Book cover of Waiting for the Party: The Life of Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1849-1924

Book description

Most people have heard of "Little Lord Fauntleroy" and "The Secret Garden", but many of them are unaware that the same woman wrote both books, 25 years apart, and was considered one of the leading writers in America. Exposed to the extremes of poverty and wealth, she survived two broken…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Waiting for the Party as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I was first attracted to the book because I recognized her name as the author of The Secret Garden, which my family had watched a movie of when our children were small. The second factor that attracted me to it was when I learned that the subject of the book had lived in my home state of Tennessee and my hometown of Knoxville for a while, during which she did much of her early writing.

The author gives a behind-the-scenes look at what it was like for Burnett as a writer, struggling first to get published and then to…

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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Courting the Sun by Peggy Joque Williams,

Can a free-spirited country girl navigate the world of intrigue, illicit affairs, and power-mongering that is the court of Louis XIV—the Sun King--and still keep her head?

France, 1670. Sixteen-year-old Sylvienne d’Aubert receives an invitation to attend the court of King Louis XIV. She eagerly accepts, unaware of her mother’s…

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