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Reviews

Reviews

by H. W. Brands - History, Nonfiction

John Brown was a charismatic and deeply religious man who heard the God of the Old Testament speaking to him, telling him to destroy slavery by any means. When Congress opened Kansas territory to slavery in 1854, Brown raised a band of followers to wage war. His men tore pro-slavery settlers from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords. Brown’s violence pointed ambitious Illinois lawyer and former officeholder Abraham Lincoln toward a different solution to slavery: politics. Lincoln spoke cautiously and dreamed big, plotting his path back to Washington and perhaps to the White House. Yet his caution could not protect him from the vortex of violence Brown had set in motion.

by Ben Macintyre - History, Nonfiction

In 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy English Cotswolds, a thin, elegant woman lived in a small cottage with her three children and her husband, who worked as a machinist nearby. Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple, unassuming life. Her neighbors in the village knew little about her. They didn’t know that she was a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer. They didn’t know that her husband was also a spy, or that she was running powerful agents across Europe. Behind the facade of her picturesque life, Burton was a dedicated Communist, a Soviet colonel and a veteran agent, gathering the scientific secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the bomb.

by Claire Cook - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Instead of focusing on actually finding some health coach clients, Noreen is dividing her time between sabotaging her relationship with Rick and disaster-fantasizing about ending up living in a tent by the side of the road. Tess is ready to downsize, but can she really figure out how to move on and live small? Rosie is completely overwhelmed with life on the lavender farm, and it doesn’t help matters that Rosie’s dad and Noreen’s mom are conducting most of their romantic interludes at her house. They thought they’d have their lives all figured out by now. But change is blowing in along with the crisp fall air, and they’re finding out that life for 40-to-forever women is not for sissies. Hitting the road again might be just what The Wildwater Walking Club needs.

by Jon Meacham - Biography, History, Nonfiction, Politics

John Lewis, who at age 25 marched in Selma, Alabama, and was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, was a visionary and a man of faith. Drawing on decades of wide-ranging interviews with Lewis, Jon Meacham writes of how this great-grandson of a slave and son of an Alabama tenant farmer was inspired by the Bible and his teachers in nonviolence, Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr., to put his life on the line in the service of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” A believer in the injunction that one should love one's neighbor as oneself, Lewis was arguably a saint in our time, risking limb and life to bear witness for the powerless in the face of the powerful.

by Lesley M.M. Blume - History, Nonfiction

Just days after the United States decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. But even before the surrender, the U.S. government and military had begun a secret propaganda and information suppression campaign to hide the devastating nature of these experimental weapons. The cover-up intensified as Occupation forces closed the atomic cities to Allied reporters, preventing leaks about the horrific long-term effects of radiation that would kill thousands during the months after the blast. For nearly a year the cover-up worked --- until New Yorker journalist John Hersey got into Hiroshima and managed to report the truth to the world.

by T. M. Logan - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Kate and her three best friends are spending a week with their families in a luxurious villa in the south of France. But soon after arriving, she discovers an incriminating text on her husband’s cell phone. A text revealing that he’s having an affair. And that the other woman is one of her best friends. But which one? Trapped in paradise with no one to trust, Kate is determined to find out who has put her marriage --- and a lifelong friendship --- in jeopardy. But as she closes in on the truth, she realizes that the stakes are higher than she ever imagined. Everyone on the trip has secrets…and someone may be prepared to kill to keep theirs hidden.

by David Rosenfelt - Fiction, Mystery

Andy Carpenter is a lawyer who would rather not practice law. He'd prefer to spend his time working with the Tara Foundation, his dog rescue organization, and be with his family and his two dogs, Tara and Sebastian. But when a friend asks him for a favor that involves both dogs and his lawyerly expertise, he can't say no. Andy's friend, Beth, has found a stray that seems to have belonged to a murder victim --- in fact, the man and two of his colleagues died in an explosion a few weeks ago. But when the murdered man contacts Beth, asking for his dog back, Andy knows there must be more to the story. The man claims his life is in danger, and that's why he disappeared.

edited by Nick Kolakowski and Steve Weddle - Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Short Stories, Suspense, Thriller

A mysterious virus sweeps across the country, mutating rapidly as it jumps from person to person. Cities are locked down. The skies are clear as all planes are grounded. Some people panic, while some go to heroic lengths to save those they love --- and others use the chaos as an opportunity to engage in purest evil. In LOCKDOWN, 19 of today’s finest suspense, horror and crime writers explore how humanity reacts to the ultimate pandemic. From New York City to the Mexican border, from the Deep South to the misty shores of Seattle, their characters are fighting for survival against incredible odds. Proceeds from the book will go to support BINC, the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, as it seeks to help booksellers recover from the devastating COVID-19 crisis.

by Paul D. Marks - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

Bobby Saxon lives in a world that isn't quite ready for him. He's the only white musician in an otherwise all-black swing band at the famous Club Alabam in Los Angeles during World War II --- and that isn't the only unique thing about him. And if that isn't enough to deal with, in order to get a permanent gig with the band, Bobby must first solve a murder that one of the band members is falsely accused of in that racially prejudiced society.

by David Sosnowski - Fiction, Humor, Science Fiction

Pandora Lynch lives in Alaska with her single dad, an online therapist for Silicon Valley’s brightest and squirreliest. Homeschooled by computer and a self-taught hacker, Pandora is about to enter high school to learn how to be normal. That’s the plan at least. NorCal runaway George Jedson is a hacker too --- one who leaves the systems he attacks working better than before. After being scooped up by a social media giant, will George go legit --- or pull off the biggest hack ever? After meeting in cyberspace, the two young hackers combine their passions to conceive a brainchild named BUZZ. Can this baby AI learn to behave, or will it be like its parents and think outside the box?