Click on the title of the book to place a hold!
The Wind Knows My Name – Isabel Allende
This powerful and moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea weaves together past and present, tracing the ripple effects of war and immigration on one child in Europe in 1938 and another in the United States in 2019.
Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler was six years old when his father disappeared during Kristallnacht—the night their family lost everything. Samuel’s mother secured a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to the United Kingdom, which he boarded alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.
Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz, a blind seven-year-old girl, and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. However, their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination she created with her sister back home.
Anita’s case is assigned to Selena Duran, a young social worker who enlists the help of a promising lawyer from one of San Francisco’s top law firms. Together they discover that Anita has another family member in the United States: Leticia Cordero, who is employed at the home of now eighty-six-year-old Samuel Adler, linking these two lives.
Spanning time and place, The Wind Knows My Name is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming.
____________
Unfortunately Yours – Tessa Bailey
#1 New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey returns with the hilarious follow-up to Secretly Yours, in which a down-on-her-luck Napa heiress suggests a mutually beneficial marriage of convenience to a man she can’t stand… only to discover there’s a fine line between love and hate.
After losing her job and her fiancé in one fell swoop, Natalie Vos returned home to lick her wounds. A few months later, she’s sufficiently drowned her sorrows in cabernet and she’s ready to get back on her feet. She just needs her trust fund to finance her new business venture. Unfortunately, the terms require she marry before she can have the money. And well, dumped, remember? But Natalie is desperate enough to propose to a man who makes her want to kill him–and kiss him, in equal measure.
August Cates may own a vineyard, but he doesn’t know jack about making wine. He’s determined to do his late best friend proud, no matter what it takes. Except his tasting room is empty, his wine is disgusting (seriously, he once saw someone gag), and his buddy’s legacy is circling the drain. No bank will give him the loan he needs to turn the business around… and then the gorgeous, feisty heiress knocks on his door. Natalie has haunted his dreams since the moment they met, but their sizzling chemistry immediately morphed into simmering insults.
Now, a quickie marriage could help them both. A sham wedding, a few weeks living under the same roof, and then they can go their separate ways–assuming they make it out alive. How hard could it be? There’s just one thing they didn’t account for: their unfortunate, unbearable, undeniable attraction.
__________
The 9th Man – Steve Berry/Grant Blackwood
From New York Times bestselling author of the Cotton Malone series comes a thrilling, action-packed historical adventure that sends Luke Daniels on an international manhunt for the truth about the assassination of President John Kennedy.
Luke Daniels is in London, between assignments with the Magellan Billet, when he receives a frantic call from an old friend. Jillian Stein is in trouble. She made a mistake and now her life may be in danger. She needs Luke’s help. Immediately. Racing to Belgium Luke quickly finds that she was right. A shadow team of highly-trained operatives are there on the hunt. Intervening, he finds himself embroiled in a war between two determined sides — one seeking the truth, the other trying to escape the past — a war that has already claimed one life and is about to claim more.
Thomas Rowland is a Washington insider, a kingmaker, problem-solver, but also a man with a past. For him everything turns with what happened on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. What history has recorded is wrong. There is more to the story, much more, and Thomas Rowland is at the center of that terrible reality. But forces are working against him, and Rowland will do anything to keep the world from learning what actually happened on that fateful day, including killing Luke, Jillian and anyone else who might be a threat.
In a race from Belgium, to Luxembourg, to the bayous of Louisiana and the Wyoming wilderness, to a final confrontation in the Bahamas, Luke Daniels confronts a series of shocking truths which not only rewrite history but will forever change his own life — as he comes face to face with the ninth man.
__________
All the Sinners Bleed – S.A. Cosby
Titus Crowne is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County. A former FBI agent and security expert, Titus came home to take care of his father and look out for his troubled younger brother. He ran for Sheriff to make a difference, especially in the Black community, which has so often been treated unfairly by the police.
But a year to the day after his election, a school shooting rocks the town. A beloved teacher is killed by a former student, and as Titus attempts to deescalate and get the boy to surrender, his deputies fire a fatal shot.
In the investigation, it becomes clear that the student they shot had been abused by the dead teacher, as well as by unidentified perpetrators. The trail leads to buried bodies—and secrets. While Titus tries to track down a killer hiding in plain sight, while balancing daily duties like protecting Confederate pride marchers, he must face what it means to be a Black man wearing a police uniform in the American South.
__________
A cry for help will tear a family apart…
Another gripping and dramatic family drama from the nation’s favourite storyteller
Bella can’t wait to be married to her fiancée Sidney, and dreams of the day she will walk up the aisle to be given away by her widowed father, with her bookish sister Alice as her bridesmaid.
Their lives are disturbed when they receive a letter from their fourteen-year-old cousin Millie. Taken in by her austere aunt and uncle when her parents were killed in an accident, Millie says she is being badly treated and pleads to be rescued.
When the two sisters take a trip to find out the truth, things take a troubling turn. Millie is brought home to live with them, her only possessions her ill-fitting clothes and a tatty suitcase.
But soon they are questioning this act of kindness. Does their teenaged cousin just need some love and kindness? Or is she a troublemaker, with only mischief and malice on her mind…?
__________
Founded by the mysterious genius known as the Designer, the archipelago of Prospera lies hidden from the horrors of a deteriorating outside world. In this island paradise, Prospera’s lucky citizens enjoy long, fulfilling lives until the monitors embedded in their forearms, meant to measure their physical health and psychological well-being, fall below 10 percent. Then they retire themselves, embarking on a ferry ride to the island known as the Nursery, where their failing bodies are renewed, their memories are wiped clean, and they are readied to restart life afresh.
Proctor Bennett, of the Department of Social Contracts, has a satisfying career as a ferryman, gently shepherding people through the retirement process–and, when necessary, enforcing it. But all is not well with Proctor. For one thing, he’s been dreaming–which is supposed to be impossible in Prospera. For another, his monitor percentage has begun to drop alarmingly fast. And then comes the day he is summoned to retire his own father, who gives him a disturbing and cryptic message before being wrestled onto the ferry.
Meanwhile, something is stirring. The Support Staff, ordinary men and women who provide the labor to keep Prospera running, have begun to question their place in the social order. Unrest is building, and there are rumors spreading of a resistance group–known as “Arrivalists”–who may be fomenting revolution.
Soon Proctor finds himself questioning everything he once believed, entangled with a much bigger cause than he realized–and on a desperate mission to uncover the truth.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Passage comes a riveting standalone novel about a group of survivors on a hidden island utopia–where the truth isn’t what it seems.
___________
New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis transports us back to 1950s Manhattan and the glamorous Radio City Music Hall. . . .
New York City, 1956: Nineteen-year-old Marion is over the moon to have been selected to be one of the Rockettes, Radio City Music Hall’s glamorous precision-dancing troupe. It’s an honor to perform in the world’s most spectacular theater, an art deco masterpiece. But with four shows a day as well as grueling rehearsals, not to mention exacting standards of perfection to live up to, Marion quickly realizes that the life of a Rockette has both extraordinary highs and devastating lows.
Then one night a bomb explodes in the theater. It’s only the latest in a string of explosions around the city orchestrated by a person the press has nicknamed the “Big Apple Bomber.” They have been terrorizing the citizens of New York for sixteen years by planting bombs in popular, crowded spaces. With the public in an uproar over the lack of any real leads after a yearslong manhunt, the police, at Marion’s urging, turn in desperation to a radical new technique: psychological profiling.
As Marion finds herself pulled deeper into the investigation, she realizes that as much as she’s been training herself to blend in—performing in perfect unison with all the other identical Rockettes—if she hopes to catch the bomber, she’ll need to stand out and take a terrifying risk. But she may be forced to sacrifice everything she’s worked for, as well as the people she loves the most.
____________
The Woman Inside – M.T. Edvardsson
A wealthy couple ends up murdered in the nicest part of town in this compulsively readable, page-turning thriller from M. T. Edvardsson, The Woman Inside.
Bill Olsson, recently widowed, is desperate to provide for his daughter, Sally. Struggling to pay rent, he welcomes a lodger into their home: Karla, a law student and aspiring judge, who works as a housekeeper to make ends meet. Her clients are the Rytters, an incredibly wealthy couple who hide behind closed doors. The wife is ill and hasn’t left the house in months. The husband is controlling and obsessive. Is he just a worried husband, concerned for his wife’s health? Or is there something more sinister at play?
As Bill’s situation becomes more dire, Karla is forced to make a difficult choice. And when the Rytters wind up dead, and Karla is pulled in for questioning, she’s made to defend some parts of her past she’d rather not revisit.
Every person in The Woman Inside is hiding something, but could any of them really have been driven to kill?
__________
I Only Read Murder – Ian Ferguson/Will Ferguson
A once-beloved television sleuth finds herself far from Hollywood and witness to a murder during a small-town theatre production—and is convinced it’s up to her to solve the case. Introducing a new comedic crime series from the bestselling Ferguson brothers, for fans of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club, Alexander McCall Smith’s 44 Scotland Street series and Schitt’s Creek.
Miranda Abbott, once known for the crime-solving, karate-chopping church pastor she played on network television, has hit hard times. Turned down for a role on a cable reality show, Miranda is facing ruin when a mysterious postcard arrives, summoning her to Happy Rock, a small town in the Pacific Northwest. But when she gets there, nothing is what she expected.
In dire straits, she signs up for an amateur production at the Happy Rock Little Theatre, competing against the local real estate agent for the lead role. On opening night, one of the actors is murdered, live, in front of the audience. But out of 100 witnesses, no one actually saw what happened. Now everyone is under a cloud of suspicion, including the sardonic town doctor, the local high-school drama teacher, an oil-stained car mechanic, an elderly gentleman who may or may not have been in the CIA—and Miranda herself. Clearly, the only way to solve this mystery is for Miranda to summon her skills as television’s Pastor Fran and draw on the help of her new sidekick, Susan, a shy bookstore clerk who seems to know everyone’s secrets. Because the show must go on!
___________
From Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford: the final novel in the world of Frank Bascombe, one of the most indelible characters in American literature
Over the course of four celebrated works of fiction and almost forty years, Richard Ford has crafted an ambitious, incisive, and singular view of American life as lived. Unconstrained, astute, provocative, often laugh-out-loud funny, Frank Bascombe is once more our guide to the great American midway.
Now in the twilight of life, a man who has occupied many colorful lives–sportswriter, father, husband, ex-husband, friend, real estate agent–Bascombe finds himself in the most sorrowing role of all: caregiver to his son, Paul, diagnosed with ALS. On a shared winter odyssey to Mount Rushmore, Frank, in typical Bascombe fashion, faces down the mortality that is assured each of us, and in doing so confronts what happiness might signify at the end of days.
In this memorable novel, Richard Ford puts on displays the prose, wit, and intelligence that make him one of our most acclaimed living writers. Be Mine is a profound, funny, poignant love letter to our beleaguered world.
___________
Breaking and Entering – Don Gillmor
In the midst of the hottest summer on record, a woman tests the increasing tension between our social contracts and our selves.
At 49, Beatrice Billings is rudderless. Her marriage is stale, her relationship with her son Thomas is limited to text messages—hostile haikus that he sends from university—and she is the primary caregiver for her mother, who is in the early stages of dementia. She has a complicated relationship with her older sister Ariel, with whom she carries on ongoing arguments in her head. Bea laments the loss of momentum she remembers feeling in her thirties, when she and everyone she knew was busy buying houses, having children, and renovating kitchens. Now she is reflecting on her life, worried about her inability to memorize a simple yoga sequence, and about the fact that she enjoys the idea of many things more than the actual things themselves (teaching, reading, sex).
When Bea finds that she has both a talent and a passion for picking locks, the sense of anticipation that had been missing from her life returns. Breaking into other people’s houses is something she’s good at: she is a quick study, subtle, discreet, and never greedy. It’s a dangerous hobby that makes her feel alive—and so she begins the guilty analysis of other people’s lives, and eventually, her own.
___________
Shadow of Death – Heather Graham
You can cut off the head of the snake, but another will emerge.
When two hikers go missing within a series of daunting caves outside of Denver, Colorado, FDLE special agent Amy Larson and her partner, FBI special agent Hunter Forrest, have good reason to suspect foul play. The pair of hikers are only the latest to vanish after a rash of disappearances that’s left local law enforcement stumped. But in searching the dank caverns near the Arkansas River, the agents aren’t prepared for the horror they uncover: a muddy pit littered with corpses. Covered in bite marks. Made by human teeth.
When a tiny toy horse is found on the scene, Amy and Hunter recognize the calling card. They’ll have to move quickly before the already sizable body count can grow. Their investigation soon draws them down the rabbit hole of a dangerous cult with a sinister mandate—one that involves human sacrifices. Anything to further their twisted cause. But when more people go missing, it becomes clear the cult’s reach extends beyond state lines, leading Amy and Hunter deep into the Florida Everglades to set a perilous trap, one that stands to risk everything they hold dear, including their lives.
___________
The New York Times bestselling author of the “touching” ( The Boston Globe ) book club classics The Kitchen House and the “emotionally rewarding” ( Booklist ) Glory Over Everything returns with a sweeping saga inspired by the true story of Crow Mary—an indigenous woman torn between two worlds in 19th-century North America.
In 1872, sixteen-year-old Goes First, a Crow Native woman, marries Abe Farwell, a white fur trader. He gives her the name Mary, and they set off on the long trip to his trading post in the Cypress Hills of Saskatchewan, Canada. Along the way, she finds a fast friend in a Métis named Jeannie; makes a lifelong enemy in a wolfer named Stiller; and despite learning a dark secret of Farwell’s past, falls in love with her husband.
The winter trading season passes peacefully. Then, on the eve of their return to Montana, a group of drunken whiskey traders slaughters forty Nakota—despite Farwell’s efforts to stop them. Mary, hiding from the hail of bullets, sees the murderers, including Stiller, take five Nakota women back to their fort. She begs Farwell to save them, and when he refuses, Mary takes two guns, creeps into the fort, and saves the women from certain death. Thus, she sets off a whirlwind of colliding cultures that brings out the worst and best in the cast of unforgettable characters and pushes the love between Farwell and Crow Mary to the breaking point.
From an author with a “stirring and uplifting” (David R. Gillham, New York Times bestselling author) voice, Crow Mary sweeps across decades and the landscape of the upper West and Canada, showcasing the beauty of the natural world, while at the same time probing the intimacies of a marriage and one woman’s heart.
__________
The Paris Daughter – Kristin Harmel
From the bestselling author of The Book of Lost Names comes a gripping historical novel about two mothers who must make unthinkable choices in the face of the Nazi occupation.
Paris, 1939: Young mothers Elise and Juliette become fast friends the day they meet in the beautiful Bois de Boulogne. Though there is a shadow of war creeping across Europe, neither woman suspects that their lives are about to irrevocably change.
When Elise becomes a target of the German occupation, she entrusts Juliette with the most precious thing in her life—her young daughter, playmate to Juliette’s own little girl. But nowhere is safe in war, not even a quiet little bookshop like Juliette’s Librairie des Rêves, and, when a bomb falls on their neighborhood, Juliette’s world is destroyed along with it.
More than a year later, with the war finally ending, Elise returns to reunite with her daughter, only to find her friend’s bookstore reduced to rubble—and Juliette nowhere to be found. What happened to her daughter in those last, terrible moments? Juliette has seemingly vanished without a trace, taking all the answers with her. Elise’s desperate search leads her to New York—and to Juliette—one final, fateful time.
The Paris Daughter is a sweeping celebration of resilience, motherhood, and love.
___________
Love, Theoretically – Ali Hazelwood
Rival physicists collide in a vortex of academic feuds and fake dating shenanigans in this delightfully STEMinist romcom from the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis and Love on the Brain.
The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs.
Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job.
Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?
_________
A Little Ray of Sunshine – Kristan Higgins
A kid walks into your bookstore and… Guess what? He’s your son. The one you put up for adoption eighteen years ago. The one you never told anyone about. Surprise!
And a huge surprise it is.
It’s a huge surprise to his adoptive mother, Monica, who thought she had a close relationship with Matthew, her nearly adult son. But apparently, he felt the need to secretly arrange a vacation to Cape Cod for the summer so he could meet his birth mother…without a word to either her or his dad.
It’s also a surprise— to say the least—to Harlow, the woman who secretly placed her baby for adoption so many years ago. She’s spent the years since then building a quiet life. She runs a bookstore with her grandfather, hangs out with her four younger siblings and is more or less happily single, though she can’t help gravitating toward Grady Byrne, her old friend from high school. He’s moved back to town, three-year-old daughter in tow, no wife in the picture. But she’s always figured her life had to be child-free, so that complicates things.
When Matthew walks into Harlow’s store, she faints. Monica panics. And all their assumptions—about what being a parent really means—explode. This summer will be full of more surprises as both their families are redefined…and as both women learn that for them, there’s no limit to a mother’s love.
___________
Five-Star Weekend – Elin Hilderbrand
After tragedy strikes, Hollis Shaw gathers four friends from different stages in her life to spend an unforgettable weekend on Nantucket, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hotel Nantucket.
Hollis Shaw’s life seems picture-perfect. She’s the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis’s perfect life—her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline—grow deeper.
So when Hollis hears about something called a “Five-Star Weekend”—one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife—she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend on Nantucket. But the weekend doesn’t turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie.
The husband of Hollis’s childhood friend Tatum arranges for Hollis’s first love, Jack Finigan, to spend time with them, stirring up old feelings. Meanwhile, Tatum is forced to play nice with abrasive and elitist Dru-Ann, Hollis’s best friend from UNC Chapel Hill. Dru-Ann’s career as a prominent Chicago sports agent is on the line after her comments about a client’s mental health issues are misconstrued online. Brooke, Hollis’s friend from their thirties, has just discovered that her husband is having an inappropriate relationship with a woman at work. Again! And then there’s Gigi, a stranger to everyone (including Hollis) who reached out to Hollis through her blog. Gigi embodies an unusual grace and, as it hap- pens, has many secrets.
The Five-Star Weekend is a surprising and captivating story about friendship, love, and self-discovery set on Nantucket. It will be a weekend like no other.
___________
The Last Sinner – Lisa Jackson
New Orleans detectives Rick Bentz and Reuben Montoya are back!
Father John, the notorious serial killer introduced in Hot Blooded is back for revenge, as well an all new killing spree – he hires prostitutes and then strangles them with rosary beads, leaving behind a hundred dollar bill with Ben Franklin’s eyes burned out. Also in his cross-hairs is Bentz’s daughter, Kristi, a true crime writer, who survives an attack when the novel opens but it ends with her husband Jay’s death. Was the attack the work of Father John? Or is there another killer on the loose in New Orleans, this one with his own agenda for revenge against Kristi…
___________
Eve Duncan and Riley Smith must solve their most exciting puzzle since A Face to Die For when asked to uncover the mysterious secret hidden on a remote island.
When archeologist Riley Smith comes to ask Eve Duncan for help, Eve has to say no. Traveling halfway around the world on a dangerous quest is not her expertise as a forensic sculptor. But Eve is intrigued by the prospect of an isolated island that holds a secret locked in time.
Traveling to Southeast Asia, Riley is aware of the threat from treasure hunters who are already searching and have no qualms about killing to get what they want. When she successfully evades them and finds the perfectly preserved body of a female warrior, it is just what she needs to entice Eve to help unlock the mystery.
As these two strong women seek answers about this extraordinary past life, Riley makes a living, breathing discovery that will change history. If she can escape the island and survive long enough to share it with the world.
____________
The Happiness Plan – Susan Mallery
Three women search for joy in #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery’s new novel of hope, heartache, and the power of friendship.
Heather is happy . . . ish. She has a successful business, a cute but contemptuous cat, and best friends Daphne and Tori who know where she’s broken and love her anyway. So why does she feel crushed when her ex gets serious about someone new? No problem, she has a plan. More connections will hold her together while her world falls apart, so she finally reaches out to the stranger who might be her dad.
Daphne isn’t having an emotional affair, despite what her husband believes. He started the rift in their marriage when he said they weren’t ready for a baby. They used to be the closest couple she knew. Can they find their way back to one another before it’s too late?
When Tori forms an inconvenient crush on Daphne’s brother-in-law, she suppresses her feelings. Until her apartment floods, and she moves in with the dog-loving doctor. If things go wrong, she could lose her friends. . . but if they go right, she could lose her heart.
___________
A witty, heartwarming story of love, life and second chances set in the idyllic Cotswolds, from the glorious Jill Mansell.
‘Jill Mansell is the queen of feelgood romance’ Sunday Express
One minute Lou is happily employed, with a perfect flat. The next, her home and job have gone. Suddenly she has to start over.
The last thing Lou wants is to move to a tiny Cotswolds village. She certainly doesn’t intend to work for curmudgeonly eighty-year-old Edgar Allsopp. But Edgar is about to make her the kind of promise nobody could ignore. In return, she secretly vows to help him fall in love with life again.
Foxwell is also home to Remy, whose charm and charisma are proving hard to ignore. But Lou hasn’t recovered from the last time she fell for a charmer. She needs a distraction – and luckily one’s about to turn up.
Secrets never stay hidden for long in Foxwell, nor are promises always kept. And no one could guess what lies ahead…
__________
Have You Seen Her – Catherine McKenzie
A thrilling and timely novel about three women with dark secrets whose lives intersect in the picturesque and perilous Yosemite National Park from the USA TODAY bestselling author of Please Join Us.
Equipped with a burner phone and a new job, Cassie Peters has left her hectic and secretive life in New York City for the refuge of her hometown of Mammoth Lakes, California. There, she begins working again with Yosemite Search and Rescue, where a case she worked a decade ago continues to haunt her.
She quickly falls into old patterns, joining a group of fellow seasonal workers and young adventurers who have made Yosemite their home during the summer. There, she meets Petal, a young woman living in a trailer with her much older wife, keeping a detailed diary of the goings on of the park, and Jada, a recent college graduate on a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend, documenting their journey on Instagram.
When these three women cross paths, Cassie’s past catches up with her, and the shocking consequences ripple out far beyond what any could have imagined in this unputdownable thriller.
____________
Flight attendant turned New York Times bestselling author T. J. Newman—whose first book Falling was an instant #1 national bestseller and the biggest thriller debut of 2021—returns for her second book, an edge-of-your-seat thriller about a commercial jetliner that crashes into the ocean, and sinks to the bottom with passengers trapped inside, and the extraordinary rescue operation to save them.
Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors—but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with twelve passengers trapped inside.
More than two hundred feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter Shannon are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives.
Their only chance at survival is an elite rescue team on the surface led by professional diver Chris Kent—Shannon’s mother and Will’s soon-to-be ex-wife—who must work together with Will to find a way to save their daughter and rescue the passengers from the sealed airplane, which is now teetering on the edge of an undersea cliff.
There’s not much time.
There’s even less air.
With devastating emotional power and heart-stopping suspense, Drowning is an unforgettable thriller about a family’s desperate fight to save themselves and the people trapped with them—against impossible odds.
___________
Private Moscow – James Patterson/Adam Hamdy
When you want to solve the deadliest crimes or uncover the darkest secrets, there’s only one place to turn to: Private, the world’s biggest and best detective agency,
An invitation from an old friend draws Private founder Jack Morgan into a deadly conspiracy . . . On a cold January morning, Jack Morgan stands inside the New York Stock Exchange with his former US Marine comrade whose company is being launched onto the market, eagerly awaiting the opening bell.
But before the bell rings, a bullet rips through the air and finds its mark . . . In the aftermath of the murder, the victim’s wife hires Jack to find the killer. As the head of Private, Jack has at his disposal the world’s largest investigation agency. What he discovers shakes him to his core.
With powerful forces plotting against him, will Jack Morgan make it out alive? Jack identifies another murder in Moscow that appears to be linked. So he heads to Russia, and begins to uncover a conspiracy that could have global consequences.
____________
Cross Down – James Patterson/Brendan DuBois
Alex Cross is gravely injured. Only his partner and friend John Sampson can keep him safe . . . and get justice.
For the first time, John Sampson is on his own.
The brilliant crime-solving duo of Washington, DC’s, Metro PD and the FBI has a proven MO: Detective Alex Cross makes his own rules. Detective John Sampson enforces them.
When military-style attacks erupt, brutally sidelining Cross, Sampson is sent reeling. The patterns are too random—Sampson’s friend, his partner, his brother—have told him. Don’t trust anyone.
As a shadow force advances on the nation’s capital, Sampson alone must protect the Cross family, his own young daughter, and every American, including the president.
___________
You Were Always Mine – Christine Pride/Jo Piazza
Cinnamon Haynes has fought hard for a life she never thought was possible—a good man by her side, a steady job as a career counselor at a local community college, and a cozy house in a quaint little beach town. It may not look like much, but it’s more than she ever dreamed of or what her difficult childhood promised. Her life’s mantra is to be good, quiet, grateful. Until something shifts and Cinnamon is suddenly haunted by a terrifying “Is this all there is?”
Daisy Dunlap has had her own share of problems in her nineteen years on earth—she also has her own big dreams for a life that’s barely begun. Her hopes for her future are threatened when she gets unexpectedly pregnant. Desperate, broke, and alone, she hides this development from everyone close to her and then makes a drastic decision with devastating consequences.
Daisy isn’t the only one with something to hide. When Cinnamon finds an abandoned baby in a park and takes the blonde-haired, blue-eyed newborn into her home, the ripple effects of this decision risk exposing the truth about Cinnamon’s own past, which she’s gone to great pains to portray as idyllic to everyone…even herself.
As Cinnamon struggles to contain old demons, navigate the fault lines that erupt in her marriage, and deal with the shocking judgments from friends and strangers alike about why a woman like her has a baby like this, her one goal is to do right by the child she grows more attached to with each passing day. It’s the exact same conviction that drives Daisy as she tries to outrun her heartache and reckon with her choices. These two women, unlikely friends and kindred spirits must face down their secrets and trauma and unite for the sake of the baby they both love in their own unique way when Daisy’s grandparents, who would rather die than see one of their own raised by a Black woman, threaten to take custody.
Once again, these authors bring their “empathetic, riveting, and authentic” (Laura Dave, New York Times bestselling author) storytelling to an unforgettable novel that revolves around provocative and timely questions about race, class, and motherhood. Is being a mother a right, an obligation, or a privilege? Who gets to be a mother? And to whom? And what are we willing to sacrifice for the sake of marriage, friendship, and our dreams?
____________
In this electrifying thriller from the author of Red Warning and The Night Agent, an attack on the White House sends the President and his top aides to take shelter in a top secret government facility buried deep underground—but they soon discover the threat is locked inside with them.
Assume the worst. Code Black.
The day that every secret service agent trains for has arrived. The White House has been breached; the President forced to flee to a massive doomsday bunker outside DC to defend against whatever comes next. Only the most trusted agents and officials are allowed in with him—those dedicated to keeping the government intact at all costs.
Among these is Erik Hill, who has given his life to the Secret Service. They are his purpose and his family, and his impressive record has made him a hero among them. Despite his growing disillusionment from seeing Washington corruption up close, Erik can’t ignore years of instincts honed on the job. The government is under attack, and no one is better equipped to face down the threat than he is.
The evidence leads him to a conspiracy at the highest levels of power, with the attack orchestrated by some of the very individuals now locked in with him. As the killers strike inside the bunker, it will take everything Erik Hill has to save his people, himself, and his country.
____________
Standing in the Shadows – Peter Robinson
The 28th twisting installment in the DCI Alan Banks mystery series that Stephen King calls “the best now on the market.”
In November 1980, Nick Hartley returns home from a university lecture to find his house crawling with police. His ex-girlfriend, Alice Poole, has been found murdered, and her new boyfriend Mark Woodcroft is missing. Nick is the prime suspect. The case quickly goes cold, but Nick cannot let it go. He embarks on a career in investigative journalism, determined to find Alice’s murderer–but his obsession leads him down a dangerous path.
Decades later, in November 2019, an archaeologist unearths a skeleton that turns out to be far more contemporary than the Roman remains she is seeking. Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his team are called in to investigate, but there is little to be gleaned from the remains themselves. Left with few clues, Banks and his team must rely on their wits to hunt down a killer.
As the two cases unfurl, the investigations twist and turn to an explosive conclusion.
___________
The Only One Left – Riley Sager
At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope
Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.
Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life
It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.
“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead
As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.
___________
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women – Lisa See
The latest historical novel from New York Times bestselling author Lisa See, inspired by the true story of a woman physician from 15th-century China—perfect for fans of See’s classic Snowflower and the Secret Fan and The Island of Sea Women.
According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.
From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.
But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, pluck instruments, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.
How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions, go on to treat women and girls from every level of society, and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a captivating story of women helping other women. It is also a triumphant reimagining of the life of a woman who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.
____________
The Sweetheart List – Jill Shalvis
What makes life sweet?
When Harper Shaw’s life falls apart, she knows it’s time for a change. She removes everything that doesn’t spark joy—from her soul-sucking job to eating kale to making lists—and sets off for the last place she was happy, Lake Tahoe (who wouldn’t feel good there, right?) to fulfill her dream of opening her own bakery. With her Sugar Pine Bakery in between a tavern, owned by sexy, grumpy Bodie Campbell, and a bookstore, run by her new BFF, she feels a peace she’s never experienced since…well, forever.. Then she meets Ivy, a teenage runaway, who barrels into her heart. She sees a lot of herself in Ivy and takes her under her wing, but the teenager has secrets…
When those secrets explode, it changes Harper’s new world, and she’ll learn, it’s never too late to start over, it’s never too late to figure out your life, and best of all, it’s never too late to let yourself believe in love.
____________
After her parents perish in a tragic accident, Cosima Saverio assumes leadership of her family’s haute couture Italian leather brand. While navigating the challenges of running a company at twenty-three, Cosima must also maintain the four-hundred-year-old family palazzo in Venice and care for her younger siblings: Allegra, who survived the tragedy that killed their parents with scars and a spinal injury, and Luca, who has a penchant for wild parties, pretty women, and poker tables.
Cosima navigates her personal and professional challenges with a wisdom beyond her years, but her success has come at a cost: Her needs are always secondary. She’s married to the business, and her free time is given to those who rely on her . . . until she meets Olivier Bayard, the founder of France’s most successful ready-to-wear handbag company. A brief conversation on her palazzo’s terrace turns into a tour of the Saverio workshop, and, fifteen years after her parents’ deaths, Cosima has found a confidant.
Now the business is financially stable and generating enough income for the Saverios to live comfortably. Then Luca loses a hefty sum at the casino, and his debt must be repaid with money or his life. Cosima, forced to bail him out, is given an impossible choice: List the palazzo, sell a third of the family business, or let Luca fend for himself. But is there another way to save everything she has fought for before it goes up in flames?
___________
The New York Times bestselling “new Agatha Christie” (Air Mail) Ruth Ware returns with this adrenaline-fueled thriller that combines Mr. and Mrs. Smith with The Fugitive about a woman in a race against time to clear her name and find her husband’s murderer.
Hired by companies to break into buildings and hack security systems, Jack and her husband, Gabe, are the best penetration specialists in the business. But after a routine assignment goes horribly wrong, Jack arrives home to find her husband dead. To add to her horror, the police are closing in on their suspect—her.
Suddenly on the run and quickly running out of options, Jack must decide who she can trust as she circles closer to the real killer in this unputdownable and heart-pounding mystery from an author whose “propulsive prose keeps readers on the hook and refuses to let anyone off until all has been revealed” (Shelf Awareness).
___________
Welcome to Beach Town – Susan Wiggs
Beloved New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs returns with a compulsively readable tale of an idyllic California beach town forced to reckon with scandal when a high school valedictorian’s speech reveals secrets that shake the town to its core. “Readers will savor sunny skies and perfect surf in this stunning new novel, but one thing is for In this Beach Town, there is always more happening than meets the eye. Don’t miss this expansive beauty of a summer book!” — Kristy Woodson Harvey, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Summer of Songbirds
Every town has its secrets…
In idyllic Alara Cove, a California beach town known for its sunny charm and chill surfer vibe, it’s graduation day at the elite Thornton Academy. At Thornton, the students are the worldly and overindulged children who live in gated enclaves with spectacular views. But the class valedictorian is Nikki Graziola, a surfer’s daughter who is there on scholarship. To the shock of everyone in the audience, Nikki veers off script while giving her commencement address and reveals a secret that breaks open the whole community. As her truth explodes into the light, Alara Cove will face a reckoning.
Nikki Graziola’s accusation shakes the foundation of Alara Cove, pitting her against the wealthy family whose money runs the town. Her new notoriety sends Nikki into exile for years, where she finds fame—but not fortune—overseas as a competition surfer…until a personal tragedy compels her to return to Alara Cove. As Nikki struggles to rebuild her future, she finds that the people of the town have not forgotten her. But time has changed Alara Cove, and old friendships, rivalries, and an unexpected romance draw her back into the life of the beach town she’s never quite forgotten, and where joy and redemption may be possible after all.
____________
Following the epic, ambitious, instant New York Times bestseller City on Fire, comes the dramatic second novel in an epic crime trilogy from Don Winslow, #1 internationally bestselling author of the Cartel trilogy.
Hollywood. The city where dreams are made. On the losing side of a bloody East Coast crime war, Danny Ryan is now on the run. The Mafia, the cops, the FBI all want him dead or in prison. With his little boy, his elderly father and the tattered remnants of his loyal crew of soldiers, he makes the classic American migration to California to start a new life. A quiet, peaceful existence. But the Feds track him down and want Danny to do them a favor that could make him a fortune or kill him. And when Hollywood starts shooting a film based on his former life, Danny demands a piece of the action and begins to rebuild his criminal empire.
Then he falls in love. With a beautiful movie star who has a dark past of her own. As their worlds collide in an explosion that could destroy them both, Danny Ryan has to fight for his life in a city where dreams are born. Or where they go to die. From the shores of Rhode Island to the deserts of California where bodies disappear, from the power corridors of Washington where the real criminals operate to the fabled movie studios of Hollywood where the real money is made, City of Dreams is a sweeping saga of family, love, revenge, survival and the fierce reality behind the dream.
Thunder Bay Public Library's Book Blog 
Leave a Reply