40. The Blood of Fowers

by Anita Amirrezvani
Rated 4.7
From Library

Sydney from the histoical favorites group recommended this book and I am very glad she did.

FROM THE BOOK JACKET: "In Persia, in the seventeenth century, a young woman is forced to leave behind the life she knows and move to a new city. Her father's unexpected death has upended everything - her expectation of marriage, her plans for the future - and cast her and her mother upon the mercy of relatives in the fabled city of Isfahan." "Her uncle is a wealthy designer of carpets for the Shah's court, and the young woman is instantly drawn to his workshop. She takes in everything - the dyes, the yarns, the meanings of the thousand ancient patterns - and quickly begins designing carpets herself. This is men's work, but her uncle recognizes both her passion and her talent and allows her secretly to cross that line." "But then a single disastrous, headstrong act threatens her very existence and casts her and her mother into an even more desperate situation. She is forced into an untenable form of marriage, a marriage contract renewable monthly, for a fee, to a wealthy businessman. Caught between forces she can barely comprehend, she knows only that she must act on her own, risking everything, or face a life lived at the whim of others."

39. Three Girls and Their Brother

Rated Four Stars
By Theresa Rebeck
From: Library

I thought at first this was going to end up being one of those Paris Hilton type things but I am glad I stuck with it because it turned out to be a pretty good story.

FROM LIBRARY REVIEW: "The three beautiful, red-headed Heller sisters, granddaughters of a respected literary critic, are inexplicably hailed by The New Yorker in a lavish photo spread as the new "it" girls. And so the rise to fame begins for Daria, Polly, and Amelia as fashion magazines, famous, sleazy actors, and paparazzi relentlessly take notice. Philip, their neglected and marginalized brother, is the lone voice of dissent, as the sisters soon become household names, quit school, and are featured on an eight-foot tall billboard in the middle of Manhattan's Union Square. When Amelia, at 14 the youngest of the sisters, lands a role in an off-Broadway play and breaks away from the sister act, the uneasy sibling rivalry surfaces and forces the three sisters and their brother to decide where their newfound fame will take them. In her funny and well-observed first novel, award-winning Broadway playwright Rebeck (Omnium Gatherum; Mauritius) weighs in on the peculiarity and absurdity of fame in modern America."