The Company Daughters

‘Blew my mind… so magically written and most of all that it is based on true events… a hard-hitting, soul-crushing book… I loved every moment of it… immersive, heart-wrenching, I feel emotional writing this review.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars Wanted: Company Daughters. Virtuous young ladies to become the brides of industrious settlers in a foreign land. The Company will pay the cost of the lady’s dowry and travel. Returns not permitted, orphans preferred. Amsterdam, 1620. Jana Beil has learned that life rarely provides moments of joy. Having run away from a violent father, her days are spent searching for work in an effort to stay out of the city brothels, where desperate women trade their bodies for a mouthful of bread. But when Jana is hired as a servant for the wealthy and kind Master Reynst and his beautiful daughter Sontje, Jana’s future begins to look brighter. Then Master Reynst loses his fortune on a bad investment, and everything changes. The house is sold to creditors, leaving Jana back on the street and Sontje without a future. With no other choice, Jana and Sontje are forced to sign with the East India Company as Company Daughters: sailing to a colonial Dutch outpost to become the brides of male settlers they know nothing about. With fear in their hearts, the girls begin their journey – but what awaits them on the other side of the world is nothing like what they’ve been promised… Based on true history, this is a gripping and unputdownable historical novel, perfect for fans of Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Miniaturist and The Indigo Girl. WINNER OF THE 2021 GOLDEN CROWN LITERARY SOCIETY AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION. FINALIST FOR THE 2021 BISEXUAL BOOK AWARDS. LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 HWA DEBUT CROWN AWARD. What readers are saying about The Company Daughters: ‘Blew my mind… a book I've told so many people about purely because I'm still in disbelief that it exists, that it's so magically written and most of all that it is based on true events… a hard-hitting, soul-crushing book of a woman's struggle to survive… I loved every moment of it. Breathlessly, and in a way that took up my entire brain… immersive, heart-wrenching, and I feel emotional writing this review.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars ‘From the moment I started reading The Company Daughters, I was captivated by this historical tale. Although it does contain a love story, it's not a romance…This was a gripping read.’ Goodreads reviewer ‘This book is so stunningly tender and beautiful, all mixed in with some seriously tragic and heart-wrenching events… Rajaram is an extremely skilled writer, and I love her writing style… The themes of sisterhood and female love were so present in this book and I found it very moving.’ Goodreads reviewer ‘I was enchanted by this book! It’s a delightful read that will have your emotions all over the place.’ Goodreads reviewer ‘I love historical fiction, and this book touched on a topic and time I knew nearly nothing about…There’s love, there’s loss, there’s surviving, there’s thriving… It was a very beautiful book.’ Goodreads reviewer ‘The Company Daughters is a beautifully written love story… a perfect example of the power of human will and the endurance and hope that love can give a person.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars ‘This book has a beauty and grace to it. The author’s writing just flows off the page, and although there are struggles and upsets by the time you close the book over you are filled with a warm glow.’ Goodreads reviewer ‘A powerful and insightful read. I look forward to reading more historical work by Samantha Rajaram!’ Goodreads reviewer ‘Heartbreaking… a moving book… vivid, with amazing characters… This is a great read.’ Goodreads reviewer

Never Let Me Go meets The Giver in this haunting debut about a cult on an isolated island, where nothing is as it seems. Years ago, just before the country was incinerated to wasteland, ten men and their families colonized an island off the coast. They built a radical society of ancestor worship, controlled breeding, and the strict rationing of knowledge and history. Only the Wanderers -- chosen male descendants of the original ten -- are allowed to cross to the wastelands, where they scavenge for detritus among the still-smoldering fires. The daughters of these men are wives-in-training. At the first sign of puberty, they face their Summer of Fruition, a ritualistic season that drags them from adolescence to matrimony. They have children, who have children, and when they are no longer useful, they take their final draught and die. But in the summer, the younger children reign supreme. With the adults indoors and the pubescent in Fruition, the children live wildly -- they fight over food and shelter, free of their fathers' hands and their mothers' despair. And it is at the end of one summer that little Caitlin Jacob sees something so horrifying, so contradictory to the laws of the island, that she must share it with the others. Born leader Janey Solomon steps up to seek the truth. At seventeen years old, Janey is so unwilling to become a woman, she is slowly starving herself to death. Trying urgently now to unravel the mysteries of the island and what lies beyond, before her own demise, she attempts to lead an uprising of the girls that may be their undoing. Gather the Daughters is a smoldering debut; dark and energetic, compulsively readable, Melamed's novel announces her as an unforgettable new voice in fiction.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER In this haunting and groundbreaking historical novel, Danielle Daniel imagines the lives of women in the Algonquin territories of the 1600s, a story inspired by her family’s ancestral link to a young girl who was murdered by French settlers. 1657. Marie, a gifted healer of the Deer Clan, does not want to marry the green-eyed soldier from France who has asked for her hand. But her people are threatened by disease and starvation and need help against the Iroquois and their English allies if they are to survive. When her chief begs her to accept the white man’s proposal, she cannot refuse him, and sheds her deerskin tunic for a borrowed blue wedding dress to become Pierre’s bride. 1675. Jeanne, Marie’s oldest child, is seventeen, neither white nor Algonquin, caught between worlds. Caught by her own desires, too. Her heart belongs to a girl named Josephine, but soon her father will have to find her a husband or be forced to pay a hefty fine to the French crown. Among her mother’s people, Jeanne would have been considered blessed, her two-spirited nature a sign of special wisdom. To the settlers of New France, and even to her own father, Jeanne is unnatural, sinful—a woman to be shunned, beaten, and much worse. With the poignant, unforgettable story of Marie and Jeanne, Danielle Daniel reaches back through the centuries to touch the very origin of the long history of violence against Indigenous women and the deliberate, equally violent disruption of First Nations cultures.

“A beautifully written novel that should be read by everyone who cares about the human condition.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer Harvard physiologist Robert Merriwether has four whip-smart children, an attractive and intelligent wife, and a successful, stimulating career. True, he and Sarah have not slept together in years, and when he decides to stay behind in Cambridge for the summer while the rest of the family vacations in Maine, his newfound freedom is deeply unsettling. But that does not mean that Merriwether wants to change his life or feels unloved. To a man of science, desire is nothing more than a biological reaction. And Merriwether’s personal philosophy is that once you’re in your forties, real love is nothing but lust and nostalgia. Then Cynthia Ryder walks into his life. Twenty years old, she is beautiful, intelligent, witty, and kind. And, to Merriwether’s great surprise, she wants to be with him. Initially, he evades her advances, sure that hers is just a passing fancy. But as he gets to know her better, Merriwether realizes that Cynthia is more mature than he first suspected and that the joy he feels when they are together has been missing from his life for a long, long time. When the summer ends and their need for each other does not fade, Merriwether realizes that he is being given a chance at true love. The question is, will he be brave enough to take it? Considered by many critics to be Richard Stern’s finest novel, Other Men’s Daughters is a tender, honest, witty, and life-affirming portrait of a love as transcendent as it is unlikely.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Shortlisted for Best Crime Novel by the Crime Writers of Canada Award Based on a true story, this powerful novel is set in Latvia’s capital during the horrific Rumbula massacre when 30,000 Jews were slaughtered over two days in 1941 When Miriam and her family are rounded up and forced to live in the Jewish ghetto in Riga, Miriam chooses to give up her children to the care of a Gentile friend who will hide them. A few weeks later, Miriam, along with thousands of other Jews, is marched to the execution pits in the Rumbula forest. Incredibly, she manages to escape the carnage when night falls. Through a series of dramatic events, she finds sanctuary in the countryside, managing to hide for three years and survive the war. Consumed by guilt, she is finally reunited with her daughter. But she has lost her son. Thirty-five years later, Miriam’s granddaughter, Sarah, is living in Chicago with her family. Seeking to understand her maternal family history, Sarah tries desperately to ferret out Miriam’s secret. Miriam does not want to revisit the past, but through persistence Sarah eventually finds out enough to impel her to travel to Riga to search for her uncle. But it is the height of the Cold War and Riga is under Soviet control. Now Sarah’s quest for the truth may threaten her freedom when she comes face to face with the KGB. Told in chapters that alternate between 1941 and 1976, this gripping novel delves into the trauma faced by survivors of genocide down through the generations.

A PRINTZ MEDAL WINNER! A MORRIS AWARD WINNER! AN AMERICAN INDIAN YOUTH LITERATURE AWARD YA HONOR BOOK! A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB YA PICK An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller Soon to be adapted at Netflix for TV with President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground. “One of this year's most buzzed about young adult novels.” —Good Morning America A TIME Magazine Best YA Book of All Time Selection Amazon's Best YA Book of 2021 So Far (June 2021) A 2021 Kids' Indie Next List Selection An Entertainment Weekly Most Anticipated Books of 2021 Selection A PopSugar Best March 2021 YA Book Selection With four starred reviews, Angeline Boulley's debut novel, Firekeeper's Daughter, is a groundbreaking YA thriller about a Native teen who must root out the corruption in her community, perfect for readers of Angie Thomas and Tommy Orange. Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug. Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source. But the search for truth is more complicated than Daunis imagined, exposing secrets and old scars. At the same time, she grows concerned with an investigation that seems more focused on punishing the offenders than protecting the victims. Now, as the deceptions—and deaths—keep growing, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she’ll go for her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known.

In this stunning collection of stories about mothers and daughters the world over, tales of pleasure and sadness, devotion and ambivalence, mix just as they do in real life. Ranging widely in time and place, the twenty-five stories here offer intriguing and moving perspectives on this complex and powerful bond. Authors include Margaret Atwood, Colette, Janet Frame, Zhang Jie, Sylvia Plath and Jeanette Winterson.

“Bonnie Jo Campbell is a master of rural America’s postindustrial landscape.” —Boston Globe Named by the Guardian as one of our top ten writers of rural noir, Bonnie Jo Campbell is a keen observer of life and trouble in rural America, and her working-class protagonists can be at once vulnerable, wise, cruel, and funny. The strong but flawed women of Mothers, Tell Your Daughters must negotiate a sexually charged atmosphere as they love, honor, and betray one another against the backdrop of all the men in their world. Such richly fraught mother-daughter relationships can be lifelines, anchors, or they can sink a woman like a stone. In "My Dog Roscoe," a new bride becomes obsessed with the notion that her dead ex-boyfriend has returned to her in the form of a mongrel. In "Blood Work, 1999," a phlebotomist's desire to give away everything to the needy awakens her own sensuality. In "Home to Die," an abused woman takes revenge on her bedridden husband. In these fearless and darkly funny tales about women and those they love, Campbell’s spirited American voice is at its most powerful.