October Literary Fiction
The Letter Carrier
Salento, Italy, June 1934. A coach stops in the main square of Lizzanello, a tight-knit village where everyone knows each other. A couple gets off: The man, Carlo, a child of the South, is happy to be back home after a long time away; the woman, Anna his wife, is a stranger from the North. Carlo’s brother is there to meet them, and he and everyone else can’t help but notice that Anna is as beautiful as a Greek statue. But Anna is not like the other wives. She doesn’t gossip or attend church. She reads books no one else has ever heard of. She even wears pants, just like a man, and thinks a woman should have rights just like a man. There aren’t many options for a woman with Anna’s sensibilities, so when she learns that the post office is hiring, she leaps at the opportunity. A female letter carrier? It is unthinkable. But Anna soon becomes the invisible thread connecting the town as she delivers letters between clandestine lovers, families waiting to hear news of loved ones away at war, even helping those who can’t read. But for some in Lizzanello, letters come too little and too late. The seamstress, who was Carlo’s first love, can’t help but look at Anna as having taken her rightful place. Carlo’s niece has put herself in a loveless marriage after an impetuous act of jealousy. And Carlo and his brother find themselves trying to cover up a recently unearthed surprise that could shatter all of their lives.
R 455.00
The Righteous
By the end of 1943, nearly all of Europe’s Jewish population had fled, been deported, captured, or killed by Hitler. Only Hungary, and its almost 900,000 Jews, remained free from Hitler’s subjugation. They lived under government edicts and restrictions but without fear of harm. That changed in March 1944, after the Nazi defeat at Stalingrad, as an avaricious Hitler conquered Hungary and declared his plan for mass extermination of the Jewish people. With the notorious Adolf Eichmann supervising the process, Nazis began rounding up Hungary’s Jewish population. In this dramatic new novel, The Righteous, Theresa Weissbach, a professor at the University of Michigan, hasn’t heard from her parents in Budapest for over a year. Her best friend, Julia Powers, recently awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for her OSS service in occupied Holland, joins with her to locate and rescue Theresa’s family. While there, they become involved in a much larger cause, trying to save as many people as they can. Theresa’s father, a leader of the Budapest Jewish community, accompanies them in a desperate effort to rescue their people. Working alongside the newly formed US War Refugee Board, diplomats from neutral nations, and leaders of underground rescue organizations, Julia and Theresa forge relationships with Swiss Vice Consul Carl Lutz and Swedish businessman, Raoul Wallenberg. Their skills and connections in the complex networks of public and secret diplomacy enable Julia, Theresa, and others to take enormous risks in an effort to save thousands of innocent lives.
R 400.00
