|
|
|
|
Little Wonder
by Sophie Chen Keller
Song is a nobody--just a food delivery worker from a village in Northeastern China--but her son, River, is a little wonder. At the age of four, he toddled to a piano and tapped out his favorite song. At eight, he mastered Liszt's three Liebestraume; at ten, he blazed through the complete set of Chopin's tudes. And at every step, through the valleys of loss, illness, and poverty, Song is there to light his way--until finally, at the age of eleven, River is invited to study with a preeminent teacher in Beijing. But in the chaos of Beijing Railway Station on the busiest day of the year, Song faces every mother's nightmare: She loses her grip on River's little hand and is unable to find him after a desperate, harrowing search. Over the next days, weeks, and eventually, years, Song and River fight to forge a path back to each other as they carve out new lives that carry them farther apart.
|
|
|
|
Summerland Cove
by Ellen Baker
Lindy has the summer of a lifetime planned at her family's beloved cottage in Summerland Cove, Maine, where she's spent summers all her life and where she and her husband David met as teenagers. She's slated big events three weekends in a row: David's fiftieth birthday party, her parents' fiftieth anniversary party, and her oldest daughter Hailey's wedding. But when David doesn't show up for his own party, everything about the life they've created together is thrown into question, as the shattered family sets out looking for him. Has he been in an accident? God forbid, been the victim of a crime? Or is it something more cliché--a midlife crisis, an affair?
|
|
|
|
Down with the Shipmans
by Meg Mitchell Moore
It's a family drama with three sisters, some very charismatic dogs, and a glorious setting.
|
|
|
|
The Jellyfish Problem
by Tessa Yang
A marine biologist makes the discovery of a lifetime when called to rescue the inhabitants of a small Maine island being menaced by a giant, glowing jellyfish in this richly imagined, wholly original debut.
|
|
|
|
Villa Coco
by Andrew Sean Greer
An aspiring archivist determined to begin a serious life after an undistinguished undergraduate career takes up residence in the Italian countryside. Here, he becomes the all-purpose assistant to the Baronessa, known to her friends as Coco, a defiantly youthful and naturally flamboyant woman of ninety-two. Amid a chaotic and colorful milieu of gin-swilling princesses, incomprehensible handymen, roaming boarhunters, nuns, and other local wildlife, our young man does his best to catalog the villa's extensive collection of art and antiques--although he notices that things seem to go missing from right under his nose.
|
|
|
|
The Last Human Bear
by Greg Sarris
.Mary Hatcher lives with a curse--or is it a power that could make her life whole? A Native Pomo woman who comes of age in 1930s California, Mary keeps trying to make sense of her enigmatic family. Strange rumors spread about her. Her stepmother may have taught her how to become a Human Bear, a shapeshifter who can menace and poison enemies. Two men may love her--or love who they think she is. A mystery even to herself, Mary learns to pass between Native and white societies, tenaciously carving her own path as an independent woman. But as she explores love and desire, family inherited and chosen, and the secrets of the natural world, one question gnaws at her: Is she fated to do harm?
|
|
|
Christine's Library Journal Reviews
|
|
|
|
The Lost Story of Via Belle
by Melanie Dobson
This review by librarian Christine Barth was first published in the March 2026 issue of Library Journal.
In this book's 1940s timeline, Olivia Ashe is a prolific and successful novelist, writing under the name Via Belle, until the love of her life dies and the words dry up. She gives a talk at a college, where her wholesome family stories are ridiculed, despite the reader demand for them. Her chance meeting with Dr. Simon Farrow may be just the thing she needs to get out of her slump, but her aging aunt hates Simon and insists he's hiding something.
In the modern day timeline, Harper Rayne is working as a housekeeper in Hollywood, waiting for her big break as a screenwriter. But after a disastrous dinner party, she returns home to Pennsylvania, where she finds creative inspiration in an old Via Belle novel. The writer's real life soon proves even more interesting: Belle disappeared from the very town Harper is staying in, after publishing one final novel with a most disturbing ending.
VERDICT: Dobson (The Wings of Poppy Pendleton) offers a sweet story about the interconnectedness of lives and the power of faith-filled fiction to change lives for the better.
|
|
|
|
Behind Enemy Bylines
by Kathleen Fuller
This review by librarian Christine Barth first appeared in the March 2026 issue of Library Journal.
Jade Smith hopes to rise above her unsettled upbringing by adopting a fellow foster care "brother", advancing her journalism career, and falling in love with a nice man. Fast-forward a few years, and she's now a top marketing executive, but her domestic life is empty. When her boss sends her back to her roots in rural Clementine, AR, to acquire a slowly dying local newspaper, she comes face to face with the man she jilted years ago.
It's like salt in an old wound for Sebastian Hudson when his first love appears, bearing spreadsheets that spell his job's doom. Meanwhile, Valley Girl Kallista is sent to Clementine by her father to learn how to act like an adult; working as a rural delivery person soon opens her eyes to another side of life. These alternating perspectives help the audiobook move quickly, and narrator Moran differentiates the characters well and uses her extensive romance audio experience to help readers get to know the varied personalities.
VERDICT: Fuller (So Into You) brings the complexity of real life to her romance tropes. Hand to readers looking for a low-heat romance with a happy ending.
|
|
|
|
Almost by Design
by Jenny Erlingsson
When a blunder and an injury threaten Kenya Stewart's career, she fakes a relationship with doctor Solomon Abujnde to restore her coveted promotion and appease his demanding parents. As attractions increase amid their ruse, secrets they've kept from each other begin to unravel their scheme. Will their plans crumble when the truth comes out?
|
|
|
|
Romantic Hero
by Kirsty Greenwood
Gertie Bickerstaff writes happily-ever-afters for a living. . . . Or she did, until her own love life fell apart. Now her ex is thriving, her deadline is looming, and she can't write a single word. The last thing Gertie needs is more drama--like waking up to find a confused and rugged cowboy on her sofa. And not just any cowboy, but River Oakley, the villain from her unfinished novel. Somehow very real . . . and very shirtless. River wants to go home. Gertie wants her life back. So they strike a deal: he'll use his cunning ways to help her win back her ex, she'll finish the novel, and, surely, he'll return to whatever world he rode in from.
|
|
|
Mystery, Adventure, Thriller
|
|
|
|
Summer's Never Over
by Darby Bozeman
In this addictive dual-timeline debut novel, a woman confronts her past at the remote Southern summer camp where the tragic death of her fellow counselor may not have been an accident after all.
|
|
|
|
Nine Lives
by Catherine Steadman
When she begins to peer into the lives of her glamorous neighbors, one woman discovers a terrifying secret.
|
|
|
|
The Unicorn Hunters
by Katherine Arden
In a desperate gamble to save her throne, a young monarch conceals a secret marriage in the shadows of an enchanted forest--and unknowingly alters the fate of her world...
|
|
|
|
Earth 7
by Deb Olin Unferth
An end-of-the-world love story, an epic full of pathos and humor, asking what can be saved of our planetWell, that's about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal.
|
|
|
|
The Fire Agent
by David Baerwald
.Born into an aristocratic German Jewish family, Ernst Baerwald is a gifted linguist, talented musician, and fearless idealist. When he's recruited in 1900 to become a spy--his cover working for a company that would become the notorious chemical conglomerate IG Farben--his life becomes an extraordinary adventure spanning two continents, two world wars, and impossible choices that will haunt him forever .
|
|
|
|
Land
by Maggie O'Farrell
On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tom s and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. Tom s, however, is determined that his maps will be a record of the disaster. The British soldiers in charge are due to arrive any day, expecting the work to be completed, but Tom s is unexpectedly sent off course by an unsettling encounter in a copse. His life, and the lives of those of his family, will never be the same again.
|
|
YA That Adults Will Enjoy |
|
|
|
Twist of Time: Volume 3
by Tricia Goyer
They thought they were fighting a war. They didn't know it was the end of time. In 1945, war rages across Europe, but deep beneath Prague, another kind of battle is unfolding. It's a fight not just for land or power but for the very soul of humanity. Kateina Dubov , a brave journalist turned spy, receives a mysterious gift from a high-ranking Nazi officer--a jewel tied to a terrifying prophecy. Clues draw her deep into ancient secrets hidden within Prague Castle and a clock that may hold the power to save the world . . . or bring about its destruction.
|
|
|
|
The League of Dangerous Young Ladies (Deluxe Edition)
by J. a. Morgenstein
It's 1909 and Rose Moriarty--teenage daughter of Sherlock Holmes' greatest enemy--has made a name for herself fighting monsters and solving crimes. But that was before Rose met the one mystery she couldn't solve: the disappearance of her headmistress. Now, her school has shut down, her classmates have scattered, and Rose is on her own.
|
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|