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Reviews

Reviews

by Claire-Louise Bennett - Fiction

Claire-Louise Bennett’s debut captures the interior reality of its unnamed protagonist, a young woman living a singular and mostly solitary existence on the outskirts of a small coastal village. Sidestepping the usual conventions of narrative, the novel focuses on the details of a young woman’s daily experience --- rendered sometimes in story-length, story-like stretches of narrative, sometimes in fragments no longer than a page, but always suffused with the hypersaturated, almost synesthetic intensity of the physical world that we remember from childhood.

by Camille Perri - Fiction, Humor, Satire

Tina Fontana is a 30-year-old executive assistant to Robert Barlow, the CEO of Titan Corp. But after six years, the glamour of working for a media company in New York has completely faded, though her student loan debt has not. When a technical error with Robert’s expense report presents Tina with the opportunity to pay off the entire balance of her loans with what essentially would be pocket change for her boss, she hesitates. As she begins to fall down the rabbit hole of her morally questionable plan, other assistants with crushing debt and fewer scruples approach her to say that they want in. Before she knows it, Tina is at the forefront of a movement that has implications far beyond what anyone anticipated.

by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore - Fiction, Suspense

Cassie Danvers is holed up in her family’s crumbling mansion mourning the loss of the woman who raised her --- her grandmother, June. But a knock on the door forces her out of isolation. Cassie has been named the sole heir to legendary matinee idol Jack Montgomery's vast fortune. How did Jack Montgomery know her name? Could he have crossed paths with her grandmother all those years ago? Soon Jack’s famous daughters come knocking, determined to wrestle Cassie away from the inheritance they feel is their due. Together, they all come to discover the true reasons for June’s silence about that long-ago summer, when June and Jack’s lives were forever altered by murder, blackmail and betrayal.

by Robert Dugoni - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Detective Tracy Crosswhite has a skill, and a soft spot, for tackling unsolved crimes. Having lost her own sister to murder at a young age, she has dedicated her career to bringing justice and closure to the families and friends of victims of crime. So when Jenny, a former police academy classmate and protégé, asks Tracy to help solve a cold case that involves the suspicious suicide of a Native American high school girl 40 years earlier, she agrees. Following up on evidence Jenny’s detective father collected when he was the investigating deputy, Tracy probes one small town’s memory and finds dark, well-concealed secrets hidden within the community’s fabric.

by Martha Hall Kelly - Fiction, Historical Fiction

New York socialite Caroline Ferriday's world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939 --- and then sets its sights on France. Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, is drawn deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement. For the ambitious young German doctor, Herta Oberheuser, an ad for a government medical position seems her ticket out of a desolate life. Once hired, though, she finds herself trapped in a male-dominated realm of Nazi secrets and power. The lives of these three women are set on a collision course when the unthinkable happens and Kasia is sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women.

by Ruth Wariner - Memoir, Nonfiction

Ruth Wariner was the 39th of her father’s 42 children. After Ruth’s father is brutally murdered by his brother in a bid for church power, her mother remarries. In need of government assistance and supplemental income, Ruth and her siblings are carted back and forth between Mexico and the United States, where Ruth’s mother collects welfare and her stepfather works a variety of odd jobs. As she begins to doubt her family’s beliefs and question her mother’s choices, Ruth struggles to balance her fierce love for her siblings with her determination to forge a better life for herself.

by Rob Roberge - Memoir, Nonfiction

When Rob Roberge learns that he's likely to have developed a progressive memory-eroding disease from years of hard living and frequent concussions, he’s terrified by the prospect of becoming a walking shadow. In a desperate attempt to preserve his identity, he sets out to (somewhat faithfully) record the most formative moments of his life. But the process of trying to remember his past only exposes just how fragile the stories that lay at the heart of our self-conception really are. As LIAR twists and turns through Roberge’s life, it turns the familiar story of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll on its head.

by Lisa Gardner - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Seven years ago, carefree college student Flora Dane was kidnapped while on spring break. For 472 days, she learned just how much one person can endure. Miraculously alive after her ordeal, she has spent the past five years reacquainting herself with the rhythms of normal life. When Boston detective D. D. Warren is called to the scene of a crime --- a dead man and the bound, naked woman who killed him --- she learns that Flora has tangled with three other suspects since her return to society. Is Flora a victim or a vigilante?

by Sally Hepworth - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Anna Forster, in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease at only 38 years old, resides in Rosalind House, an assisted living facility. There, she meets fellow resident Luke, and a relationship develops between the two. When Eve Bennett is suddenly thrust into the role of single mother, she finds herself putting her culinary training to use at Rosalind House. When she meets Anna and Luke, she is moved by the bond the pair has forged. But when a tragic incident leads Anna's and Luke's families to separate them, Eve finds herself questioning what she is willing to risk to help them.

by Dana Chamblee Carpenter - Fiction, Historical Fiction

Thirteenth-century Bohemia is a dangerous place for a girl, especially one as odd as Mouse, born with unnatural senses and an uncanny intellect. When young King Ottakar shows up at the Abbey wounded by a traitor's arrow, Mouse breaks church law to save him and then agrees to accompany him back to Prague as his personal healer. Caught in the undertow of court politics at the castle, Ottakar and Mouse find themselves drawn to each other as they work to uncover the threat against him and to unravel the mystery of her past.