HISTORICAL FICTION
JANET SOMERVILLE
The Woman with Two Shadows Sarah James Sourcebooks 400 pages $24.99
By May 1945, Columbia University physics student Lillian Kaufman has not heard from her twin Eleanor since she left for a classified army job in Tennessee two months earlier. When a phone call from a former classmate working on-site informs her that Eleanor has disappeared, Lillian travels there and pretends to be her twin to uncover what happened. The plot is a Russian nesting doll of secrets and the narrative arc bends towards redemptive justice in this debut.
Belle Greene Alexandra Lapierre, translated by Tina Kover Europa Editions 480 pages $37.95
This is a convincingly-drawn portrait of trailblazing librarian Belle Marion Greener, daughter of the first Black student to graduate Harvard. A formidable late 19th century New Yorker, Belle decides with her siblings they must pass as white when their father leaves to become a diplomat in Russia. Renaming herself Belle da Costa Greene, forcing distance between herself and her African-American scholar father, she becomes a librarian at Princeton where she meets Junius Morgan, an expert on the poet Virgil — and banker J.P.’s nephew. Junius introduces Belle to his uncle who hires this impassioned, intelligent risk-taker to build his personal library. Impeccably-researched and richly-imagined, you will believe every word.
JANET SOMERVILLE IS THE AUTHOR OF “YOURS, FOR PROBABLY ALWAYS: MARTHA GELLHORN’S LETTERS OF LOVE & WAR 1930-1949,”
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2022-08-13T07:00:00.0000000Z
2022-08-13T07:00:00.0000000Z
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