Fiction A to Z
May 2025
Recent Releases
Tough luck : a novel
by Sandra Dallas

After escaping an orphanage, Haidie Richards and her brother Boots journey to Colorado Territory, encountering treacherous challenges, unlikely allies, and the truth about their father, while Haidie devises a daring plan to claim their future.
Summer light on Nantucket : a novel
by Nancy Thayer

Divorced mother of four Blythe Benedict takes her family to Nantucket, her island home-away-from-home, but she must contend with teenage angst, her ex-mother-in-law's declining health, and a troubling secret involving her ex-husband—meanwhile, she reconnects with former high school sweetheart Aaden, but their romance becomes complicated when another man enters the picture.
The murder machine
by Heather Graham

This state-of-the-art smart home has everything: a next-generation entertainment system, an ultramodern kitchen where every appliance is online and even a personal AI to control it all. Standing above its owner's lifeless body, FBI agent Jude Mackenzie is faced with the daunting task of discovering how the woman was killed by her own home. How do you catch a murderer that doesn't leave any fingerprints? Enter Special Agent Victoria Tennant, whose familiarity with cybercrime reveals the stark truth: a machine can only do what it's been directed to. As the number of grisly "accidents" begins to rise, the pair must race to uncover the perpetrator even as they find themselves caught in their digital crosshairs! There's nowhere to hide when danger may be as close as the very phones in their pockets.
The page turner
by Viola Shipman

Emma Page grew up the black sheep in a bookish household, raised to believe that fine literature is the only worthy type of fiction. Her parents, self-proclaimed 'serious' authors who run their own vanity press, The Mighty Pages, mingle in highbrow social circles that look down on anything too popular or mainstream, while her sister, Jess, is a powerful social media influencer whose stylish reviews can make or break a novel. Hiding her own romance manuscript from her disapproving parents, Emma finds inspiration at the family cottage among the 'fluff' they despise: the juicy summer romances that belonged to her late grandmother. But a chance discovery unearthed from her Gigi's belongings reveals a secret that has the power to ruin her parents' business and destroy their reputation in the industry--a secret that has already fallen into the hands of an unscrupulous publishing insider with a grudge to settle. Now Emma must decide--as much as she's dreamed of the day when her parents are forced to confront their own egos, can she really just sit back and watch The Mighty Pages be exposed and their legacy destroyed? From the wealthy enclaves of the Hamptons to the sparkling shores of Lake Michigan, The Page Turner is a delectable glimpse inside the world of publishing, and Viola Shipman's most glittering achievement yet!
Audition
by Katie Kitamura

In a Manhattan restaurant, a celebrated middle-aged actress working on a new Broadway play meets a mysterious young man for lunch. But who are they to each other and what does their relationship mean for their futures? Presented in two disorienting parts, this sparsely written unconventional novel defies reader expectations. Read-alike: Heidi Reimer's The Mother Act.
Dream state : a novel
by Eric Puchner

PEN/Faulkner Award finalist, Pushcart Prize winner, and Best American Stories contributor, Eric Puchner returns with an ambitious and deeply moving novel set against the backdrop of the American West that follows three lifelong friends and the betrayal at the center of their entwined fates. Cece and Charlie are in love and a few weeks away from their summer wedding. But when Cece meets Charlie's best friend from college, Garrett, her long-held expectations for her future begin to crumble. As Garrett's gruff mask slips, Cece begins to anticipate the big day with dread as her feelings for Garrett become impossible to bury. And as she decides to follow her instincts, ditching her groom for his best man, she will alter the three of their lives forever, the events of that July reverberating through marriage, parenthood, and, in the end, across generations. Years later, Cece's daughter, Lana, and Charlie's son, Jasper, meet and become fast friends, finding themselves reunited again and again throughout their adolescence. Soon enough, they find themselves enacting their parents' mistakes, falling victim to duplicity and heartbreak, with age and mortality looming. With Montana's once-warm summers growing untenably hot, and the nearby lake all but drying up, obscured only by the ceaseless smoke of wildfires, Garrett's career as a wildlife researcher feels increasingly futile. As he watches Cece begin to lose herself, Charlie wonders whether he will ever find stability, especially with a son failing to adjust to the demands of adulthood. With delicacy, precision, and enormous heart, Dream State is at once a study of the unholy catastrophe of marriage, and a tender ode to the beauty of impermanence.
Sealed with a hiss / : A Mrs. Murphy Mystery
by Rita Mae Brown

When a decades-forgotten car bobs to the surface of a creek in Virginia, with a body in the driver's seat, Mary Minor“Harry” Haristeen and her animal companions?—?felines Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, Tee Tucker the Corgi and Irish Wolfhound Pirate?—?team up to solve the mystery.
The staircase in the woods
by Chuck Wendig

Twenty years after a childhood friend vanished on a mysterious staircase in the woods, a group of former high school friends reunites to uncover the truth, facing the dark secrets and horrors that await beyond the staircase.
Contact your librarian for more great books!
Plainfield Area Public Library
15025 S. Illinois St.
Plainfield, Illinois 60544
815.436.6639

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