valuable artifact, it's up to Barbara to ferret out the truth. Wally swears he's innocent. But when a murder takes place and the police name Wally as their prime suspect, Barbara knows he is in serious trouble.

The publication of The Woman's Bible in 1895 and 1898 represented the feminist pioneer's last strike at the roots of the ideology behind her gender's subordinate role in society. In keeping with her characteristic radical individualism, Stanton attacks religious orthodoxy on a political rather than scholarly basis.

The Taylor family shatters in a single night when two teenage siblings are found dead in their own home. The only surviving sibling, Vincent, never shakes the whispers and accusations that he was the one who killed them. Decades later, the legend only grows as his career as a horror writer skyrockets. Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont has spent her entire professional life hiding the fact that she is the only child of Vincent Taylor. Now on the brink of financial ruin, she's offered a job to ghostwrite her father's last book. What she doesn't know is that this project is another one of his lies.

Annalise Finch is content - she has a job she enjoys, lives close to her family and friends, and spends most Wednesday nights drinking wine with her grandma. According to her grandma, though, she has lost her sparkle, and the only solution is to join a site to hook up with other women. The only problem (aside from a meddling grandma with a dirty mind) is Annalise doesn’t like women. At least, that’s what she always thought, but when she meets Brinley Adams, she starts to question everything.

Prudence Welch has found solace in her introverted life in Baysville, a charming tourist town in Northern Ontario. Despite once dreaming of a life beyond its borders, she now finds contentment in her routines: working at her father’s gas station, writing poetry, and caring for her mother, who was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease shortly after Prue’s nineteenth birthday. But as her mother’s condition worsens and her father’s concerns about her own future intensify, Prue feels her world slipping further out of control.

Keiko Furukura is thirty-six, and she has been happily working at a Tokyo “Smile Mart” for eighteen years, fitting in by copying her colleagues’ dress and mannerisms, playing the part of a “normal person” excellently—more or less. But her packaged idyll is threatened by mounting pressure to find a husband and a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action to protect her peaceful world.

At 49, Belladonna Barrone’s life has taken some interesting turns. She unwittingly married into the mob but managed to get free when her husband died in a car accident. Most recently she was attacked and turned into a vampire, something else she never intended. As with everything, she’s made the best of her situation. She just didn’t know this newest situation would also result in her becoming the vampire governor of New Jersey.

Belfast, October 1940. Twenty-year-old zookeeper Hettie Quin arrives at the city docks in time to meet her new charge: an orphaned three-year-old Indian elephant named Violet. As Violet adjusts to her new solitary life in captivity and Hettie mourns the recent loss of her sister and the abandonment of her father, new storm clouds gather. A world war rages, threatening a city already reeling from escalating tensions between British Loyalists and those fighting for a free and unified Ireland.

Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, serving in the household of the enigmatic Commander and his bitter wife. She may go out once a day to markets whose signs are now pictures because women are not allowed to read. She must pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, for in a time of declining birthrates her value lies in her fertility, and failure means exile to the dangerously polluted Colonies. Offred can remember a time when she lived with her husband and daughter and had a job, before she lost even her own name....

Eighteen years ago, FBI Agent Darcy Hunt’s life changed forever when her little sister was abducted right under her nose—murdered by a crazed guild of misguided zealots.

Most people know this book from the Academy Award-winning motion picture starring Winona Ryder. Now, introduce them to the sparkling American classic behind the movie: a charming portrait of the joys and hardships of the four sisters in Civil War New England. Separated by the war from their beloved parents, these "little women" struggle to find their place in the world.

Published as a single novel in 1880; the story of Little Women has never lost its appeal. The semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story follows four sisters growing up in rural 19th-century New England, and the independent and outspoken main character is based on the author herself. 150 years later, the feminist leanings of the female-led narrative still resonate.

1947: Adventurous Radcliffe graduate Catherine “Cat” Killeen cancels her wedding and upends a future that no longer suits her. At the behest of her professor and hungry for a challenge, Cat arrives in Virginia to work on a confidential military project. A student in cryptoanalysis, Cat is already ahead of the game—to assist in rooting out Soviet spies who have infiltrated the US. Joining the “government girls” of Arlington Hall, Cat gains the respect of her superiors and the friendship of her peers. Then, on a night out in DC, Cat runs into Jonathan Dardis.

Spring has come to Port Marie, Vermont, shedding new light on old mysteries. Margot has discovered two sets of skeletal remains buried in the wall of the church basement. And even though her police officer cousin Sam warned her to stay out of the case, Margot can’t help herself. After all, it’s her church, her domain, and her responsibility. Hoping for answers, Margot seeks out Conrad Baptiste, the former church custodian, and becomes reacquainted with a loss from his past—his teenage son who went missing 20 years ago has been identified as one of the bodies.