“A family secret, a DNA test, a journey as rich and colorful as the early-day circus itself. Through Cecily Larson’s hidden life, Ellen Baker tenderly examines personal determination, lost love, family ties, and our innate need to discover our own truth.” — Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours and Before and After Orphan Train meets Before We Were Yours meets Water for Elephants in this compelling multigenerational novel of survival, love, and the families we make. In 1924, four-year-old Cecily Larson’s mother reluctantly drops her off at an orphanage in Chicago, promising to be back once she’s made enough money to support both Cecily and herself. But she never returns, and shortly after high-spirited Cecily turns seven, she is sold to a traveling circus to perform as the “little sister” to glamorous bareback rider Isabelle DuMonde. With Isabelle and the rest of the circus, Cecily finally feels she’s found the family she craves. But as the years go by, the cracks in her little world begin to show. And when teenage Cecily meets and falls in love with a young roustabout named Lucky, she finds her life thrown onto an entirely unexpected—and dangerous—course. In 2015, Cecily is now 94 and living a quiet life in Minnesota, with her daughter, granddaughter, and great-grandson. But when her family decides to surprise her with an at-home DNA test, the unexpected results not only bring to light the tragic love story that Cecily has kept hidden for decades but also throw into question everything about the family she’s raised and claimed as her own for nearly seventy years. Cecily and everyone in her life must now decide who they really are and what family—and forgiveness—really mean. Sweeping through a long period of contemporary history, The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson is an immersive, compelling, and entertaining family drama centered around one remarkable woman and her determination to survive.

Set in the conformist 1950s and reaching back to span two world wars, Ellen Baker’ s superb novel is the story of a newlywed who falls in love with a grand abandoned house and begins to unravel dark secrets woven through the generations of a family. Like Whitney Otto’s How to Make an American Quilt in its intimate portrayal of women’ s lives, and reminiscent of novels by Elizabeth Berg and Anne Tyler, Keeping the House is a rich tapestry of a novel that introduces a wonderful new fiction writer. When Dolly Magnuson moves to Pine Rapids, Wisconsin, in 1950, she discovers all too soon that making marriage work is harder than it looks in the pages of the Ladies’ Home Journal. Dolly tries to adapt to her new life by keeping the house, supporting her husband’s career, and fretting about dinner menus. She even gives up her dream of flying an airplane, trying instead to fit in at the stuffy Ladies Aid quilting circle. Soon, though, her loneliness and restless imagination are seized by the vacant house on the hill. As Dolly’s life and marriage become increasingly difficult, she begins to lose herself in piecing together the story of three generations of Mickelson men and women: Wilma Mickelson, who came to Pine Rapids as a new bride in 1896 and fell in love with a man who was not her husband; her oldest son, Jack, who fought as a Marine in the trenches of World War I; and Jack’s son, JJ, a troubled veteran of World War II, who returns home to discover Dolly in his grandparents’ house. As the crisis in Dolly’s marriage escalates, she not only escapes into JJ’s stories of his family’s past but finds in them parallels to her own life. As Keeping the House moves back and forth in time, it eloquently explores themes of wartime heroism and passionate love, of the struggles of men’s struggles with fatherhood and war and of women’s conflicts with issues of conformity, identity, forbidden dreams, and love. Beautifully written and atmospheric, Keeping the House illuminates the courage it takes to shape and reshape a life, and the difficulty of ever knowing the truth about another person’s desires. Keeping the House is an unforgettable novel about small-town life and big matters of the heart.

Decades after the women in her family and their friend are shattered by the losses of two beloved men during World War II, Julia is approached by her long-lost great-grandmother and untangles a dark secret. By the award-winning author of Keeping the House.

'It's a long time since I have enjoyed a novel so much. Fresh, witty and smart it also has a heart.' KATE ATKINSON 'Sizzles with uproarious fun, from its snout to the sting in its tale.' INDEPENDENT 'The perfect tonic for testing times.' GUARDIAN We all know politics is absurd. But could a Republican be brought down by a stuffed aardvark? Republican congressman Alexander Paine Wilson is determined that nothing will stop him in his campaign for re-election. Not the fact that he is a bachelor, not the fact that his main adversary Nancy Beavers - married, with children - is rising in the polls. Nothing. That is, until one hot day in August, he receives a large parcel via FedEx. Inside is a gigantic taxidermied aardvark. This aardvark has a surprising history - from the Victorian naturalist who discovered it to the taxidermist who deemed it his finest creation. But for Wilson, the entrance of the aardvark sets off a chain of events that threaten to ruin his entire career. Constantly surprising, brilliantly comic and piquantly provocative, Enter the Aardvark is a tale for our times, a biting satire with a tender underbelly. ____________________________________________ 'Sometimes, a paragraph near the start of a novel is so perfect and funny that you read it over and over, laugh every time, and know you're in for a treat...I'm loving this. Completely insane but utterly hilarious'. JOHN BOYNE 'Spry, slim, clever...the inventiveness is impressive and the story has heart' THE SUNDAY TIMES 'What begins as a topical takedown of the American political system deepens into a hugely enjoyable romp through history.' OBSERVER 'Fresh, astute and mouthwateringly sharp, this is a rare thing; a political satire that tugs on the heartstrings in unconventional ways.' IRISH TIMES 'Sharp, inventive and very funny, it's an entertainingly bizarre political satire.' TATLER 'Part 21st-century political satire, part unexpectedly affecting 19th-century love story...It's every bit as strange as it sounds, and yet somehow it works' DAILY MAIL 'Old, dead creature brings down flash, vain senator... Out in front as the most fizzing and amusing novel of the year.' STRONG WORDS magazine 'A blisteringly innovative and outrageous novel.' NY OBSERVER 'Weird, wonderful, and very much of the moment, Enter the Aardvark is a landmark political novel of the Trump era...With heart and humor, Anthony expertly skewers our current political climate.' ESQUIRE 'Inventive and darkly funny...as Anthony connects characters from today with those from 19th-century England, she offers an original and unsettling lens through which to view male power as it has evolved over time.' TIME 'Enter Jessica Anthony. With her highly inventive, ever attentive, and morally serious (as all great comedy must be) Enter the Aardvark, she estranges all over again our deplorable political moment, and thereby helps make it bearable.' JOSHUA FERRIS 'Mischievously zoological and darkly satirical - a brilliant novel' JOHN IRONMONGER, author of NOT FORGETTING THE WHALE 'A feverish, rollicking beast of a book. Totally assured, completely unpredictable, Jessica Anthony has created a true original.' SIMON WROE, author of CHOP CHOP and HERE COMES TROUBLE

Maine has always been steeped in ingenuity and boldness. Perhaps it is the mix of granite coast and balsam breezes that gives rise to this inspiration, but whatever it is, the state has long held an abundance of world-class writers and artists. Honoring this deep tradition of great writing, The Maine Standard is an annual journal celebrating the uniqueness of Maine, the unusual and the unexpected. Perhaps our founder Duane Doolittle said it best: “We don’t pretend that we can define this evocative term, Down East . . . All that we can honestly say is that we are tuned to this particular parcel of land, and that we like its music.” The Maine Standard publishes stand-out writing that captures the true character of Maine, writing that sings!

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