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.

Laura is Sadie’s estranged grandmother, whom she knows very little about. But when rare manuscripts about Laura Lyons for an exhibition Sadie is curating go missing, unwelcome truths about her family heritage are uncovered.

Davis said the book is “historical fiction plus a mystery all rolled up into one.”

“I’m so thrilled that my book, ‘The Lions of Fifth Avenue,’ was chosen as the ‘GMA’ Book Club pick for August,” Davis said. “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. 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.”