Showing results by narrator "Caroline A Hewitt" in All Categories

The women of Picasso’s life are glamorous and elusive, existing in the shadow of his fame—until 1950s aspiring journalist Alana Olson determines to bring one into the light. Unsure of what to expect but bent on uncovering what really lies beneath the canvas, Alana steps into Sara Murphy’s well-guarded home to discover a past complicated by secrets and intrigue.

In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." The target in their sights was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organization dubbed Winston Churchill's "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." She became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and - despite her prosthetic leg - helped to light the flame of the French Resistance, revolutionizing secret warfare as we know it.

Paris, 1806. The renowned botanist Michel Adanson lies on his deathbed, the masterwork to which he dedicated his life still incomplete. As he expires, the last word to escape his lips is a woman’s name: Maram. The key to this mysterious woman’s identity is Adanson’s unpublished memoir of the years he spent in Senegal, concealed in a secret compartment in a chest of drawers. Therein lies a story as fantastical as it is tragic: Maram, it turns out, is none other than the fabled revenant.

For fans of The Rose Code and The Paris Library, The Librarian of Burned Books is a captivating WWII-era novel about the intertwined fates of three women who believe in the power of books to triumph over the very darkest moments of war.

High-school sweethearts Mac and Edie Swan lead a seemingly picture-perfect life in the sleepy-sweet community of Oak Hill, near Mobile, Alabama. Edie is a respected interior designer, Mac is a beloved pediatrician, and they have two great kids and a historic home on tree-lined Linden Avenue. From the outside, the Swan family is the definition of “the good life”. And life is good—mostly. Until a young woman walks into Mac’s office one day. A young woman whose very existence threatens all Mac and Edie have built and all they think they know about each other.

Seventeen-year-old Phoenix has spent much of her life drifting from town to town with her mom Nina, using their charms to swindle and steal to get by. Now they’ve made it to their ultimate destination, Mom’s hometown of Jasper Hollow. The plan: bring down Ellis Bowman, the man who ruined Nina’s life. When Phoenix gets caught spying on Ellis, she spins a convincing story that inadvertently gives her full access to the Bowman family.

When Chef Charlie Cooke is offered the chance to leave San Francisco and return home to Elkview, Alaska, to take over her mother’s diner, she doesn’t even consider saying no. After all - her love life has recently become a Love Life Crumble, and a chance to reconnect with her roots may be just what she needs. Determined to bring fresh life and flavors to the Bear Claw Diner, Charlie starts planning changes to the menu, which has grown stale over the years.

Claire Eiffel, the beautiful, brilliant eldest daughter of the illustrious architect Gustave Eiffel, is doted upon with an education envied by many sons of the upper classes, and entirely out of the reach of most daughters. Claire’s idyllic childhood ends abruptly when, at fourteen, her mother passes away. It’s soon made clear that Gustave expects Claire to fill her mother’s place as caregiver to the younger children and as manager of their home.

When Laura Powell and Henry Salter travel to Paris in 1938, neither considers the other very good company. Laura is a shallow, spoiled heir to a fortune, and Henry an opportunistic bore—or so they think. But as her father’s protégé, Henry is tasked with accompanying Laura for her safety, even as she continues to scorn him. Orphaned stowaway David forces the pair to see eye to eye. They can ignore their growing feelings, but they can’t deny the boy’s need for protection. Yet even with this tentative truce, their problems are far from over.

Welcome to the world of Mirabelle, a young goldfinch who loves to sing and dreams of becoming a musical star. She lives with her family in the backyard of a piano teacher, and she is quickly intrigued by Mr. Starek's newest pupil. Michael Jin is an 11-year-old keyboard sensation, but lesson after lesson, he refuses to play. With the prestigious Chopin Festival looming at summer’s end, how will he be ready in time? Mirabelle is responsible for Michael’s breakthrough - to her own astonishment, she sings the Chopin piece he is beginning to play at the piano.

From the acclaimed author of The Night Portrait comes a stunning historical novel about two women, separated by 500 years, who each hide Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa - with unintended consequences.

Lillian's world is full of grand parties, sunshine, and promises, as thrilling as the fairy tales Mama spins for her and her little sister, Eugenia. No one, not even her cold, stern Papa and her Bible spouting sister Emily, can crush her spirits—until the day Emily reveals the shattering secret at Lillian's birth, a secret Mama sadly cannot deny. Still Lillian refuses to believe Emily's hateful claim that she is evil, a curse...even when sweet, gentle Eugenia loses her fragile hold on life, and Mama retreats further into her fantasies.

From a young age, Cäcilie Bertha Ringer is fascinated by her father's work as a master builder in Pforzheim, Germany. But those five words, which he wrote next to her name in the family Bible, haunt Bertha. Years later, Bertha meets Carl Benz and falls in love—with him and his extraordinary dream of building a horseless carriage. Bertha has such faith in him that she invests her dowry in his plans, a dicey move since they alone believe in the machine. When Carl's partners threaten to withdraw their support, he's ready to cut ties. Bertha knows the decision would ruin everything.

Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised—the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story. As children in a war-ravaged, backwater town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves—until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune, and terrible loss.

After the mysterious disappearance of her fiancé, Alma Hughes moves to a remote island in the North Atlantic, where she hopes to weather her grief and nurture her ailing dog. But the strange town of Violette has mysteries as well. Townsfolk say that the radio tower overlooking their town broadcasts messages through their home appliances, their dreams, even the sea itself. When lightning strikes the tower, illuminating the sky in a brilliant flash, Alma finds herself caught in the unexplainable aftermath of one of Violette’s deadliest storms.

The Kids Under the Stairs: BenBee and the Teacher Griefer is a funny, clever novel-in-verse about Ben Bennet - who failed the language arts section of the Florida State test - and three classmates who get stuck in a summer-school class. But these kids aren't dumb - they're divergent thinkers, as Ms. J tells them: They simply approach things in a different way than traditional school demands.

Summer has come to Elkview, Alaska, bringing 20 hours of sunlight every day, not to mention a surge of tourists and seasonal workers. Chef Charlie Cooke is eager for a busy yet relaxing season, but when a young man working a summer job at the local fish processing plant dies moments after walking into the Bear Claw Diner, she is quickly swept into the investigation. Soon, through her best friend Annie Jensen, Charlie learns that another student worker at J and M Processing has disappeared, leaving more questions and fewer answers.

After a triumphant battle with a deadly snake reveals his true nature as a Howler—a fearsome grasshopper mouse—Jory is forced to leave the gentle deer mice who raised him. Alone but for his questions (Why was he left to be raised by deer mice? Who is he really?), Jory ventures into the desert seeking Saguaro, the only other grasshopper mouse he knows, one who just might have the answers. Jory’s journey of discovery will teach him things and take him places both dangerous and thrilling. But will he find the thing he desires most—a place in the desert he can truly call home?

Looting - a crowd of people publicly, openly, and directly seizing goods - is one of the more extreme actions that can take place in the midst of social unrest. Even self-identified radicals distance themselves from looters, fearing that violent tactics reflect badly on the broader movement. But Vicky Osterweil argues that stealing goods and destroying property are direct, pragmatic strategies of wealth redistribution and improving life for the working class - not to mention the brazen messages these methods send to the police and the state.

Charlotte, a commercial airline pilot, attends an auction with her boyfriend Henri at Hotel Drouot, now the oldest auction house in Paris. Successfully bidding on a box of wine saved from the German occupation during the Second World War, Henri gives Charlotte a seemingly inferior bottle he finds inside the box. Cleaning the label, Charlotte makes a shocking discovery that sends her on a quest to find the origins of this unusual—and very valuable—bottle of wine, a quest that will take her back fifty years into the past.