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Summary of Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly | Includes Analysis Preview: Lilac Girls, Martha Hall Kelly's debut, is a World War II-era novel based on real people and events. The novel tells the intertwined stories of three women: Caroline Ferriday, a New York socialite and philanthropist; Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish prisoner at the Ravensbrück concentration camp for women; and Herta Oberheuser, a Nazi doctor at Ravensbrück. In 1939, 37-year-old Caroline...

Summary of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd | Includes Analysis Preview: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a coming-of-age novel narrated by 14-year-old Lily Owens, a young white teen who runs away from home. In equal parts fleeing her abusive father and pursuing a lead on her late mother, whose final days are shrouded in mystery, Lily travels to a nearby town where she finds a new home with a black family. In the racially charged...

Summary, Analysis & Review of Emma Donoghue's The Wonder by Instaread Preview: The Wonder by Emma Donoghue is a novel about Elizabeth Lib" Wright, a British nurse whose wits, beliefs, and compassion are tested during an unusual assignment in rural Ireland circa 1859. Lib's charge is Anna O'Donnell, an 11-year-old who allegedly hasn't had a bite to eat in four months. Dubious of this so-called miracle, Lib has just two weeks to uncover her young patient's...

Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner | Summary & Analysis Secrets of a Charmed Life is the story of how two young sisters survived World War II in London. In 2015, at Stow-on-the-Wold in the English countryside, Kendra Van Zant, a history major, interviews ninety-three year old Isabel MacFarland. Kendra quickly realizes Isabel is not her subject's real name, nor is she ninety-three. Isabel, a well-known artist, tells Kendra the tale of two...

Summary of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi | Includes Analysis Preview: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi is a novel in stories about the Atlantic slave trade and its aftermath. The novel begins with the stories of two African half-sisters of the Fante and Asante tribes: Effia and Esi. Effia is born in the late eighteenth century in Fanteland on Africa's Gold Coast, on the night of a devastating fire near her father's compound. Her adoptive mother, Baaba, immediately...

Summary of The Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi | Includes Analysis Preview: The Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Afghan American novelist Nadia Hashimi tells an intergenerational story of two Afghan women whose lives are different but connected. Rahima, a teenage girl, lives in twenty-first-century Afghanistan. In the wake of Taliban rule, Afghanistan's government is divided and the culture is fractured. Shekiba, Rahima's great-great-grandmother,...

Summary, Analysis & Review of Stephanie Dray's and Laura Kamoie's America's First Daughter by Instaread Preview: America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie is the story of Martha Patsy" Jefferson Randolph, a daughter of Thomas Jefferson. Based on Jefferson's letters and actual historical events, the novel imagines Patsy's struggles to remain loyal to her father while following her own heart during America's turbulent post-Revolutionary...

Inside this Instaread Summary & Analysis of The Japanese Lover: • Summary of book • Introduction to the Important People in the book • Analysis of the Themes and Author's Style

The invention of writing postdates, invariably, the invention of storytelling. After all, what purpose is there to writing, until you have something to write down? Excavate these writings, then. Decipher them carefully. Let them, at last, convince you to forget writing until instead they sit across the fire, speaking to you oral traditions, folktales, and of days long, long past When the World Was Young. SakaraFox • Utunu • Huskyteer • J.F.R....

"Readers who know Scotland will glow with recognition; those who don't will want to pack their bags and maybe a gun." -Kirkus Reviews From the Highlands to the borders, the bustling cities to the remote isles in cold seas, the unique landscapes and locales of Scotland have long inspired writers of the very best Golden Age mysteries. Beginning with the adventures of Sherlock Holmes from Edinburgh-born Arthur Conan Doyle, this new collection includes...