The Trade Off tells the story of a young Jewish woman who arrives in Manhattan from Europe a few years before the Depression. She has nothing but her family and her love of numbers. As she learns about American society, she develops dreams of working on the stock market. Unfortunately, she lacks the proper pedigree. Being from humble means is strike one. A Jew, strike two. And a woman! Worst of all. But it turns out Bea Abramowitz is smarter than anyone gives her credit for. To say that I loved this book is an extreme understatement. It's a page turner from start to finish. A feel-good, empowering, smart read, that nobody should miss!!! This book is a true gem!
A brilliant and ambitious young woman strives to find her place amid the promise and tumult of 1920s Wall Street in a captivating historical novel by the author of The Lobotomist's Wife.
Bea Abramovitz has a gift for math and numbers. With her father, she studies the burgeoning Wall Street market's stocks and patterns in the financial pages. After college she's determined to parlay her talent for the prediction game into personal and professional success. But in the 1920s, in a Lower East Side tenement, opportunities for women don't just come knocking. Bea will have to create them.
I enjoyed the quirkiness of this book. It hit all the right notes of a feel good women's fiction/romance, but it felt fresh and new. An excellent read!
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Today Show #ReadwithJenna Book Club Pick
A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.
It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming…
Beautifully written and meticulously researched, this story is so much more than your typical WWII-focused book. Lisa Barr has created a complex, nuanced, and ferociously principled character in Lena Browning. The story is full of suspense and kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. What struck me especially about the book is that even amidst all the death, destruction, and violence that was happening in the world during the time most of the story takes place, Barr manages to weave in so much beauty, sensuality, and love. This book is a tour de force, and I'm grateful I had to the opportunity to read it!
“Utterly gripping. . . a transformative and immersive story so powerful and captivating that I could not put it down. . . . Truly one of the best books I’ve read.”—Liv Constantine, bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish
“Lisa Barr's new historical fiction, The Goddess of Warsaw, gifts the reader with jaw-dropping moments worthy of a Tarantino film, a story that could not be more timely, and a heroine whose ferocity and valor knows no bounds.”—Natalie Jenner, author of the instant international bestseller The Jane Austen Society
A routine immigration case, a shocking legacy. Jessa Gidney's quest for justice draws her into the heart of an abhorrent conspiracy. As she uncovers her personal ties to a heartbreaking past, her life takes a dramatic turn, in this emotionally riveting novel inspired by true events.
New York, 2022. Jessa Gidney is trying to have it all--a high-powered legal career, a meaningful marriage, and hopefully, one day, a child. But when her professional ambitions come up short and Jessa finds herself at a turning point, she leans into her family's history of activism by taking on pro bono work at a nearby ICE detention center. There she meets Isobel Pérez--a young mother fighting to stay with her daughter--but as she gets to know Isobel, an unsettling revelation about Isobel's health leads Jessa to uncover a horrifying pattern of medical malpractice within the detention facility. One that shockingly has ties to her own family.
Virginia, 1927. Carrie Buck is an ordinary young woman in the center of an extraordinary legal battle at the forefront of the American eugenics conversation. From a poor family, she was only six years old when she first became a ward of the state. Uneducated and without any support, she spends her youth dreaming about a different future--one separate from her exploitative foster family--unknowing of the ripples her small, country life will have on an entire nation.
As Jessa works to assemble a case against the prison and the crimes she believes are being committed there, she discovers the landmark Supreme Court case involving Carrie Buck. Her connection to the case, however, is deeper and much more personal than she ever knew--sending her down new paths that will leave her forever changed and determined to fight for these women, no matter the cost.
Alternating between the past and present, and deftly tackling timely-yet-timeless issues such as reproductive rights, incarceration, and society's expectations of women and mothers, Counting Backwards is a compelling reminder that progress is rarely a straight line and always hard-won. A moving story of two remarkable women that you'll remember for years to come.
