The Sands of Ammon
by Valerio Massimo Manfredi | 
The Help
by Kathryn Stockett | 
A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini | 
Beneath a Scarlet Sky
by Mark Sullivan | 
The Secret Life of Bees
by Sue Monk Kidd | 
Before We Were Yours
by Lisa Wingate | 
And the Mountains Echoed
by Khaled Hosseini | 
America's First Daughter
by Stephanie Dray | 
The Dutch House
by Ann Patchett | 
The Book Of Negroes
by Lawrence Hill | 
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
by Kim Michele Richardson | 
The Sunne In Splendour
by Sharon Kay Penman |
This Tender Land
by William Kent Krueger | 
I Am Livia
by Phyllis T. Smith | 
The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell
by Robert Dugoni | 
The Rent Collector
by Camron Wright | 
The Forty Rules of Love
by Elif Shafak | 
Necessary Lies
by Diane Chamberlain | 
Commonwealth
by Ann Patchett | 
Underworld
by Don DeLillo |
Herodotus tells us that not all of the three hundred Spartan warriors died at the hands of Xerxes, King of the Persians, in the battle of the Thermopylae: two were saved bringing a life-saving message back to the city. This is the saga of a Spartan family, torn apart by a cruel law that forces them to abandon one of their two sons--born lame--to the elements. The elder son, Brithos, is raised in the caste of the warriors, while the other, Talos, is spared a cruel death and is raised by a Helot shepherd, among the peasants. They live out their story in a world dominated by the clash between the Persian empire and the city-states of Greece--a ferocious, relentless conflict--until the voice of their blood and of human solidarity unites them in a thrilling, singular enterprise.