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This New York Times bestselling novel tells an exhilarating World War II epic that chronicles an extraordinary young woman’s heroic frontline service in the Red Cross.
“Urrea’s touch is sure, his exuberance carries you through . . . He is a generous writer, not just in his approach to his craft but in the broader sense of what he feels necessary to capture about life itself.” —Financial Times
In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle.
After D-Day, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Their time in Europe will see them embroiled in danger, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald. Through her friendship with Dorothy, and a love affair with a courageous American fighter pilot named Hans, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope, which becomes more precarious by the day, is for all three of them to survive the war intact.
Taking as inspiration his mother’s own Red Cross service, Luis Alberto Urrea has delivered an overlooked story of women’s heroism in World War II. With its affecting and uplifting portrait of friendship and valor in harrowing circumstances, Good Night, Irene powerfully demonstrates yet again that Urrea’s “gifts as a storyteller are prodigious” (NPR).
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Two female spies, bound together by their past, risk everything to hunt down an infamous Nazi doctor in the aftermath of World War II—an extraordinary novel inspired by true events from the New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls
American Josie Anderson and Parisian Arlette LaRue work for the French resistance, stealing so many Nazi secrets that they're labeled the Golden Doves, renowned across France and hunted by the Gestapo. Their courage will cost them everything when they are arrested and taken to the Ravensbrück camp, along with their loved ones. Here, they face down an infamous Nazi doctor and Arlette’s son is stolen from her—never to be seen again.
A decade later, Josie is working for U.S. Army intelligence to hunt down that same doctor while a mysterious man tells Arlette he may have found her son. The Golden Doves will embark on a quest across Europe and, ultimately, to French Guiana, putting themselves in grave danger to secure the justice they deserve and protect the ones they learned to love again.
With The Golden Doves, Martha Hall Kelly has crafted an unforgettable story about the fates of Nazi fugitives in the wake of World War II—and the unsung females spies who risked it all to bring them to justice.
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In this mesmerizing novel of the life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, bestselling author Dawn Tripp has crafted an intimate story of love and power, family and tragedy, loss and reinvention.
Jackie is the story of a woman who forged a legacy out of grief and shaped history even as she was living it—a deeply private person with a nuanced, formidable intellect. It is the story of a love affair, a complicated marriage, and the fracturing of identity that comes in the wake of unthinkable violence.
When Jackie meets the charismatic congressman Jack Kennedy in Georgetown, she is twenty-one and dreaming of France. She has won an internship at Vogue, and she thinks Kennedy is not her kind of adventure: “Too American. Too good-looking. Too boy.” Yet she is drawn to his mind, his humor, and his drive. The chemistry between them ignites. During the White House years, the love between two independent people deepens. Then, a motorcade in Dallas: “Three and a half seconds—that’s all it was—a slivered instant between the first shot, which missed the car, and the second, which did not. . . . A hypnotic burst of sunlight off her bracelet as she waved.”
This spellbinding novel is a window into the world of a woman who led many different lives: Jackie, Jacks, Jacqueline, Miss Bouvier, Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Onassis, Jackie O. It is at once a deeply human story and a captivating work of imagination that comes right up against what she was thinking and feeling, what she was afraid of, fought for, and believed in.
About the Authors
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Luis Alberto Urrea
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his landmark work of nonfiction The Devil’s Highway, now in its thirty-fourth paperback printing, Luis Alberto Urrea is the author of numerous other works of nonfiction, poetry, and fiction, including the national bestsellers The Hummingbird’s Daughter and The House of Broken Angels, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.
A recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, among many other honors, he lives outside Chicago and teaches at the University of Illinois Chicago.
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Martha Hall Kelly
Martha Hall Kelly is the New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls, Lost Roses, and Sunflower Sisters. With more than two million copies of her books sold and her books translated in fifty countries, Martha lives in Connecticut and New York City.
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Dawn Tripp
Dawn Tripp is the author of the novel Georgia, which was a national bestseller, finalist for the New England Book Award, and winner of the Mary Lynn Kotz Award for Art in Literature.
She is the author of three previous novels: Game of Secrets, Moon Tide, and The Season of Open Water, which won the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction.
Her poems and essays have appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Harvard Review, AGNI, Conjunctions, and NPR, among others. She serves on the board of the Boston Book Festival and on the board of Gnome Surf: A non-profit Surf Therapy Organization focused on creating a culture shift towards kindness, love, and acceptance for athletes of all abilities. She graduated from Harvard and lives in Massachusetts with her sons.
“Good Night, Irene is a beautiful, heartfelt novel that celebrates the intense power and durability of female friendship while shining a light on one of the fascinating lost women’s stories of World War II. Inspired by his own family history—and his mother’s heroism as a Red Cross volunteer during the war—Luis Urrea has created an indelible portrait of women’s courage under extreme adversity. Powerful, uplifting, and deeply personal, Good Night, Irene is a story of survival, camaraderie, and courage on the front line.”
- Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds
"Deftly illuminates little-known complexities of the post-war era while painting a vivid portrait of the deep scars and trauma that Holocaust survivors carried.”
—Pam Jenoff
“Meticulously researched, hauntingly told, and inspired by real events that span generations and continents.”
—Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Book of Flora Lea
“The reason we read historical fiction is because sometimes the facts just aren’t enough. A brilliant, beautiful book like Dawn Tripp’s Jackie touches the soul in ways conventional biographies can’t. I devoured this novel and felt the power of history and a remarkable woman.”
—Chris Bohjalian, New York Times bestselling author of The Princess of Las Vegas
“Society Bride. Mother. Fashion Plate. First Lady. Saint. Curse. Jackie Kennedy Onassis has been assigned more labels than possibly any other woman in American history, occupying an incomparable status in the collective imagination and historical record. I relished each page of this gorgeous, poetic, and piercing journey into the depths of an iconic woman’s heart, mind, and soul.”
—Allison Pataki, New York Times bestselling author of Finding Margaret Fuller