HARDCOVER
The Dearly Beloved: A Novel by Cara Wall. Meet
two couples during the 1960s: a proud pastor and
his atheist wife, and a skeptical pastor and his
devout wife as they go through adulthood trying
to find harmony during life’s imbalances. The
subject of faith takes a backseat in this touching
story that is more about building community
and creating and sustaining relationships with
people who have different ideologies from one
another. ~
Laura Knapp
The Warlow Experiment: A Novel by Alix Nathan. Wealthy landowner and citizen scientist,
Herbert Powyss, enthusiastically launches an
experiment involving human isolation in the
last years of the 18th century. Many unintended
consequences result in this fascinating and
superbly conceived work of historical fiction.
Nathan’s stylistic expertise and attention to
detail chillingly renders the darkness of the
endeavor. ~
Stan Hynds
Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton. A hilarious take on the zombie apocalypse
but told from the viewpoint of a pet crow
who believes humanity should be saved.
As he ventures out looking for a cure he
must figure out how domestic animals fit
into the new world order and how to come
to terms with being a crow and not, as his
heart desires, a human. ~
Ben Parker
The Confessions of Frannie Langton: A Novel by Sara Collins. Frannie stands accused of the
stabbing murders of a mistress lover, as well as
her master—a wealthy social climber whose
scientific experiments on people of color bring
him fame and stature. Highly educated and
then used to carry out her master’s medical
research, Langton is a searing protagonist
who captivates with intellect and elegance as
she remembers her Jamaican slavery while struggling desperately
to recall one night in England blurred by love, opium, and rage. ~
Nancy Scheemaker
Bringing Down the Duke (A League of Extraordinary Women #1) by Evie Dunmore. This delightful debut romance is set in Oxford.
The heroine joins the first class of women students
and becomes an accidental activist in the women’s
suffrage movement. Incredibly well-researched,
with a lovely romantic arc—you’ll be so happy
you gave this author a try and will find yourself
eagerly awaiting her next book. ~
Rachel Person
She Would Be King: A Novel by Wayetu Moore. An incredible debut novel blending history with
magical realism to tell the story of Liberia’s creation.
With unforgettable characters and an even more
unforgettable narrator, you will not be disappointed.
"If she was not a woman...she would be king." ~
Cassidy Washburn
The Outsider: A Novel by Stephen King. A grisly,
unspeakable murder. A seemingly innocent
baseball coach. Two stories intertwined in
one. Evidence places him at the scene. His
incontrovertible alibi places him elsewhere.
What sort of monster is capable of committing
such heinous acts? Perhaps one of Stephen
King’s darkest, twisted, creepiest novels, it
latches onto you with a steely grip within
the first few pages and refuses to let go until the very end when
a twist drops so severely that it leaves you stumbling to make
sense of it. ~
Angela Turon
The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations by Toni Morrison. This is a vast
compilation of the Nobel Prize-winning author’s essays,
speeches, and meditations, showing her visionary facets,
her bold scope exploring the world that long feted her.
Ranging from considerations of art culturally forming
societies, with special reflections on literary visions, to
lectern discussions on “black matters” and making up her
lifetime’s history in poignant, compelling essays confronting
what it has meant to be alive. The collection not only
reaffirms Morrison’s star on the literary canon, but explores
the possibilities for living our differences toward the same
illuminant end. ~
Ray Marsocci
Opium: How an Ancient Flower Shaped and Poisoned Our World by John H Halpern and David Blistein. Opium and its many offspring, including morphine, heroin, and chemically created concoctions like OxyContin, have
seduced, enchanted, enthralled, and destroyed millions.
The authors pull opium up by its roots, revealing that its
centuries-long potency, allure, and potential for healing
have repeatedly been dwarfed by its addictive power of
destruction. ~
Mike Hare
Women's War: Fighting and Surviving the American Civil War by Stephanie McCurry. This is a story that needed to be told. A major new work of Civil War history, this volume does not only challenge conventional assumptions about women in the Civil War, but dispels the notion that a "woman's role" is limited to the sidelines in any war. This ought to be required reading for any history buff! ~
Ramsay Eyre
PAPERBACK
The Last Palace: Europe's Turbulent Century in Five Lives and One Legendary House by Norman Eisen. Eisen is
uniquely qualified to write this book, as U.S. Ambassador to
Czechoslovakia, he was one of the most recent occupants of
the palace. Eisen weaves an incredible story of the palace and
its occupants, from Ashkenazi to Hollywood royalty, Nazis,
Communists, heroes, villains, and victims. The book covers
the 1920s through the Velvet Revolution to the present. This
book is fascinating, insightful, and timely. ~
Maeve Noonan
A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight: (A True Crime Fact Account of the Lizzie Borden Ax Murders) by Victoria Lincoln. No one will ever know exactly what
happened on a blisteringly hot August morning in 1892 in
Fall River, Massachusetts when Andrew Borden, a prominent
local businessman, and his wife were hacked to death in their
modest home on Second Street. Author Victoria Lincoln
had a better pedigree than most for making an informed
speculation. She knew the prime suspect. Lincoln believes
that the sharply drawn layers of Fall River’s social strata played
a major role in precipitating an event that only assumed lethal proportions after
a psychotic episode during which Lizzie succumbed to temporary madness. By
far the best researched, most intelligently constructed book on this fascinating
subject. ~
Alden Graves