Madonna Of The Mountains

Author : Elise Valmorbida
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0399592458
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Madonna of the Mountains written by Elise Valmorbida and published by Random House. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A riveting adventure for the soul . . . just the kind of evocative historical fiction I love.”—Sara Gruen, author of At the Water’s Edge and Water for Elephants An epic, inspiring novel about one woman’s survival in the hardscrabble Italian countryside and her determination to protect her family throughout the Second World War—by any means possible Maria Vittoria is twenty-five when her father brings home the man who will become her husband. It is 1923 in the austere Italian mountain village where her family has lived for generations, and the man she sees is tall and handsome and has survived the First World War without any noticeable scars. Taking just the linens she has sewn that make up her dowry and a statue of the Madonna that sits by her bedside, Maria leaves the only life she has ever known to begin a family. But her future will not be what she imagines. The Madonna of the Mountains follows Maria over the next three decades, as she moves to the town where she and her husband become shopkeepers, through the birth of their five children, through the hardships and cruelties of the National Fascist Party Rule and the Second World War. Struggling with the cost of survival at a time when food is scarce and allegiances are questioned, Maria trusts no one and fears everyone—her Fascist cousin, the madwoman from her childhood, her watchful neighbors, the Nazis and the Partisans who show up hungry at her door. As Maria’s children grow up and her marriage endures its own hardships, she must hold her family together with resilience, love, and faith, until she makes a fateful decision that will change the course of all their lives. A sweeping saga about womanhood, loyalty, war, religion, family, food, motherhood, and marriage, The Madonna of the Mountains is a poignant look at the span of one woman’s life as the rules change and her world becomes unrecognizable. In depicting the great cost of war and the ineluctable power of time on a life, Elise Valmorbida has created an unforgettable portrait of a woman navigating both the unforeseen and the inevitable. Advance praise for Madonna of the Mountains “The moral and ethical questions raised propel the story beyond the particulars into the universal.”—Kirkus Reviews “It is a bewitching but entirely unsentimental portrait of one woman’s attempt to keep her family safe in turbulent times.”—The Times (UK), Book of the Month “A solid choice for readers who appreciate layered family sagas.”—Library Journal

Author : Elise Valmorbida
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0399592431
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Madonna of the Mountains written by Elise Valmorbida and published by Random House. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A riveting adventure for the soul . . . just the kind of evocative historical fiction I love.”—Sara Gruen, author of At the Water’s Edge and Water for Elephants An epic, inspiring novel about one woman’s survival in the hardscrabble Italian countryside and her determination to protect her family throughout the Second World War—by any means possible Maria Vittoria is twenty-five when her father brings home the man who will become her husband. It is 1923 in the austere Italian mountain village where her family has lived for generations, and the man she sees is tall and handsome and has survived the First World War without any noticeable scars. Taking just the linens she has sewn that make up her dowry and a statue of the Madonna that sits by her bedside, Maria leaves the only life she has ever known to begin a family. But her future will not be what she imagines. The Madonna of the Mountains follows Maria over the next three decades, as she moves to the town where she and her husband become shopkeepers, through the birth of their five children, through the hardships and cruelties of the National Fascist Party Rule and the Second World War. Struggling with the cost of survival at a time when food is scarce and allegiances are questioned, Maria trusts no one and fears everyone—her Fascist cousin, the madwoman from her childhood, her watchful neighbors, the Nazis and the Partisans who show up hungry at her door. As Maria’s children grow up and her marriage endures its own hardships, she must hold her family together with resilience, love, and faith, until she makes a fateful decision that will change the course of all their lives. A sweeping saga about womanhood, loyalty, war, religion, family, food, motherhood, and marriage, The Madonna of the Mountains is a poignant look at the span of one woman’s life as the rules change and her world becomes unrecognizable. In depicting the great cost of war and the ineluctable power of time on a life, Elise Valmorbida has created an unforgettable portrait of a woman navigating both the unforeseen and the inevitable. Advance praise for Madonna of the Mountains “The moral and ethical questions raised propel the story beyond the particulars into the universal.”—Kirkus Reviews “It is a bewitching but entirely unsentimental portrait of one woman’s attempt to keep her family safe in turbulent times.”—The Times (UK), Book of the Month “A solid choice for readers who appreciate layered family sagas.”—Library Journal

Author : Rolf Bauerdick
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307962237
Total Pages : 417 pages
Book Rating : 4.32/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Madonna on the Moon written by Rolf Bauerdick and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-07-02 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning journalist transforms his lifelong fascination with the world of the Gypsies into fiction with this exuberant, deeply enchanting debut novel—both whimsical and suspenseful—winner of the European Book Prize, and translated into more than a dozen languages worldwide. November 1957: As Communism spreads across Eastern Europe, strange events are beginning to upend daily life in Baia Luna, a tiny village nestled at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains. As the Soviets race to reach the moon and Sputnik soars overhead, fifteen-year-old Pavel Botev attends the small village school with the other children. Their sole teacher, the mysterious and once beautiful Angela Barbulescu, was sent by the Ministry of Education, and while it is suspected that she has lived a highly cultured life, much of her past remains hidden. But one day, after asking Pavel to help hang a photo of the new party secretary, she whispers a startling directive in his ear: “Send this man straight to hell! Exterminate him!” By the next morning, she has disappeared. With little more to go on than the gossip and rumors swirling through his grandfather Ilja’s tavern, Pavel finds curiosity overcoming his fear when suddenly the village’s sacred Madonna statue is stolen and the priest Johannes Baptiste is found brutally murdered in the rectory. Aided by the Gypsy girl Buba and her eccentric uncle, Dimitru Gabor, Pavel’s search for answers leads him far from the innocent concerns of childhood and into the frontiers of a new world, changing his life forever.

Author : Elizabeth Cunningham
Publisher : Monkfish Book Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1939681014
Total Pages : 479 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Bright Dark Madonna written by Elizabeth Cunningham and published by Monkfish Book Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-14 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The long-awaited paperback edition of the sequel to the best-selling novel The Passion of Mary Magdalen.

Author : Davis Bunn
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439164894
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Black Madonna written by Davis Bunn and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-09-07 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the internationally acclaimed Gold of Kings, Storm Syrrell returns in the compelling story of The Black Madonna. Antiques expert Storm Syrrell heads to Europe to investigate the clandestine trade in religious artifacts. She dismisses superstitious tales of miraculous healings and divine omens. Yet when an obsessive Russian oligarch calls—just as her friend Harry Bennett vanishes—all assumptions must be cast aside. Storm seeks answers in a medieval monastery. There, the scarred visage of an icon provokes ever more startling questions. Is she prepared to confront both earthly and spiritual powers? Storm remains haunted by lessons in love and betrayal that lie just outside her grasp. But hesitation now holds mortal consequences.

Author : Debra Dean
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0061747181
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Madonnas of Leningrad written by Debra Dean and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An extraordinary debut, a deeply lovely novel that evokes with uncommon deftness the terrible, heartbreaking beauty that is life in wartime. Like the glorious ghosts of the paintings in the Hermitage that lie at the heart of the story, Dean’s exquisite prose shimmers with a haunting glow, illuminating us to the notion that art itself is perhaps our most necessary nourishment. A superbly graceful novel.” — Chang-Rae Lee, New York Times Bestselling author of Aloft and Native Speaker Bit by bit, the ravages of age are eroding Marina's grip on the everyday. An elderly Russian woman now living in America, she cannot hold on to fresh memories—the details of her grown children's lives, the approaching wedding of her grandchild—yet her distant past is miraculously preserved in her mind's eye. Vivid images of her youth in war-torn Leningrad arise unbidden, carrying her back to the terrible fall of 1941, when she was a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum and the German army's approach signaled the beginning of what would be a long, torturous siege on the city. As the people braved starvation, bitter cold, and a relentless German onslaught, Marina joined other staff members in removing the museum's priceless masterpieces for safekeeping, leaving the frames hanging empty on the walls to symbolize the artworks' eventual return. As the Luftwaffe's bombs pounded the proud, stricken city, Marina built a personal Hermitage in her mind—a refuge that would stay buried deep within her, until she needed it once more. . . .

Author : Elise Valmorbida
Publisher : Cyan Books
ISBN 13 : 9781905736034
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Book of Happy Endings written by Elise Valmorbida and published by Cyan Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two childhood sweethearts meet again as adults, a young woman defies tradition, new love grows from the ruins of an earlier relationship, exiles find home in each other, love flourishes late in life, handwritten letters span the distance of oceans . . . We love to hear about love. In a world of bad news and bleak prophecies, it's life-affirming to hear a story with a happy ending. These are true tales of passion and perseverance, chance meetings, unexpected romance, lovers whose stars are un-crossed. There is sorrow here. There are questions, too, but no universal answers - and yet other people's happy endings inspire optimism in all of us. People have told the author about their personal experiences. She has listened to their unique voices and woven heartfelt stories from their words. All the chapters are about love, but together they are about life.

Author : Mario Giordano
Publisher : Auntie Poldi Adventure
ISBN 13 : 0358446279
Total Pages : 355 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Auntie Poldi and the Lost Madonna written by Mario Giordano and published by Auntie Poldi Adventure. This book was released on 2021 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There's only one Auntie Poldi: bewigged, cursing in Bavarian, and knocking back a wee shot of grappa as a pre-breakfast aperitif . . . or is there? No one is as they seem (and sound) in this hilarious new mystery featuring Sicily's sultriest sleuth. Strange dealings are afoot in the Apostolic Palace--a nun leapt to her death shortly after participating in a seemingly routine exorcism. But when a priest clad in Gammarelli and a Vatican commissario with an almost unholy level of sex appeal turn up at her door, Poldi is shocked to hear that she's a suspect in their case. Who is the woman being exorcised, and where has she disappeared to? And why in the world does she claim, in perfect Bavarian, to be Poldi, Isolde Oberreiter, of Torre Archirafi? Poldi will need all the help she can get to clear her name, but her nephew has been distracted by a love affair gone sour, someone in the town has been spraying graffiti death threats on her front door, and her local friends seem to be avoiding her. And even Vito Montana balks when Poldi discovers that the case hinges on a lost Madonna statue, stolen years ago from the pope himself. Forza, Poldi! With a pair of mysterious twins dogging her every move and a mandate to maintain sobriety, will Poldi be able to unmask her mysterious doppelgänger, find the lost statue in time, and survive her sixty-first birthday?

Author : Bert C. Wouters
Publisher : Bookbaby
ISBN 13 : 9781543938494
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Madonna on the Bridge written by Bert C. Wouters and published by Bookbaby. This book was released on 2018-10-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1942, Danya was asked to do the unthinkable. Already sentenced to death for distributing anti-Fascist literature, German SS Commandant Heinrich Tauber offered her a chance at a reprieve--if she would breed with soldiers under the Lebensborn Program, to produce new Aryan soldiers to replace those Germans killed in Russia. As her wall of resistance weakens against the continuous onslaught from the SS, devilishly handsome and shrewd double agent Arie Habers intervenes and helps her go underground. But will the Gestapo find her? And what kind of fate awaits an escaped prisoner of Fascist Germany?Long ago, in a mountainous region of the Northern Caucasus, lived a people totally lost to history. The ancestors of people from the European Continent, the Circassians, lived in the Caucasus Mountains, on the east shores of the Black Sea. Madonna on the Bridge explores the culture of these long-forgotten people, skillfully weaving it with mysticism and history to form an engrossing tale of love and war.

Author : Zakes Mda
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374708231
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Madonna of Excelsior written by Zakes Mda and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-05-15 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new novel by a towering presence in contemporary South African literature In 1971, nineteen citizens of Excelsior in South Africa's white-ruled Free State were charged with breaking apartheid's Immorality Act, which forbade sex between blacks and whites. Taking this case as raw material for his alchemic imagination, Zakes Mda tells the story of a family at the heart of the scandal -and of a country in which apartheid concealed interracial liaisons of every kind. Niki, the fallen madonna, transgresses boundaries for the sake of love; her choices have repercussions in the lives of her black son and mixed-race daughter, who come of age in post-apartheid South Africa, where freedom prompts them to reexamine their country's troubled history at first hand. By turns earthy, witty, and tragic, The Madonna of Excelsior is a brilliant depiction of life in South Africa and of the dramatic changes between the 1970s and the present.