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Reading Roundup
August 2025 |
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Coming Soon - Click a title to place your holds |
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Forget me not : a novel
by Stacy Willingham
"ATwenty-two years ago, Claire Campbell's older sister, Natalie, disappeared shortly after her eighteenth birthday. Days later, her blood was found in a car, a man was arrested, and the case was swiftly closed. In the decades since, Claire has attempted to forget her traumatic past by moving to the city and climbing the ranks as an investigative journalist... until an unexpected call from her father forces her to come back home and face it all anew. With the entire summer now looming ahead-a summer spent with nothing to do in her childhood home, with her estranged mother-Claire decides on a whim to accept a seasonal job at Galloway Farm, a muscadine vineyard in coastal South Carolina less than an hour away from where she grew up. At first glance, Galloway is an idyllic escape for Claire. However, as soon as Claire starts to settle in, she stumbles across an old diary written by one of the vineyard's owners, and what at first seems like a story of young rebellion and love turns into something much more sinister as it begins to describe details of various unsolved crimes."
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High Season
by Katie Bishop
On a beautiful summer's night twenty years ago, troubled seventeen-year-old Tamara Drayton was found floating face-down in the pool of her family's idyllic mansion in the south of France, leaving her twin brother, golden-boy Blake, to pick up the pieces of their shattered family. Twenty years later, Nina's memories have faded, leaving her with no idea of what really transpired that night. When a new true crime documentary about her sister's murder is announced, Nina thinks this might be her chance to finally find out.
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I Know How This Ends
by Holly Smale
Margot Wayward is in manically gleeful self-destruct mode. Following the implosion of a ten-year relationship, she's wilfully derailing her successful career, joyfully taking down men on dating apps, and living in total chaos.
Until one day, when Margot has a vision of herself with a man she's never met before. She doesn't believe in fate. But when Margot meets single-dad Henry, the vision comes true: exactly as she'd foreseen it.
As her future continues to reveal itself, a glimpse at a time, Margot realises she knows exactly what's going to happen, and when. And there's nothing she can do to change any of it.
So Margot has to decide how to live, how to love again, and how to be herself... Because if you can't change your destiny, how on earth do you live your present?
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Mystery, Adventure & Thriller
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The art of a lie
by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
"Following the murder of her husband in what looks like a violent street robbery, Hannah Cole is struggling to keep her head above water. A friend of her late husband, Devereux, helps Hannah unravel some of the mysteries surrounding his death. But their friendship opens Hannah to speculation and gossip and draws attention her way, locking her into a battle of wits more devastating than anything she can imagine"
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The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold
by Ally Carter
Ten years ago, they joined the CIA.
Six years ago, he left the game.
Five years ago, they fell in love.
One year ago, she ran out into the cold with absolutely no intention of ever coming back.
And two minutes ago, they woke up, bloody and bruised and handcuffed together in the dark.
They don't know where they are. They don't know how they got there. And they have absolutely no idea who is after them or what this nameless, faceless villain wants.
The only thing that's clear is that, after ten years of covers and chemistry, secrets and lies, these two rival spies have been sucked into their greatest mission yet, and now they're going to have to team up to stay alive. (If they don't kill each other first.)
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The Break-in
by Katherine Faulkner
Alice, a professional mother of one, is hosting a playdate with friends at her upscale London home when a disturbed man breaks in. With her child in the next room, Alice panics and kills him--an act later ruled to have been in self-defense.Everyone tries to encourage Alice to move on with her life--but with strange comments appearing online, a mysterious phone call telling her all is not as it seems, and her husband, nanny, and friends behaving strangely, Alice finds herself drawn to the mystery of who her intruder really was. As she digs deeper, she discovers a trail of dark secrets that spiral closer to home than she ever could have imagined.
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The Midnight Hour
by Eve Chase
Notting Hill, London: One May evening, seventeen-year-old Maggie Parker's mother walks out of their front door and doesn't return. With her little brother in tow, desperate to find their mother, Maggie is drawn into a labyrinthine world of secondhand shops and shadowy figures, far from the grand townhouses in her comfortable neighborhood.
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Songs for Other People's Weddings
by David Levithan
J is an accidental wedding singer. Unlike most wedding singers, he writes an original song for every couple--his way of finding out about the small, strange things that brought them together and the hopeful, vulnerable feelings they're experiencing.J's own love life is in a state of flux. His girlfriend is off to New York for work, and as her life grows bigger and busier without him in it, he finds it harder to stick to a happy tune. He doesn't know whether to encourage the soon-to-be-wed couples or warn them.When complications hit and love is tested, is there any way to sing through all the noise?
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The Violet Hour : A Lowcountry Tale
by Victoria Benton Frank
Violet Adams is the perfect, youngest child in a family of loud, passionate women on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina. As the sweet, traditional one, she's always been the steady hand in her family but after a sudden breakup and subsequent tragedy, she doesn't know who she is anymore.
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When the Cranes Fly South
by Lisa Ridzén
Bo is running out of time. Yet time is one of the few things he's got left. These days, his quiet existence is broken up only by daily visits from his home care team. Fortunately, he still has his beloved elkhound Sixten to keep him company ... though now his son, with whom Bo has had a rocky relationship, insists upon taking the dog away, claiming that Bo has grown too old to properly care for him. The threat of losing Sixten stirs up a whirlwind of emotion, leading Bo to take stock of his life, his relationships, and the imperfect way he's expressed his love over the years.
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The book of lost hours
by Hayley Gelfuso
"A spectacular historical and speculative novel about a WWII-era girl who grows up trapped in the "time space," a cavernous library featuring books that house memories--but while government agents burn memories they wish to erase, she saves them, until an affair with an American CIA agent as a young woman changes the course of her life"
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The Harvey Girls
by Juliette Fay
1926: Charlotte Crowninshield was born into one of the finest Boston society families. Now she's on the run from a brutal husband, desperate to disappear into the wilds of the Southwest. Billie MacTavish is the oldest of nine children born to Scottish immigrants in Nebraska. She quit school in the sixth grade to help with her mother's washing and mending business, but even that isn't enough to keep the family afloat.
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Katabasis
by R. F. Kuang
Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world.
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The Magician of Tiger Castle
by Louis Sachar
The beloved author of Holes presents his first adult novel, a modern fantasy classic of forbidden love, a crumbling kingdom, and the unexpected magic all around us.
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The Battle of the Bookshops
by Poppy Alexander
"A charming literary-themed novel about a young woman determined to save her great-aunt's beloved bookshop from extinction by the shiny new competition-which also happens to be run by the handsome son of her family's rivals."
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Kindling (Scottish Spice, Book 1)
by Bonnie Woods
A cosy autumnal retreat in the Scottish Highlands is the perfect escape for city girl, Harper... Until she is stranded in the forest with nowhere to stay.
Fraser, a gruff local woodcutter, reluctantly offers her his lumberjack's cabin on one condition - she mustn't distract him from his duties.
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The End of the World As We Know It : New Tales of Stephen King's the Stand
by Christopher Golden
Now for the first time, Stephen King has fully authorized a return to the harrowing world of The Stand through this original short story anthology as presented by award-winning authors and editors Christopher Golden and Brian Keene. Bringing together some of today's greatest and most visionary writers, The End of the World As We Know It features unforgettable, all-new stories set during and after (and some perhaps long after) the events of The Stand--brilliant, terrifying, and painfully human tales that will resonate with readers everywhere as an essential companion to the classic, bestselling novel.
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House of Monstrous Women
by Daphne Fama
"A young woman is drawn into a dangerous game after being invited to the mazelike home of her childhood friend, a rumored witch, in this gothic horror set in 1986 Philippines. Josephine del Rosario feels like a pariah in her town. Long orphaned after her father's political campaign ends in tragedy, she's all alone taking care of the family home while her older brother is off in Manila, where a revolution brews. And it's starting to feel like he's abandoning her. When she receives a letter from her cherished childhood friend Hiraya, inviting her to play a game, she jumps at the reason to leave town. Except Hiraya's house is strange...labyrinthine and huge and something seems to be following Josephine everywhere she turns. What's worse is there's something her old friend isn't telling her. There's something insidious about this invitation, and if Josephine isn't careful, she'll find that change is sometimes bought with blood."
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The French kitchen : a novel
by Kristy Cambron
"As Paris rebuilds in the aftermath of World War II, one ex-pat uses the skills she learned in French kitchens during the war to bring long-held secrets to light"
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Perilous tides
by Elizabeth Goddard
"Forensic artist Jo Cattrel must leave her safe haven at a storm watching lodge if she wants to learn the truth about her mother's death. With help from former Green Beret Cole Mercer, she will uncover shocking secrets. But they search for answers, the past rushes in like a dangerous tide to sweep them away before the truth can be revealed"
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Christine's Library Journal Reviews |
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From the valley we rise
by Elizabeth Musser
This review by librarian Christine Barth first appeared in the May 2025 issue of Library Journal.
What do an American Protestant missionary, a quiet French Catholic girl, a U.S. Army chaplain, a young farm boy, and a grieving Jewish girl all have in common?
They have all decided that opposing the Nazi regime in Europe is more important than their own personal safety. The large cast of characters in Musser's (By Way of the Moonlight) World War II novel are counting down the hours to the second D-Day on the southern coast of France and awaiting the salvation the Allies will bring, even as they worry that a traitor in their midst may destroy their network that conceals and protects Jewish children all over the French countryside. Musser explores deep spiritual themes, like the interconnectedness of humanity and continuing to do the right thing even as faith in God and humanity starts to falter.
VERDICT Readers who enjoy nuanced French Resistance stories such as Sarah Sundin's Until Leaves Fall in Paris and Pam Jenoff's The Lost Girls of Paris will appreciate this novel and root for victory for its motley crew of ordinary people who become heroes during a terrible time in history.
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The Atlas of Untold Stories
by Sara Brunsvold
This review by librarian Christine Barth first appeared in the May 2025 issue of Library Journal.
Brunsvold's (The Divine Proverb of Streusel) latest features a mother and daughters reconnecting on a literary road trip. Barista and entrepreneur Chloe Vance may not meet her mother's markers of traditional success, but she has an irrepressible optimism for life and an offer to teach art in Prague.
As she tries to tell her mother about moving overseas, she accidentally invites her on an impromptu drive spanning six Midwest states and inspired by their favorite books and authors. Ever-proper Edie Vance does not want to embark on a trip in a beat-up yellow Xterra in the humidity of a Kansas summer, but she's desperately seeking a way to stop her adult children from drifting apart. Add in the outwardly perfect sister Lauren, whose professional mask hides some harmful secrets, and the last-minute road trip is surely a disaster in the making—or maybe just what the Vances need.
VERDICT Brunsvold writes utterly realistic modern characters searching for connection and meaning. Literary fans will enjoy the plethora of references to authors with Midwest connections, from Langston Hughes to Laura Ingalls Wilder to Flannery O'Connor.
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Across the crying sands by Jane KirkpatrickThis review by librarian Christine Barth first appeared in the May 2025 issue of Library Journal.Mary Edwards is only a teenager, but she is convinced that sailing into marriage with John Gerritse will be a great adventure. Sometimes, though, it seems as if they are going to sea in a sieve, just like the Jumblies in her favorite Edward Lear poem. Oregon Territory along the Pacific coastline in 1888 seems just the place for dreamers like Mary and John, although both underestimate the backbreaking labor it will take to carve out a homestead of their own on land that the government has snatched from Indigenous peoples. No matter that a road to the coast does not yet exist, Mary and John know that they can help make Cannon Beach a tourist destination. Side characters such as a Nehalem Clatsop woman named Jewell and an English remittance man named Herbie bring both risk and reward into the couple's lives. VERDICT Kirkpatrick (Beneath the Bending Skies) writes of Western expansion with an eye for people whom history books often forget. There are no 21st-century anachronisms in this tale based on a real-life couple. Readers who like to see the day-to-day unfolding slowly in unexpected ways, as in the work of Sandra Dallas and Tracie Peterson, will enjoy. |
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Immortal consequences
by I. V. Marie
"Six students at Blackwood Academy, an enigmatic boarding school located at the edge of the afterlife, must compete for the once-in-eternity chance to change their fate--or risk remaining at Blackwood forever"
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Hour of the Pumpkin Queen / : Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas
by Megan Shepherd
"One year has passed since Sally wed her beloved Jack Skellington and stepped into her role as queen of Halloween Town. Even with her Jack at her side, though, being a ruler isn't easy, and Sally feels uncertain of her future. Her seams are stretched thin with her royal duties, her newfound family in Dream Town, and a desire to bring citizens from across the Hinterlands together. Then a simple potion demonstration at Sally's inaugural Halloween exhibition goes horribly wrong, and things unravel fast: Sally and her new rag doll apprentice, Luna, fall through a mysterious portal, landing in a new realm called Time Town."
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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