If a Poem Could Live and Breathe

September 1, 2022

The Emmy Award--winning Calvi (Dear George, Dear Mary) returns with the story of a young Teddy Roosevelt wooing Boston belle Alice Lee in If a Poem Could Live and Breathe (60,000-copy first printing). Three Souls author Chang goes hardcover with The Porcelain Moon, about a young Chinese woman who flees her uncle's Paris home in 1918 to avoid an arranged marriage, seeking a cousin in the French countryside working with the Chinese Labour Corps and befriending a Frenchwoman who wants quit of her abusive husband (50,000-copy first printing). Set in 1940s Trinidad, when British colonialism and U.S. occupation were folding, Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner Hosein's Hungry Ghosts contrasts the lives of wealthy farm owners Dalton and Marlee Changoor and their impoverished workers, with the plot driven by Dalton's disappearance (100,000-copy first printing). In Code Name Sapphire, from World War II fiction titan Jenoff, Hannah Martel flees Nazi Germany for Brussels and joins the Sapphire Line, which spirits downed Allied airmen to safety; when her cousin Lily's family is slated for deportation, she must decide whether she should risk trying to rescue them (350,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). Best-selling thriller writer Labuskes turns to historical fiction with The Librarian of Burned Books, which moves from U.S. author Althea James's discovery of Nazi resisters in 1933 Berlin to German refugee Hannah Brecht's work at the German Library of Burned Books in 1936 Paris to Vivian Childs's efforts in 1944 New York to block the censorship of the Armed Service Editions, paperbacks shipped to soldiers overseas (100,000-copy paperback and 30,000-copy hardcover first printing). Writing under his father's Lithuanian surname, Maetis, British thriller writer John Matthews takes readers to 1938 Vienna, where members of The Vienna Writers Circle fear that the Anschluss means they won't be able to write and then fear for their very survival (50,000-copy first printing). In Canadian author Marshall's best-selling debut, Angela Creighton's discovery in 2017 of a long-misplaced letter with great import to her family sends her Looking for Jane, with Jane the codename for a network providing illegal abortions in 1970s-80s Toronto. Winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award and National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honors for Bear Down, Bear North: Alaska Stories, Moustakis tries out full-length fiction in Homestead, about a couple named Marie and Lawrence who marry impulsively and then learn about each other while homesteading in Alaska as it nears statehood (75,000-copy first printing). In Pulitzer Prize-winning Verble's Stealing, a Cherokee girl named Kit Crockett is taken from her home in 1950s bayou country and sent to a Christian boarding school intent on expunging her heritage (50,000-copy first printing).

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January 1, 2023
When young Theodore Roosevelt meets Alice Lee, he is instantly captivated, struck by both her beauty and her clever, playful spirit. While he is well liked at Harvard, his New York background and some of his hobbies leave him a bit of an outsider at times. As he and Alice bond over a shared interest in nature and classic literature, he also finds himself inspired by her determination to speak her mind about women's equality and the value of education. And, after years of bucking against her mother and society in general, Alice is pleased to find in Theodore someone who understands and supports her. Calvi (Dear George, Dear Mary, 2019) again delves into history to highlight the young love of a significant figure, using real letters and journal entries. Interspersed throughout the tale of Roosevelt's relationship with his first wife, told from both their points of view, are chapters that reveal his deep sadness after losing her. This is a sweet and engaging story with strong-minded characters, for those who've enjoyed Courting Mr. Lincoln, by Louis Bayard (2019) or Becoming Mrs. Lewis, by Patti Callahan (2018).

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