The Glass Château

January 1, 2023

From Benedict and Murray, the New York Times best-selling authors of the Good Morning America Book Club pick The Personal Librarian, The First Ladies assays the relationship between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune, whose parents were once enslaved. In theNew York Times best-selling Harmel's The Paris Daughter, Elise must go into hiding when the Germans occupy Paris during World War II and entrusts her young daughter to friend Juliette--their two girls are close--only to discover at war's end that Juliette has vanished and only one girl (but which one?) survived a bombing. In lates 1700s India, 17-year-old Abbas works under French clockmaker Lucien du Leze to create a massive tiger automaton for Tipu Sultan (called the Tiger of Mysore), then returns to apprentice with du Leze in France and eventually heads to England to rescue his tiger, which British forces treated as Loot; James'sThe Tusk That Did the Damage was a San Francisco Chronicle best book. Wandering through devastated post-World War II France, Asher finds sanctuary (but hides his Jewish identity) at The Glass Ch�teau, where glass is being manufactured to replace the shattered windows of postwar France's cathedrals: award-winning journalist/novelist Kiernan was inspired by the life of Marc Chagall. In the New York Times best-selling See's Lady Tan's Circle of Women, Yunxian is trained by her physician grandmother in 15th-century China and works with a young midwife, but an arranged marriage threatens to confine her to a life of wifely subordination. Following Tsukiyama's much-praised The Color of Air, The Brightest Star reimagines the life of Anna May Wong, the only Asian American woman to achieve fame in Hollywood's early days. In the New York Times best-selling Williams's The Beach at Summerly, caretaker's daughter Emilia Winthrop is thrilled when charismatic role model Olive Rainsford arrives at Winthrop Island's Summerly estate in 1946, then is thrown into turmoil when she learns that someone at Summerly is transmitting secrets to the Soviets.

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Starred review from May 15, 2023
As WWII ends, Asher wanders the blasted French countryside with nothing left but his sturdy boots, grief, rage, and trauma. A Jewish artist turned skilled cobbler whose family was murdered by the Nazis, Asher became an assassin for the Resistance and is now haunted by his victims. Kiernan (Universe of Two, 2020) extends his fresh approach to WWII fiction with this spellbinding fable of sanctuary, art, and recovery. Nearly hallucinating from hunger and despair, Asher encounters mysterious guides who vanish into thin air until he comes across two hale, cheerfully menacing brothers, veritable fairy-tale giants who direct him to a ch�teau where he just might find refuge. There Asher earns a place among a tightly organized enclave of damaged survivors laboring intently to keep an old glassworks running so that they can replace the nearby cathedral's bombed-out stained glass windows. Asher may have camouflaged his Jewishness, but there's no hiding his creativity. As Asher and his comrades harbor secrets and navigate rivalries, love affairs, jealousy, guilt, and anguish, Kiernan details the exacting process of making stained glass and, in a dazzlingly original leap, fuses Asher's artistic visions with the exuberantly magical, romantic, and revolutionary works of Marc Chagall. The upshot is a dramatic and transfixing tale that responds to life's horrors by celebrating beauty, resiliency, and soulfulness.

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