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Reviews

Reviews

by Karin Slaughter - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Leigh Collier is an up-and-coming defense attorney and is managing to successfully coparent through a pandemic. But her ordinary life masks a childhood no one should have to endure. On a Sunday night at her daughter’s school play, she gets a call from one of the firm's partners who wants Leigh to come on board to defend a wealthy man accused of multiple counts of rape. When she meets the accused face-to-face, she realizes it’s no coincidence that he’s specifically asked for her to represent him. He may know what happened over 20 years ago, and why Leigh has spent two decades avoiding her past. The only person who can help is her younger, estranged sister Callie --- the last person Leigh would ever want to drag into this after all they’ve been through.

by David Rosenfelt - Fiction, Mystery

Lawyer Andy Carpenter and his wife, Laurie, enjoy walking their dogs, Tara and Sebastian. When out for one of their strolls, their simple ritual isn’t so simple anymore. Across the street, a man is mistreating his dog. Three things happen at once: Andy yells, Laurie runs to stop the abuse, and so does a closer passerby, who so thoroughly beats the owner that both are arrested when the cops arrive. Andy scoops up the dog and takes him to the Tara Foundation, the dog rescue organization that’s always been his true passion. Meanwhile, at the police station, the passerby is identified as Matthew Jantzen, and he’s wanted for murder. Andy and Laurie are struck by the fact that Jantzen, a man on the run, would nevertheless intervene to help a dog, and decide to find out more.

by Jenny Colgan - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Marisa Rosso can’t understand why everyone else is getting on with their lives as she still struggles to get over the death of her beloved grandfather. Retreating further and further from normal life, she moves to the remote tidal island of Mount Polbearne, at the foot of Cornwall, hoping for peace and solitude, while carrying on her job as a registrar, dealing with births, weddings and deaths. Unfortunately --- or fortunately? --- the solitude she craves proves elusive. Between her noisy Russian piano-teaching neighbor, the bustle and community spirit of the tiny village struggling back to life after the quarantine, and the pressing need to help save the local bakery, can Marisa find her joy again at the end of the world?

by Tess Gerritsen and Gary Braver - Fiction, Mystery

Taryn Moore is young, beautiful and brilliant. So why would she kill herself? When Detective Frankie Loomis arrives on the scene to investigate the girl’s fatal plunge from her apartment balcony, she knows in her gut there’s more to the story. Her instincts are confirmed when surprise information is revealed that could have been reason enough for Taryn’s suicide --- or a motive for her murder. To English professor Jack Dorian, Taryn was the ultimate fantasy: intelligent, adoring and completely off limits. But there was also a dark side to Taryn, a dangerous streak that threatened those to whom she turned her affections --- including Jack. And now that she’s dead, his problems are just beginning. After Frankie uncovers a trove of sordid secrets, it becomes clear that Jack may know the truth.

by Susan Wilson - Fiction

Ruby Heartwood, a traveling psychic, has always lived a life on the move. She needs no one, and no one needs her. Until one night, when she is camped by the side of the road, a fierce thunder and lightning storm erupts. In the middle of the downpour, she hears a distinct voice telling her to "let me in." In jumps a little black and white dog, and to Ruby's astonishment, she can hear the dog's thoughts. Has she been struck by lightning? Did the storm do this? Is she losing her mind? It turns out that Ruby can hear many dogs' thoughts. She decides to set up semi-permanent residency in the town of Harmony Farms until she can sort out what is going on and who the dog, Hitch, belongs to. But some people in Harmony Farms don't want her there. And it seems that events keep preventing Ruby from leaving.

by Mary Kay Andrews - Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Suspense, Women's Fiction

After discovering her sister Tanya dead on the floor of her fashionable New York City townhouse, Letty Carnahan is certain that the culprit is Tanya’s ex: sleazy real estate entrepreneur Evan Wingfield. So she grabs Tanya’s Mercedes and hits the road with her four-year-old niece, Maya. Letty sheds her old life and checks into an uncertain future at The Murmuring Surf Motel, the winter home of a close-knit flock of retirees and snowbirds who regard this odd-duck newcomer with suspicion and downright hostility. As Letty settles into the motel’s former storage room, she tries to heal Maya’s heartache and unravel the key to her sister’s shady past, all while dodging the attention of the owner’s dangerously attractive son Joe, who just happens to be a local police detective.

by Sy Montgomery - Nature, Nonfiction

As one of the most beautiful and intriguing birds found in nature, hummingbirds fascinate people around the world. The lightest birds in the sky, hummingbirds are capable of incredible feats, such as flying backwards, diving at speeds of 61 MPH, and beating their wings more than 60 times a second. Miraculous creatures, they are also incredibly vulnerable when they first emerge from their eggs. With tenderness and patience, Brenda Sherburn rescues abandoned hummingbirds and nurses them back to health until they can fly away and live in the wild. In THE HUMMINGBIRDS' GIFT, the extraordinary care that Brenda provides her peanut-sized patients is revealed and, in the process, shows us just how truly amazing hummingbirds are.

by Pam Jenoff - Fiction, Historical Fiction

Sadie Gault is 18 and living with her parents in the Kraków Ghetto during World War II. When the Nazis liquidate the ghetto, Sadie and her pregnant mother are forced to seek refuge in the perilous tunnels beneath the city. One day, Sadie looks up through a grate and sees a girl about her own age buying flowers. Ella Stepanek is an affluent Polish girl living a life of relative ease with her stepmother. While on an errand in the market, she catches a glimpse of something moving beneath a grate in the street and realizes it’s a girl hiding. Ella begins to aid Sadie, and the two become close. But as the dangers of the war worsen, their lives are set on a collision course that will test them in the face of overwhelming odds.

by Sariah Wilson - Comedy, Fiction, Romance, Women's Fiction

The meet-cute award goes to dog groomer Juliet Nolan. It’s one of Hollywood’s biggest nights when she volunteers as a seat filler and winds up next to movie heartthrob Noah freaking Douglas. Juliet is pretty and unpretentious, loves his dog, and is not a worshipping fan. No way Noah is giving up on her, even if his affectionate pursuit comes with a bump: Juliet has a pathological fear of kissing and the disappointments that follow. Patient, empathetic and carrying personal burdens of his own, Noah suggests a remedy: they rehearse. The lessons begin. The guards come down. But there’s another hitch they weren’t betting on. As for that cue-the-orchestra-and-roll-credits happy ending? It might take more than practice to make it perfect.

by Jennifer Weiner - Fiction, Women's Fiction

With a thriving cooking business, a full schedule of volunteer work, and a beautiful home, Daisy Shoemaker should be content. But her teenage daughter can be a handful, her husband can be distant, her work can feel trivial, and she has no real friends. While Daisy tries to identify the root of her dissatisfaction, she’s also receiving misdirected emails meant for a woman named Diana Starling, whose email address is just one punctuation mark away from her own. Diana’s glamorous, sophisticated, single-lady life is miles away from Daisy’s simpler existence. When an apology leads to an invitation, the two women meet and become friends. But, as they get closer, we learn that their connection was not completely accidental.