New and Featured eBooks
June 2025
New eBooks on Libby
The Road to Tender Hearts
by Annie Hartnett

Sixty-three-year-old lottery winner PJ Halliday sets out on a cross-country trip to reunite with his high school sweetheart, bringing along his estranged brother's orphaned grandchildren, his drifting adult daughter and a death-predicting cat.
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng
by Kylie Lee Baker

In this explosive horror novel, a woman is haunted by inner trauma, hungry ghosts, and a serial killer as she confronts the brutal violence experienced by East Asians during the pandemic.
Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. But none of that seems so terrible when she's already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister, Delilah, being pushed in front of a train.
Before fleeing the scene, the murderer shouted two words: bat eater.
So the bloody messes don't really bother Cora - she's more bothered by the germs on the subway railing, the bare hands of a stranger, the hidden viruses in every corner, and the bite marks on her coffee table. 
She pushes away all her feelings and ignores the advice of her aunt to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, when the gates of hell open. But she can't ignore the dread in her stomach as she keeps finding bat carcasses at crime scenes or the scary fact that all her recent cleanups have been the bodies of East Asian women.
As Cora will soon learn, you can't just ignore hungry ghosts.
My Best Friend's Honeymoon
by Meryl Wilsner

 Elsie Hoffman has been engaged to her college boyfriend for a year and a half. Ginny Holtz has been in love with Elsie for almost a decade and a half.
When Elsie discovers her fiance already planned their wedding and honeymoon as a surprise and she's expected to be in a white dress in seven days, she swiftly realizes she's let herself become too comfortable with a future she never wanted. She breaks things off, and a week later is on a plane to the Caribbean for her non-refundable honeymoon with her best friend Ginny instead.
Ginny thinks it's high time Elise learned how to speak up for herself. So, they make a deal with her. For the next week, Elsie can have whatever she wants, wherever, however, and whenever she wants it, as long as she asks. They never expected Elsie to want them.
What starts as choosing activities and taking selfies soon turns to toe-curling kisses and much, much more. But what happens when the honeymoon is over? Meryl Wilsner's My Best Friend's Honeymoon is about not only learning to ask for what you want, but for the happiness you deserve"
Detective Aunty
by Uzma Jalaluddin

After her husband's unexpected death eighteen months ago, Kausar Khan never thought she'd receive another phone call as heartbreaking--until her thirty-something daughter, Sana, phones to say that she's been arrested for killing the unpopular landlord of her clothing boutique. Determined to help her child, Kausar heads to Toronto for the first time in nearly twenty years. Returning to the Golden Crescent suburb where she raised her children and where her daughter still lives, Kausar finds that the thriving neighborhood she remembered has changed. The murder of Sana's landlord is only the latest in a wave of local crimes which have gone unsolved. And the facts of the case are troubling: Sana found the man dead in her shop at a suspiciously early hour, with a dagger from her windowfront display plunged in his chest. And Kausar--a woman with a keen sense of observation and deep wisdom honed by her years--senses there's more to the story than her daughter is telling. With the help of some old friends and her plucky teenage granddaughter, Kausar digs into the investigation to uncover the truth. Because who better to pry answers from unwilling suspects than a meddlesome aunty? But even Kausar can't predict the secrets, lies, and betrayals she finds along the way.
Karen : A Brother Remembers
by Kelsey Grammer

The author's sister was kidnapped and murdered at age eighteen, and he poignantly remembers her and the impact her loss had on his life and family, exploring with raw honesty the devastation after her death and the long and arduous journey toward healing.
We Can Do Hard Things : Answers to Life's 20 Questions
by Glennon Doyle

When you travel through a new country, you need a guidebook.
When you travel through love, heartbreak, joy, parenting, friendship, uncertainty, aging, grief, new beginnings - life - you need a guidebook too. We Can Do Hard Things is the guidebook for being alive.
Every day, Glennon Doyle spirals around the same questions: Why am I like this? How do I figure out what I want? How do I know what to do? Why can't I be happy? Am I doing this right?
Glennon's compasses are her sister, Amanda and wife, Abby. Recently, in the span of a single year, Glennon was diagnosed with anorexia, Amanda was diagnosed with breast cancer and Abby's beloved brother died. So they turned toward the only thing that's ever helped them find their way: deep, honest conversations with other brave, kind, wise people.
They asked each other, their dearest friends, and 118 of the world's most brilliant wayfinders: As you've traveled these roads - marriage, parenting, work, recovery, heartbreak, aging, new beginnings, have you collected any wisdom that might help us find our way?
They put all that wisdom in one place: We Can Do Hard Things - a place to turn when you feel clueless and alone, when you need clarity in the chaos, or when you want wise company on the path of life.
The Last Ferry Out
by Andrea Bartz

Abby travels to the storm-ravaged Isla Colel seeking answers about her fiancée Eszter's mysterious death, but as expats reveal chilling secrets and a key witness vanishes, she uncovers a web of lies that may put her own life in jeopardy.
Lloyd McNeil's Last Ride
by Will Leitch

"From the award-winning author of How Lucky and The Time Has Come, this heartfelt and humorous novel follows an Atlanta police officer who learns he has months to live and determines to get killed in the line of duty to provide for his son . . . but keeps failing in unexpected ways. Lloyd McNeil has served as an officer with the Atlanta Police Department for 20 years while being a devoted father to his teenage son. But then he learns the worst possible news: He has learned he has an inoperable brain tumor, and he has only months left to live.
Lloyd begins throwing himself into a series of increasingly dangerous situations, but things don't go according to plan. Instead of dying, he becomes a civic hero. Meanwhile, a malevolent force from his past shadows Lloyd as he tries to get his affairs in order, teach his son the lessons he needs to be a good person, and to say goodbye.
Told in Lloyd's wistful but wonderfully comedic voice, Lloyd McNeil's Last Rice is a masterful blend of suspense, humor, and compassion. It is a novel about what we leave behind and what we learn along the way, a bighearted story that brings into focus the depths of a father's love for his son"
The Memory Collectors 
by Dete Meserve

"What would you do if you could spend an hour in your past? Four strangers in the beach town of Ventura, California are about to find out. Elizabeth aches for one more precious hour with her son who died in a senseless accident. Andy is desperate to find his first love who vanished after a whirlwind romance. Logan craves the rush of surfing and mountain climbing, yearning to reclaim the freedom he lost after a misstep landed him in a wheelchair. Brooke is looking for an hour of relief from the guilt of an unforgivable mistake.
Enter Aeon Expeditions, the groundbreaking time travel invention of Mark Saunders--which allows some lucky clients the chance to spend an hour in their past. Even though Aeon's technology ensures time travel can't alter the future, all four clients, including Mark's ex-wife Elizabeth, yearn to revisit the hour that changed their lives forever.
But when their 'hour' extends beyond sixty minutes, they find themselves stranded in the past. As their paths intertwine unexpectedly, they unearth shocking secrets hidden in the shadows of their shared history: All their lives were shattered the same night on a secluded highway by the beach. As they delve into the hidden truths of that pivotal hour, a startling revelation emerges. They were not alone. Someone else was present, harboring deadly intentions"
The Emperor of Gladness 
by Ocean Vuong

The hardest thing in the world is to live only once...
One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai's relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink.
Following cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. 
The Dark Maestro
by Brendan Slocumb

Curtis Wilson, a cello prodigy from D.C. who rose to classical music stardom, is forced into witness protection after his drug-dealer father turns informant, but when the cartel remains untouchable, Curtis and his family must use their wits and his musical gifts to fight for survival.
New and Featured eBooks on hoopla
Again, Only More Like You
by Catalina Margulis

She hadn't turned 40 yet, and already she was over it...
Dumped. Pregnant. Fired. For best friends Carmen and Ally, the approach of their 40th birthdays is anything but a celebration. Yet, it might be exactly what they need to set their lives on the right path.
In the bustling heart of New York, Carmen has it all-a high-profile career, a loving family, and a home straight out of a magazine. But as her 40th looms, her life begins to unravel. A surprise pregnancy, a shocking job loss, and the unwelcome sight of crow's feet force her to rethink her perfect life and what it means to truly have it all.
Meanwhile, in the quiet of Maine, Carmen's best friend Ally, a spirited marine biologist, confronts her own crisis as she faces the fallout from a doomed affair with her boss. With her romantic life in shambles and her professional life no better, Ally relocates to Portland, Oregon, hoping for a fresh start and one last chance at love.
As their individual journeys to happiness lead them in different directions, the strength of their friendship is tested. Tragedy strikes, bringing hidden resentments to the surface and forcing them to confront their past-and each other. In the process, they must answer a pivotal question: Are their best years really behind them, or is turning 40 just the beginning of their greatest adventures?
Prince of Darkness
by Rebecca Zanetti

Unknown to humans, beyond daylight lies a world of intoxicating darkness where deadly creatures prowl with insatiable desires and unbelievable power: vampires, demons, witches, shifters. When vulnerable humans find themselves thrust into that realm, they'll never be the same. . .
In the aftermath of war, a fragile peace hovers between the Kurjan nation and the Dark Protector coalition. Yet amid labyrinthine politics and intrigue, Vero Phoenix, a Kurjan, stands apart. He has lived devoid of legacy or lineage-until the day he backed his newfound brother as king, putting himself into the treacherous position of enforcer and shield. Yet there is another thorn in his side, no less vexing, undeniably captivating-and all-too-human . . .
Lyrica Graves was once ensnared by Kurjan captors and now embodies defiance and freedom as she guides other women to independence and modernity. She is particularly amused-and breathtakingly challenged-by her battles with Vero. But their clashing also belies a sizzling connection, a dark attraction between supernatural and fully human that threatens their chosen destinies and makes them a target for far too many bloodthirsty enemies . . .
One Love
by Matt Cain

Twenty years after they first met, Danny and Guy are returning to the confetti-strewn streets of the Gay Village for Manchester Pride. This weekend is a celebration of two decades of friendship, laughter, and adventures. It's also where Danny hopes to finally reveal his secret. No matter how many other men he's known, the only bond that has ever really mattered is the one that began the moment he met Guy during their first week at Manchester University.
For Guy, glimpsing Danny across the room that day was a revelation and a lifeline. Popular and outgoing, Danny arrived from his small hometown determined not to hide away any longer. He inspired Guy to come out, take risks, and pursue the kind of lasting relationships that Danny seems to have little interest in. Yet Guy knows that there is more to their shared history than he's ever been brave enough to acknowledge. There are unspoken regrets, white lies, and convenient omissions-because Guy has his secrets too.
Over the course of one tumultuous weekend full of bittersweet memories and overdue revelations, both Danny and Guy will find the courage to confront who they were all those years ago-and who they might yet be to each other, and to themselves.
Heartfelt and emotionally rich, as romantic as it is surprising, this is a story of love and friendship, and all the complexities that lie between.
Daughters
by Kirsty Capes

Daughters is as devastating as it is hilarious, as tender and moving as it is shocking-this is a book that will stay with you long after you have turned the final pages.
When Mattie and Nora's mother, the brilliant, troubled, and world-renowned British painter Ingrid Olssen, was on her deathbed, there was one promise she asked her daughters to make: Burn it all. Throw it all away. Even her most famous painting, Girls, of her daughters as children. She didn't want it sold, didn't want it celebrated. Art is transient. She wanted it gone. All of it.
Two years later, Mattie hasn't done anything with any of it except for lock it in a storage unit. She's barely seen Nora since Nora skipped their mother's funeral. Besides, she has her hands full raising the bold, creative teenage daughter she had when she was only a teenager herself. It was giving birth to Beanie that let her escape her mother's house-that and the support of Beanie's father, Gus, who she's long since split from but is still (or again) her biggest fan . . . setting aside her mother's biographer, that is, who she's spent the past six months sleeping with.
But when Nora, an artist herself, falls deep into a mental health crisis of her own, Mattie does what any big sister would do. Despite the fractures their mother helped form between them, Nora comes to live with her and Beanie. And when their aunt Karo sets up the very last thing their mother ever would have wanted-an enormous retrospective featuring Girls as its centerpiece-the two of them somehow find themselves on the road trip of their lives: up the West Coast of the United States, with Beanie and their mother's ashes in tow.
As they hurtle toward the exhibition, they find that for the first time, maybe they will be able to unpick the scars of the past that have always kept the two of them at a distance.
The Northern
by Jacob Mcarthur Mooney

It is the summer of 1952 and three men-well, one man and two boys-are on a spiritual and commercial mission. Dispatched from Minnesota to Western Ontario, they have been hired by an upstart Mormon baseball card company to find licensees for their products among the young men filing out Korean War—era rosters in the Northern League, at the bottom-most rung of professional baseball. What the Northern has for them, and the secrets and deceptions they have for each other, will drive their two weeks in Canada into ever-growing chaos.
In a vision of early 1950s Ontario that emphasizes accuracy but remains robustly anti-nostalgic and contemporary, the three businessmen have themselves an adventure of personal discovery, interpersonal hardship, and more than a little danger. With a world shaped by the trauma of World War II and the generations of deflated adults and orphaned children left behind by it, the story sets out on a clear-eyed and psychologically precise character study taking on grief, fantasy, adolescence, and family. As the narrator for this story of salesmen and ambitious athletes, 12-year-old Chris is a budding acerbic, able to be carried away by the, often empty, hopes of others and put his feet in the ground to stop them.
A novel concerned with sports, labor, growing up, and God, The Northern is a funny and heartbreaking book about the series of disappointments that characterize the progress of growing up.
Summer in a Bottle
by Annie Rains

In this tender, uplifting novel, a young woman returns to her North Carolina hometown hoping to make new memories, but finds history repeating itself-literally . . .
Dumped by her fiancé, opinion columnist Lyla Dune returns to small-town Echo Cove to heal, and to help her parents prep their house for sale. When she decides to open a time capsule she buried in high school, she finds a diary filled with memorable moments from the last summer she spent at home, right before college. Some of the events feel like they happened yesterday. That's normal. Not so normal is that they actually start happening all over again . . .
Lyla gets a flat tire in the same spot and is saved by the same person. The same movie is playing at the theater. Her house has the same leak it once had. As her current summer increasingly mirrors that last one, Lyla worries it will end just as disastrously: with a category 3 hurricane-and with losing Travis, the best friend she was always secretly in love with. If only she hadn't been too scared to admit it.
She revisits other fears too, like the fear of rejection that led her to abandon her passion for fiction writing. And when she reconnects with Travis, Lyla becomes certain that unless she does what her younger self was unable to do, she'll suffer the same regrets. But if this time around she can gather her courage, maybe the life that was falling apart when she arrived will fall back together-even better than before.
The Poet's Game : A Spy in Moscow
by Paul Vidich

"Alex Matthews thought he had left it all behind: his CIA career, the viper's den of bureaucracy at headquarters, the deceits of the cat-and-mouse game of double agents, and the sudden trips to Russia, which poisoned his marriage and made him an absentee husband and father, with tragic results. But then the Director came asking for a favor. Something that only Alex could do because it involved the asset Byron--a Russian agent whom Alex had recruited. Byron had something of great interest to the CIA; the Director said it was a matter of grave national security that implicated the White House, and that Byron would hand over the kompromat once he was extricated from Russia. But Alex is a different man than when he had run Moscow station: he has pieced his life back together after a tragic accident killed his wife and daughter--but the scars remain. He left the agency; started a financial firm that made him wealthy; and met a new woman, Anna, who works as an interpreter in the CIA. Anna is beautiful and supportive and helps him find love again after years of drowning in grief alongside his son. Throughout the last years, Alex has remained, in his mind, a patriot, and so he begrudgingly accepts the Director's request. Something, though, doesn't feel right about the whole operation from the start. The Russians seem one step ahead and the CIA suspects there is a traitor in the agency, passing along secrets to the Russians. Alex realizes that, by getting back into the game, he has risked everything he has worked for: his marriage, his family's safety, and the trust of his closest colleagues--one of whom is betraying him. As the noose tightens around Alex, and the FSB closes in on Byron, the operation becomes a hall of mirrors with no exits. To find redemption, Alex must uncover Byron's secrets or risk losing everything"
It's a Mood : Your Home, Your Vibe
by Cara Woodhouse

It's a Mood helps readers get in touch with their own design instincts. Organized by mood, this book offers both inspiration and practical advice for incorporating the elements that we feel passionate about.
Woodhouse's interiors balance pattern play, an emphasis on eye candy, moody maximalism, quirky accents, and anything fun and random. With special tips on controlling sound in a space, what type of stone works best and when, and how to deck out your home office, this book is for everyone who wants to curate an authentic, original aesthetic perfectly tailored to their own preferences, while accentuating the beauty of each room.
Mysteries of the National Parks : 35 Stories of Baffling Disappearances, Unexplained Phenomena, and More
by Mike Bezemek

"For outdoor adventurers, national parks lovers, and fans of fascinating true stories, MYSTERIES OF THE NATIONAL PARKS is a collection of 40 fascinating tales from America's national parks, including disappearances, mysterious happenings, and supernatural presences"
America's national parks are best known for stunning beauty and outstanding adventure-but these natural wonders also hold some of the world's greatest mysteries. Why did an ancestral civilization abandon their stone cities in the mountains of Colorado? Flying past Mt. Rainier, did a pilot really spot nine shiny objects that spawned the UFO craze? Was a contorted crater in Utah's dramatic Canyonlands created by a meteorite strike? Join outdoor expert and writer Mike Bezemek as he explores baffling disappearances, unexplained phenomena, and the secret history of our national parks.
Plainfield Area Public Library
15025 S. Illinois St.
Plainfield, Illinois 60544
815.436.6639
papl.info