The beggar woman shifted, finding what shade she could. Only last week, Laura had just barely prevented her son from carving his initials into the sinewy rump of Leo Lenox. Laura’s children had admired them right off, with Harry claiming Lenox as his pet and Pearl doing the same for Astor, neither caring that the sculptures had initially been mocked in the newspapers as a cross between a dachshund and a rabbit. Every few days for the past month, she’d taken up a spot off to one side of the grand entryway under one of the towering stone lions, one of which had been named Leo Astor and the other Leo Lenox, after two of the library’s founders, John Jacob Astor and James Lenox. The beggar’s black mourning gown was more tattered than it had been last week, fraying at the sleeves and hem, and her face shone with summer sweat. A woman on the verge of ruin, alone and without any resources. It was certainly some kind of ominous sign, one that made Laura’s heart beat faster. This time, the beggar woman’s appearance elicited not pity but a primal fear. It's about the magic of the written word and the power of women's voices, and it's dedicated to some of my favorite people: librarians."Īs Laura Lyons returned from running errands, turning over in her head the various reactions her husband might have to her news, she spotted the beggar perched once again on the first tier of the granite steps that led to her home: seven rooms buried deep 21 inside the palatial New York Public Library. "It's set at the New York Public Library and it's about a family that lives in an apartment deep inside the building, an apartment that actually existed. "I'm so thrilled that my book, 'The Lions of Fifth Avenue,' was chosen as the 'GMA' Book Club pick for August," Davis said. But when rare manuscripts about Laura Lyons for an exhibition Sadie is curating go missing, unwelcome truths about her family heritage are uncovered.ĭavis said the book is "historical fiction plus a mystery all rolled up into one." Laura is Sadie's estranged grandmother, whom she knows very little about. The "Lions of Fifth Avenue," by Fiona Davis, is a novel set in the legendary New York Public Library the storytelling alternates between the two smart, strong-willed women living 80 years apart: Laura Lyons, the wife of the library’s superintendent and a famous essayist, in 1913, and Sadie Donovan, a curator at the library in 1993. "The Lions of Fifth Avenue" is our August "GMA" Book Club pick!
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