In
June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to
Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just
served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long
gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed
upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his
eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can
start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett
discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves
in the trunk of the warden's car. Together, they have hatched an
altogether different plan for Emmett's future, one that will take
them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction—to the City
of New York.
In
1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by
a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the
Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov,
an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in
his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most
tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the
hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him
entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one
beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts
a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper
understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.
For
years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet
town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome
Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya
Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say.
Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the
marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons
in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and
loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild
beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life—until the unthinkable
happens.
Marie-Laure
lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father
works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and
daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where
Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the
sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable
and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up
with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that
brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or
imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these
crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track
down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure
and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try
to be good to one another.
Looking
at real estate isn't usually a life-or-death situation, but an
apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber
bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives
include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down
fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can't fix their
own marriage.
Aging
and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to
tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she
chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one
is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left
her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why
Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is
determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.
Legendary
spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon has at long last severed ties
with Israeli intelligence and settled quietly in Venice, the only
place where he has ever truly known peace. His beautiful wife,
Chiara, has taken over the day-to-day management of the Tiepolo
Restoration Company, and their two young children are discreetly
enrolled in a neighborhood scuola elementare. For his part, Gabriel
spends his days wandering the streets and canals of the watery city,
bidding farewell to the demons of his tragic, violent past.
But when the eccentric London art dealer Julian Isherwood asks
Gabriel to investigate the circumstances surrounding the rediscovery
and lucrative sale of a centuries-old painting, he is drawn into a
deadly game of cat and mouse where nothing is as it seems