While the library is closed, you can still read and listen to your favorite books.
The New Husband by D. J. Palmer
Nina and her children Maggie and Connor are devastated when
her husband Glen goes out fishing early one morning and doesn’t return. Almost two years later, all that is ever
found is his boat, blood in the bottom and Nina has begun dating Simon, a
teacher at Maggie’s middle school. The
relationship moves along quickly and soon Nina and Simon buy a house together
and try living as a family until Nina is once again a single woman. Connor takes to Simon immediately, but Maggie
thinks there is something evil about Simon and believes her dad is still
alive. Nina loves Simon but has had no
closure of her marriage, especially as she slowly learns Glen had been keeping
big secrets from her for the past two years.
Little by little, Nina realizes Simon in fact, may be too good to be
true. The more she and Maggie begin to
investigate Simon, and the more controlling he becomes, the more Nina doubts
everything she knew and knows in this complicated plotted, sometimes implausible
domestic thriller.
The Golden Flea by Michael Rips
For almost two decades, a parking garage in Chelsea became a
flea market every weekend. Filled with
treasures from mounted deer heads to antique jewelry, artwork and paintings,
things visitors never knew they were looking for but find that they desperately
need. Among the tables, there were
always treasures to be found, interesting characters, both vendors and
customers. Rips’s curiosity and passion
for the next big find show through in this slice of New York past.
The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel
Few people ever leave the aptly named rural Missouri Ozark
town or Barren Springs and those who leave, rarely return. Eve Taggert, waitress at the local dinner, is
a single mother who has just been told by her brother Cal, a cop, that her only
child, Junie, has been found murdered in the park along side of her best friend
Izzy, whose mother Jenny did leave Barren Springs, only to return with her
husband Zach. Eve has kept her drug
addicted, drug dealer mother as far from Junie as possible, but now finds herself
looking to her for help in avenging Junie’s death. Eve feels she has nothing left to lose and
wants revenge and vengeance, not justice for her daughter, and confronts her
violent ex-boyfriend, a meth-cooking bar owner, and many unsavory characters from
her past until she beings to revisit her own secrets and realizes the key to
Junie and Izzy’s deaths may be loser than she realizes. As difficult as this is to read, it is even
harder to turn away from.
He Started It by Samantha Downing
This darkly comic novel finds
siblings Beth, Portia, and Eddie Morgan who have not kept in touch over the
years, but must reconnect when their grandfather dies and leaves them with the
promise of a substantial amount of money with the siblings take a road trip
together, following the same path that they took with their grandfather almost
twenty years ago. Oh, and they must stay out of jail as well. Sounds easy enough. Not so for these siblings and Eddie’s new wife
Krista, Beth’s husband Felix, and the secrets the family has kept from just
about everyone. As the group begins
their tour in the south and travels to the west coast they stop at many
attractions, mostly featuring notorious people (who knew there were so many
memorials to Bonnie and Clyde?), Beth relives the original trip when she was
twelve and Portia was only six, the in-laws quickly grown restless, and the
siblings remember why they have stopped talking to each other. In each chapter, sometimes on each page, a
new secret is revealed, another nugget that explains why the family basically
doesn’t like each other, but their eyes are always on the prize, even to the
last page with one last searing surprise for the family and readers. A Library Reads title for April.
The lives of three young women at “The Harvard of the
South”, Carter University intersect with tragic consequences when one of them
accuses Taylor Brand, a legacy whose parents are generous benefactors of the
university, of sexual assault. Annie Stoddard, quiet and unassuming due to her
legs that are scarred from a pre-high school accident, was the smartest girl in
her public high school in Georgia and feels everyone can tell she doesn’t
belong in her new environment. Bea
Powers planned to be a doctor, following in her now deceased mother’s
footsteps, until she met Dr. Louis Friedman who encourages Bea to apply for
Carter’s Justice Scholars Program.
Though Bea is accepted and very enthusiastic, as a biracial student she
feels she stands out and becomes more curious than ever about her birth father
whom she never knew. Stayja York isn’t a
student at Carter, but interacts daily with the students, as a barista at the
coffee bar, watching and absorbing all the goings on, invisible to most
students. A part-time nursing student, she tries her best to care for her
mother and keep her younger cousin Nicole on track without going insane. After Annie’s accusations the three women’s
lives collide, each with a different take on what happened, each offering their
own perspective, when taken together provide a clearer, honest look at young
women trying to find their way in the world, learning who to trust. Each narrative is distinctive and necessary,
all culminating in a tragedy with which each woman must make peace.
Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles
This follow up book to News of the World, Jiles’s
National Book Award winner, stays in post-Civil War Texas, following fiddler
Simon Boudlein with whom the Confederate Army finally caught up in the last
months of the war. Simon’s only concern
is keeping his beloved fiddle safe, until he meets Doris, an Irish servant to a
nasty Yankee captain. Simon and his band
of veterans travel the war-ravaged Texas countryside, trying to correspond with
Doris, promising to her that he will buy land, send for her, and rescue her. The exceptionally well-described post-war
landscape with well-depicted characters helps to make up for the lackluster
plot, which in spite of typical
complications, is clear will have a happy ending for Doris and Simon.
No Going Back by Sheena Kamal
This third novel finds Nora trying to stay one step ahead of
the enemy she has made in Dao, the enforcer for the wealthy Zhang family who
kidnapped Bonnie, the daughter Nora gave up for adoption and then rescued from
the Zhangs. Now crisscrossing from
Detroit to Canada to Southeast Asia, Nora, with the help of unlikely allies
Bernard Lam, an eclectic billionaire who has just lost his husband and ex-cop
Jon Brazuca, finds that all roads lead back to her hometown of Vancouver where
her past is about to catch up with her as she tries to keep Bonnie safe, and
tries to keep both her daughter and her self alive.
Something She’s Not Telling Us by Darcey Bell
Charlotte appears to have the perfect life: a handsome,
wealthy husband, a gorgeous downtown loft, a beautiful precocious daughter,
Daisy, and a successful florist business. Her mother, with whom she and her
brother have had a strained relationship, especially since her mother set house
to the family home with Charlotte’s younger brother Rocco inside just before
Charlotte left for college; her mother is now living in Oaxaca, Rocco has gone
through rehab, and a string of less than appropriate girlfriends, though his
current one, Ruth, may just be a keeper, or so Charlotte thinks at first. The more time Ruth spends with Charlotte and
Daisy, the more apprehensive Charlotte becomes, as Ruth seems to be very
attached to Daisy, often pretending often times that she, Rocco, and Daisy, are
a family. The closer Ruth tries to get
to Daisy and Charlotte, the more Charlotte hovers and tries to protect her
daughter…and the secret she is keeping, a secret that Ruth intimates she
knows. When the unthinkable happens and
Daisy is taken from school, Charlotte knows it was Ruth and knows that Ruth
must have more secrets hidden than Charlotte does. The narrative switches easily back and forth
from present day and Daisy’s kidnapping, when Rocco first brought Ruth into
their lives, and a recent trip to Mexico to celebrate Charlotte’s mother’s
birthday, keeping tension high as readers try to guess whose secrets will
unravel first and what the consequences will be.
Coyotes of Carthage by Steven Wright
This dark comedic debut examines where politics, money,
ambition, and humanity meet in this keenly observed, oh so timely tale. Washington D.C. political consultant Andre
Ross has pulled himself up, and has a record as a juvenile, but a reputation
for being tough as nails and using edgy tactics to win campaigns, mentored by
his boss, firm owner, Mrs. Fitzgerald, or so he thought. After Dre goes too far in one campaign, Mrs.
Fitzgerald sends him packing to South Carolina with a small amount of money and
one assistant, her twenty-year-old grandson, and one last chance to prove
himself. Dre, an African American man,
finds himself in Carthage County trying to convince the impoverished, God
fearing people in this rural town to let an international conglomerate mine
gold on their land, to the company’s benefit.
Dre knows he needs a local face to front he campaign and finds it in bar
owner Tyler, who is easily swayed by the trappings and flash of his perceived
importance, but it is his wife Chalene who becomes the lead on the campaign,
naively thinking --- or maybe not, that if people like you, they will vote your
way. Dre and Chalene are tow very
authentic voices, Dre conscious of his past, often feeling like an imposter,
Chalene, pregnant with the family’s seventh child, quickly learning and
asserting herself showing just how strong a woman she can be.
Hid From Our Eyes by Julia Spencer-Fleming.
Reverend Clare Fergusson and Millers Kill, NY police chief
Russ Van Alstyne are getting used to being new parents, Clare’s still new
sobriety, and the chance that the voters may opt to have the police take of the
MKPD leaving Russ without a job. Russ
gets called out on a report of a dead woman in a party dress on the road, no
apparent cause of death, a tableau that eerily mirrors a death in 1952 and one
from 1972 in which Russ was the suspect, neither of which have been solved. Russ, with the help Reverend Clare in between
shepherding her flock at St. Alban’s Church and taking care of their young son,
races against the clock to solve all three murders before the big vote which is
dividing their small town. After several
years’ absence, Russ and Clare will be welcomed back by longtime readers of
this series as well as new readers; this mystery is rich in backstory and
detail and Spencer-Fleming’s exacting writing should propel this book to the
top of every mystery lover’s to-be-read list for this year.
The Compton Cowboys: A New Generation of Cowboys in
Americas Urban Heartland by Walter Thompson-Hernandez
In
Compton, California, ten black riders on horseback cut an unusual profile,
their cowboy hats tilted against the hot Los Angeles sun. They are the Compton
Cowboys, their small ranch one of the very last in a formerly semi-rural area of
the city that has been home to African-American horse riders for decades. To
most people, Compton is known only as the home of rap greats NWA and Kendrick
Lamar, hyped in the media for its seemingly intractable gang violence. But in
1988 Mayisha Akbar founded The Compton Jr. Posse to provide local youth with a
safe alternative to the streets, one that connected them with the rich legacy
of black cowboys in American culture. From Mayisha&;s youth organization
came the Cowboys of today: black men and women from Compton for whom the ranch
and the horses provide camaraderie, respite from violence, healing from trauma,
and recovery from incarceration. The
Cowboys include Randy, Mayisha's nephew, faced with the daunting task of
remaking the Cowboys for a new generation; Anthony, former drug dealer and
inmate, now a family man and mentor, Keiara, a single mother pursuing her dream
of winning a national rodeo championship, and a tight clan of
twenty-somethings--Kenneth, Keenan, Charles, and Tre--for whom horses bring the
freedom, protection, and status that often elude the young black men of
Compton. (From the publisher)
