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Reviews

Reviews

by Jeff Guinn - Nonfiction, True Crime

Jeff Guinn has penned the definitive account of the disastrous siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. For the first time in 30 years, more than a dozen former ATF agents who participated in the initial February 28, 1993, raid speak on the record about the poor decisions of their commanders that led to this deadly confrontation. Revelations in this book include why the FBI chose to end the siege with the use of CS gas; how both ATF and FBI officials tried and failed to cover up their agencies’ mistakes; where David Koresh plagiarized his infamous prophecies; and direct links between the Branch Davidian tragedy and the modern militia movement in America. Notorious conspiracist Alex Jones is a part of the Waco story. So much is new, and stunning.

by Jonathan Carroll - Fiction, Magical Realism

Graham Patterson’s life has hit a dead end. His career as a comedian is failing. The love of his life recently broke up with him, and he literally has no idea what to do next. With nothing to lose, he buys a new car and hits the road, planning to drive across the country and hopefully figure out his next moves before reaching California. But along the way, Patterson does something his old self would never have even considered: he gets tattooed by a brilliant tattoo artist in North Carolina. The decision sets off a series of extraordinary events that changes his life forever. Among other things, Patterson is gifted with the ability to see in real time three different lives that are available to him. The choice is his: The life he is leading right now, or two very different ones.

by Grady Hendrix - Fiction, Gothic, Horror, Humor, Suspense, Thriller

When Louise finds out that her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world. Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale. But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them.

by Tegan Nia Swanson - Fiction, Magical Realism, Mystery

When brutish miner Hugo Mitchum is found murdered on the frozen shore of a North Country lake, the local officials and town gossips of Beau Caelais are quick to blame Marietta Abernathy, an outspoken environmental activist and angry, witchy recluse. But Marietta herself has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Living on an isolated island with her father, Marietta’s 16-year-old daughter, Lena, begins sifting through her mother’s journals and collected oddities in an attempt to find her. While her father’s grief threatens to consume him and her adoptive aunt Bea reckons with guilt and acceptance, it is the haunting town outcast Ellis Olsen who might have the most to lose if Lena fails to find her mother.

by Luke Dumas - Fiction, Horror, Literary Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Grayson Hale, the most infamous murderer in Scotland, is better known by a different name: the Devil’s Advocate. The 25-year-old American grad student rose to instant notoriety when he confessed to the slaughter of his classmate, Liam Stewart, claiming the Devil made him do it. When Hale is found hanged in his prison cell, officers uncover a handwritten manuscript that promises to answer the question that’s haunted the nation for years: Was Hale a lunatic, or had he been telling the truth all along?

by Kevin Wilson - Fiction

Sixteen-year-old Frankie Budge is determined to make it through yet another summer in Coalfield, Tennessee, when she meets Zeke, a talented artist who has just moved into his grandmother’s house. Romantic and creative sparks begin to fly, and when the two jointly make an unsigned poster, it becomes unforgettable to anyone who sees it. The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us. When the posters begin appearing everywhere, people wonder who is behind them and start to panic. Twenty years later, Frances Eleanor Budge gets a call that threatens to upend her carefully built life: a journalist named Mazzy Brower is writing a story about the Coalfield Panic of 1996. Might Frances know something about that?

by Catherine Newman - Fiction, Humor, Women's Fiction

Edith and Ashley have been best friends for over 42 years. They’ve shared the mundane and the momentous together: trick or treating and binge drinking; "Gilligan’s Island" reruns and REM concerts; hickeys and heartbreak; surprise Scottish wakes; marriages, infertility and children. But now Edi is dying of ovarian cancer and spending her last days at a hospice near Ash, who stumbles into heartbreak surrounded by her daughters, ex(ish) husband, dear friends, a poorly chosen lover (or two), and a rotating cast of beautifully, fleetingly human hospice characters. As the Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack blasts all day long from the room next door, Edi and Ash reminisce, hold on and try to let go. Meanwhile, Ash struggles with being an imperfect friend, wife and parent.

by Andy Davidson - Fiction, Gothic, Horror, Suspense, Thriller

When Nellie Gardner learns that she has inherited a turpentine estate from her long-lost grandfather, she throws everything she can think of in her pickup and flees to Georgia with her 11-year-old son, Max, in tow. August Redfern’s “estate” is a decrepit farmhouse on a thousand acres of old pine forest, but Nellie sees it as the perfect refuge --- a safe place to hide from her violent husband and the chance for a fresh start. But Max sees what his mother can’t: Redfern Hill is no haven. Something lurks beneath the soil, ancient and hungry, with the power to corrupt hearts and destroy souls. And Nellie’s return is about to wake it up.

by Veronica Roth - Dystopian, Fiction, Mystery

For decades, everyone in the Seattle-Portland megalopolis lived under constant surveillance in the form of the Insight, an ocular implant that tracked every word and every action, rewarding or punishing according to the rigid moral code set forth by the Delegation. Then there was a revolution. The Delegation fell. Its most valuable members were locked in the Aperture, a prison on the outskirts of the city. And everyone else, now free from the Insight’s monitoring, went on with their lives. Sonya, former poster girl for the Delegation, has been imprisoned for 10 years when an old enemy comes to her with a deal: find a missing girl who was stolen from her parents by the old regime and earn her freedom. The path Sonya takes to find the child will lead her through an unfamiliar, corrupt post-Delegation world.

by Catriona Ward - Fiction, Gothic, Horror, Mystery

On the wind-battered isle of Altnaharra, off the wildest coast of Scotland, a clan prepares to bring about the end of the world and its imminent rebirth. The Adder is coming, and one of their number will inherit its powers. They all want the honor, but young Eve is willing to do anything for the distinction. A reckoning beyond Eve’s imagination begins when Chief Inspector Black arrives to investigate a brutal murder, and their sacred ceremony goes terribly wrong. And soon all the secrets of Altnaharra will be uncovered.