Foxfire
by Anya Seton | 
Extravagance
by Gary Krist | 
The Return of Little Big Man
by Thomas Berger | 
Annapolis
by William Martin | 
Second Generation
by Howard Fast | 
The Mathematics of Love
by Emma Darwin | 
The Immigrants
by Howard Fast | 
Lost Nation
by Jeffrey Lent | 
Captains and the Kings
by Taylor Caldwell | 
The Great Lover
by Jill Dawson | 
The Establishment
by Howard Fast | 
The Song Collector
by Natasha Solomons | 
Watergate
by Thomas Mallon |
The Love of Stones
by Tobias Hill | 
Saving the World
by Julia Alvarez | 
Paris
by Edward Rutherfurd | 
The Last Queen
by C. W. Gortner | 
Abundance
by Sena Jeter Naslund | 
The Last Jew
by Noah Gordon | 
In a Dark Wood Wandering
by Hella S. Haasse |
Francisca de Luarac, the daughter of a poor Spanish silk grower, is a dreamer of fabulous dreams. Marie Louise de Bourbon, the niece of Louis XIV, dances in slippers of fine Spanish silk in the French Court of the Sun King and imagines her own enchanted future. Born on the same day--in an age when superstition, repression, and the Inquisition reign--the lives of these two young women unfold in tandem, barely touching. Each hoards the memory of her adored lost mother like an amulet. Francica's obsession with her lover, a Catholick priest, will shaper her fate. Marie Loouise is yoked by political expediency to the mad, imptoent Carlos II of Spain. But even as their twin destinies spiral inexorably toward disaster, both Queen and commoner cultivate a dangerous, secret life dedicated to resistance, transcendence, and love. Written in gorgeous prose that has the sheen of silk, Kathryn Harrison's POISON vividlyreminds us of the persistence of desire, the passion that exists between mothers and daughters, and the sorcery of dreams. From the Hardcover edition.