num_pages: 354
description: In nationally bestselling author Fiona Davis's latest historical novel a series of book thefts roils the iconic New York Public Library leaving two generations of strong-willed women to pick up the pieces.It's 1913 and on the surface Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life--her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong passionate Laura wants more and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School her world is cracked wide open. As her studies take her all over the city she finds herself drawn to Greenwich Village's new bohemia where she discovers the Heterodoxy Club--a radical all-female group in which women are encouraged to loudly share their opinions on suffrage birth control and women's rights. Soon Laura finds herself questioning her traditional role as wife and mother. But when valuable books are stolen back at the library threatening the home and institution she loves she's forced to confront her shifting priorities head on . . . and may just lose everything in the process.Eighty years later in 1993 Sadie Donovan struggles with the legacy of her grandmother the famous essayist Laura Lyons especially after she's wrangled her dream job as a curator at the New York Public Library. But the job quickly becomes a nightmare when rare manuscripts notes and books for the exhibit Sadie's running begin disappearing from the library's famous Berg Collection. Determined to save both the exhibit and her career the typically risk-adverse Sadie teams up with a private security expert to uncover the culprit. However things unexpectedly become personal when the investigation leads Sadie to some unwelcome truths about her own family heritage--truths that shed new light on the biggest tragedy in the library's history.
language: English
title: The Lions of Fifth Avenue
publisher: Dutton