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Reviews

by Lauren Willig - Fiction, Gothic, Horror, Paranormal Romance, Romance

Recently laid off and searching for purpose, Jess reluctantly joins her best friend on a supposedly fun nighttime cemetery tour. Separated from her group by accident, she discovers a bunch of terrified boys and a strange, ancient key. Both lead to Green-Wood Cemetery’s surprisingly handsome resident arborist, Adam Chervinsky. Still dealing with the loss of their mother, Adam’s children are acting strangely. A haunting is afoot, and Jess seems to know more than she’s letting on. Sparks fly between Jess and Adam --- and the unquiet spirits of Green-Wood rise from their century-long slumber. As Jess and Adam delve deeper into the cemetery’s haunted history, they uncover a Gilded Age curse, a ghostly socialite, and a demonic pact that stretches across generations.

by Charlie N. Holmberg - Fantasy, Fiction, Historical Fantasy, Historical Fiction

Owein arrives in England to marry Lady Cora of Leiningen, his dearest friend and confidante he’s known mostly through letters. However, Queen Victoria has other plans in store for the centuries-old wizard. The queen is obsessed with preserving magic, and she believes Owein is the key to pursuing her lofty ambitions. Torn from his family, his home and his betrothed, Owein is pushed into the Queen’s League of Magicians, where he learns that the Crown’s upheaval of his life is only the beginning of his problems. Meanwhile, Cora must push aside her broken heart and use her own spells and resources to uncover truths that the queen wants hidden. As new threats, former loves, untapped spells and even older souls than Owein collide, his next choice could be his last.

by Clare Mackintosh - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Nadeeka is certain Jamie is having an affair. She knows the tell-tale signs. She's been here before. When Jamie claims to be at work late, she knows he's lying. He's with another woman, and she's determined to catch him in the act. But when Nadeeka arrives home to confront him, Jamie can't explain himself. The house has become a crime scene. Jamie is dead. You think you know the people you love. You think you know who you can trust. You think you know how the story ends. It’s not what you think.

by Kendra Elliot - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

When a search dog locates a mass burial ground in the Oregon forest, Detective Noelle Marshall is plunged into a hunt for a killer who’s hiding in plain sight. The key to her case lies in a decades-old secret: a lone survivor who escaped and is still out there, living in fear. The murderer is a phantom who left behind a collection of victims with nothing in common but their final resting place. As pressure mounts to identify the bodies and find the killer, the investigation draws in FBI Agent Max Rhodes --- Noelle’s partner in work and in life. They’ve hunted monsters before, but this one has spent years preparing for this moment, and he craves revenge.

by Jodi Picoult - Fiction, Women's Fiction

On September 11, 2001, when Molly Fitzgerald was only two months old, her mother went to an appointment at the World Trade Center and never came home. Her father and the stepmother who raised her couldn’t have loved her more, but she still grew up with a healthy dread of disasters. Now an adult, Molly runs the Rhode Island Department for Emergency Preparedness, mapping out ways to save lives during storms, epidemics and airplane crashes. She and her husband, Jesse --- a police polygraph expert with his own history of crisis --- have found a love that is a solace in a dangerous world. But then the unexpected upends their new marriage, leading them both to question everything they thought they knew.

by Elizabeth Wellington Rollins - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Graziella, a 96-year-old former nun, spends her days running the parish’s food kitchen, convinced it is her responsibility to keep everyone fed in their working-class New York neighborhood. Her daughter, Grace, a respected psychology professor, appears accomplished and composed, yet she finds herself unmoored as her personal life falters. Ella --- Graziella’s granddaughter and Grace’s daughter --- is weary of defending her vegan diet and anti-capitalistic lifestyle. Blind to her own brilliance, she longs, above all, for a place to belong. Living together again, the three Graces reckon with the distances that have shaped them, and with what it means, at last, to be fully known.

by Ariel Lawhon - Adventure, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

As the only daughter of a powerful chieftain, Grace O’Malley’s role is to secure a strong alliance and bear children. But when she’s sent to foster with a nearby clan, she falls for a clever and open-minded second son --- a man she cannot have. Married off against her will to a brutal warrior, Grace performs her duty, all the while gathering followers loyal to her, and consolidating her husband’s power, only to be ousted from his lands. But this betrayal offers Grace the opportunity to return to sea, finally leading clan O’Malley’s mighty fleet. Just as Grace finds true independence, Queen Elizabeth’s incursions into Ireland grow bolder. She must fight to defend her land, her ships, and the people she loves most against the cruel and power-hungry English deputies.

by Dr. Jen Golbeck, PhD - Nonfiction, Personal Growth, Psychology, Self-Help

Like many of us, Jen Golbeck looked at her rescue golden retrievers and affectionately wondered what exactly was going on in their cute, fuzzy heads. But as a left-brained scientist, Golbeck set out to seek concrete answers --- research and data --- to back up the hunch that there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface of our pups’ funny looks and adorable, occasionally destructive, behaviors. What she finds is a surprising relationship between positive psychology and how we might learn to think about how our dogs think in a whole new light. She introduces a mold-breaking concept that shifts our focus from solving problems and scolding “bad behavior” to building on strengths based on qualities like focus, vitality and curiosity.

by Hank Phillippi Ryan - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller, Women's Fiction

The sole survivors of the fiery plane crash that killed their parents, Eliza Ramsey and her sister, Bea, share an unbreakable bond. But now, on the 11th anniversary of the tragedy, Bea fails to retrieve her preteen daughter from a sleepover at Eliza’s. Eliza knows her sister would never leave her precious Piper behind, and she fears the worst. But did Bea plan her own disappearance? The Ramseys’ lives have already crashed and burned once. Now, Eliza discovers she's the only one who can protect her niece from the horrifying legacy of her family’s sinister history. Together, the two must prevent their lives from going up in flames once again.

by Natalie Sue - Fiction, Humor, Women's Fiction

After years of climbing at her marketing firm, Mona was supposed to be getting promoted and finally moving out of her crumbling apartment building. Instead, she’s jobless, aimless, and still stuck in a space barely big enough for a yoga mat. Then her eccentric landlady takes a tumble and asks Mona to step in as the building’s reluctant super. The deal is simple: help prep the place for sale, and she can secure the upgrade she’s been chasing. But that’s easier said than done when the neighbors treat “boundaries” as optional. As Mona gets pulled deeper into the building’s chaos --- and closer to the people inside it --- she’s forced to confront what, and who, she’s really been trying to outrun.