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As a boy growing up, Nino Manes used to dash through the morning streets of his island fishing village to reach the church square before the first explosion of the Alborada, the fireworks that rang out over the bay to announce the dawning of a feast day.
Now, years later as an Italian prisoner of war in a Texan camp at the end of World War II, Nino receives a letter from his love Zita, and finds himself facing a race against time of a different kind. For Zita tells him she is going to marry professor Barbaroux, their maths teacher - and Nino has only forty days to get back to the island and put a stop to the wedding. Taking his life in his hands, he escapes from the camp, vowing to get home before the marriage can take place.
Idealistic and ambitious, Nino sets off on a breathless chase across the United States, and is soon joined on his odyssey by an enigmatic Lieutenant in the US Army, and a young prostitute. Together they face a series of extraordinary dangers, from wild forest animals to unexploded mines, and as their journey progresses, Nino finds himself assailed by doubts, questioning his own motives and those of the people around him.
At once a romantic adventure and a thrilling wartime escape story, with a colourful cast of characters, The Lights of Alborada is also the story of a spiritual quest and a heartrending exercise in nostalgia.
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Prince of the Clouds
The Second World War has just ended, and Colonel Carlo Terzo, a brilliant military strategist, retires to Sicily with his beautiful Russian wife Emma. There he spends long afternoons tutoring two young lovers Salvatore, a poet, and the feisty, aristocratic Fiore. But the...
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All the Summer Girls
By Meg Donohue
In Philadelphia, good girl Kate is dumped by her fiancé the day she learns she is pregnant with his child. In New York City, beautiful stay-at-home mom Vanessa finds herself obsessively searching the Internet for news of an old flame. And in San Francisco, Dani, an aspiring writer who can't...
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Benjamin Franklin's Bastard
By Sally Cabot
An absorbing and compelling work of literary historical fiction, set in colonial Philadelphia, that brings to life a little-known chapter of the American Revolution—the story of Benjamin Franklin and his bastard son, and the women who loved them Sixteen-year-old Anne is an uneducated serving...
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The Iron King
By Maurice Druon
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