Fiction

Witch trials are already a thing of the past in this historical novel set in Salem, Massachusetts during the lifetime of Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter. Witch trials are over; but their memory lives on in Hawthorne’s nineteenth century, with tensions lingering amongst the old Salem families and Hawthorne himself bearing ancestral guilt over his own great-great-grandfather's role in sentencing accused women to death more than a century earlier.

But Hawthorne is not front and center here. He is upstaged by a new immigrant from Scotland, Isobel Gamble, who becomes his lover

We all have secrets, but some people are better at hiding them. Mari learns this firsthand when she accepts an offer to professionally photograph Yanagi Inn in Kyoto, Japan. She grew up in Japan before her parents split up and her mother moved Mari and her sister to the United States. Upon her return, she adjusts to the familiar culture of her childhood and initially enjoys exploring the grounds of the inn, especially photographing the overgrown garden. However, supernatural elements soon reveal secrets from the inn's history that touch upon her own past.

I loved the atmospheric

Welcome to #NewTitleTuesday, where we take a peek at a new title that hits the publishing world this week!

At the very height of summer, with outdoor temperatures at their peak, some patrons might need a book with a slightly slower pace.  Not a romance that burns up the pages with passion, or a thriller that burns up the pages with an edgy page. No, some patrons want something a bit cooler, a bit slower, something that immerses them in a story that serves as a cool, comfortable bath to take the edge off during these summer months. Your public library - and author Viola Shipman - has just

True Biz by Sara Nović is a book that taught me so much about Deaf culture and the breadth of deaf experiences. The narrative follows several characters at the fictional River Valley School for the Deaf. In between chapters, Nović includes excerpts of nonfiction about Deaf history and American Sign Language (ASL), complete with drawn diagrams of signing. This spotlight on Deaf culture is what makes True Biz a gem of a book, even if I thought some of the storytelling was less than perfect.

Nović has given us several characters who all experience deafness in different ways; there are three

“Those who are born in darkness always return.”

A Wish in the Dark meshes fantasy and adventure, set in a place similar to Thailand.  The journey begins for Pong, an orphan who was born in Namwon Prison, when he makes his escape when he’s 12-years- old.  The next four years Pong lives in a temple with monks, which is in a village outside the city of Chattana.  Father Cham becomes his father figure and mentor.  He teaches Pong about trusting himself and how to navigate his new freedom.

The Governor of Chattana powers the city with magic orbs that give light, heat, and power.  Who

Hello and welcome to #NewTitleTuesday, where we take a look at a new release in the publishing world that will hopefully be a welcome addition to your holds lists.

Today marks the debut of THE HACIENDA by Isabel Cañas, a dark, glittering gem of a debut novel that's already drawing comparisons to Daphne du Maurier's REBECCA by way of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's MEXICAN GOTHIC. This novel, a gothic suspense thriller with hints of the supernatural, is delightfully atmospheric and perfect for those who like thrills and chills that tiptoe up to the line to horror bet never actually crosses that line

Slough House is the dumping ground of the British Secret Services. Left a briefcase filled with state secrets on the bus, accidentally punched the Prime Minister's wife or nearly blown up a major metropolitan train station during a training exercise? Then Slough House is where you end up; doing stultifying and demeaning administrative tasks under the baleful eye of station commander Jackson Lamb (think a bitter and burned out James Bond).

The Slow Horses are only around until they can be made to quit, or get back into the good graces of their higher ups at MI6.

The first in a series of

This is Grant Morrison’s superhero swan song, as they bow out of writing DC and Marvel superheroes after decades of producing some of the weirdest, most colorful, most imaginative mainstream comics. Superman and the Authority makes a good finale for their time with DC. An aging Superman, his powers waning as he gets older, his idealism tempered somewhat by a sense of practicality, assembles a group of younger, edgier supers (including one of his biggest detractors, the villain/anti-hero Manchester Black) to help him save the world in ways the Justice League would probably avoid.

Superman is

I have not loved a book this much in a very, very long time. I have to be careful about saying that though because it immediately sets the bar at an almost impossible level. This book landed in my hands at exactly the right time. It was the first book I’d been able to read read (as opposed to listen to on audio) since having a baby. With my daughter finally sleeping through the night and in her own room, I was once again able to curl up with a book in bed and let my not-quite-as-sleep deprived brain travel to another place.

This book immediately brought up the same emotions I felt while

Welcome to #NewTitleTuesday at the Johnson County Library where we take a closer look at a new book that's hitting the shelves. In THE LAST CONFESSIONS OF SYLVIA P., author Lee Kravitz constructs a dazzling literary mystery revolving around the perspectives of three characters, all with a connection to author and poet Sylvia Plath, who died tragically by suicide in 1963. Interweaving fiction and reality from different times of Plath's life, Kravitz's novel is going to be in heavy demand from book groups.

The book kicks off with the story of Estee, a historian and curator of a small Boston

Light Years From Home by Mike Chen is a family drama with science fiction flavor. If you’re looking for hard sci-fi with intricately plotted space escapades, this is not the book for you. What this book is instead is a very real, intimate tale of a family with a lot of issues - only one of which is aliens.

The Shao family was always a little dysfunctional, but the real turning point in their lives is when Jakob Shao goes missing for 15 years. Jakob’s father claims that he was abducted by aliens and hopes to bring him home. Little sister Evie is drawn into this “conspiracy,” working with

LOVE & SAFFRON: A NOVEL OF FRIENDSHIP, FOOD, AND LOVE by Kim Fay might well be this year's word-of-mouth breakout novel - the sort of novel that never makes a big splash on the bestseller lists, but lurks just beneath the surface by building a slow, steady, and loyal following, recommended from patron to patron, and book club participant to book club participant. It has that kind of vibe. Plus, it's an epistolary novel, which, when done well, are special little slices of literary heaven for readers. They draw us into a magical, insulated world that's only inhabited by the communication between

Welcome to 2022's first edition of #NewTitleTuesday, where we take a look at a new title released today that hits the publishing world - and patrons' holds lists. One of January's standouts, heralded by prominent literary voices including Publisher's Weekly and the New York Times, is FIONA AND JANE, a striking literary debut from Jean Chen Ho. 

A novel in stories centered around the friendship of two young Taiwanese-American women that stretches over twenty years as they navigate love, relationships, careers, and ambition as they begin as friends in grade school and grow up over remarkable

A good thriller isn't written so much as it's carefully constructed. Out of all the other literary genres - with the exception of romance - a thriller is a constant high-wire act, with the author having to carefully balance the drama on the page against what the reader expects. Not only does a good thriller keeps the reader guessing, but it also keeps the reader WANTING, hanging on every page, until the promise of the book is fulfilled, with the thing in these sorts of books that's always under threat is either saved or brought back to the light.

Thrillers used to be the domain of crime and

Welcome back to our (mostly) weekly series, #NewTitleTuesday, where we take a brief look at a book that's released out into the world. We usually don't spotlight books destined to hit the New York Times bestseller list or books already claimed by celebrities with online book clubs, as they already have enough attention. (But seriously, Reese, if you're reading - call us! We'll talk books!) Instead, we like to spotlight books just slightly under the radar. Books with reasonable holds lists that are less than, say, five hundred people long.

Happy book birthday to TELL ME HOW TO BE by Neel

Welcome to #NewTitleTuesday, where we take a brief look at a new title that's hitting the shelves - and patrons' holds lists - at your library.

I always love spotlighting fantasy novels, however it can sometimes be a difficult thing, as fantasy novels often come in a series, so patrons rarely want to jump in to the third book in a series if they haven't read the first two yet, but in this particular case, the series is so strong, I might have to make an exception. Or, better yet, point you toward the FIRST book in the series to get you set up for the latest installment. Today markes the

We have plenty of patrons here at the Johnson County Library who love a good thriller. Sure, domestic and psychological thrillers still dominate the bestseller lists, but patrons are not always looking for secrets and lies set amongst deteriorating marriages and otherwise-idyllic suburban settings. We're talking old-school thrillers, where one person - or several people - are on the run from bad people with even worse intentions. Novels like these are great at keeping the pages turning and the plot humming along; with a good thriller that's fast-paced, stocked with memorable characters, and

Valentine, by Elizabeth Wetmore is a hauntingly powerful, and beautiful debut novel set in Odessa, Texas in 1976. Wetmore has created four main characters with deep narratives, and all intertwined in ways that make the reader truly understand them in various ways. The detailed characterizations help to draw an accurate divide between age, class and race in west Texas in the mid-1970’s.

The story takes an emotional toll, right from the start when Gloria Ramirez, a fourteen-year-old Hispanic girl, who projects a tough-girl image, is attacked and raped after getting into a stranger’s truck. So

The Girl with the Louding Voice, by Abi Dare, is a powerfully unforgettable story about Adunni, a 14-year-old Nigerian girl who wants nothing more than to go to school and become a teacher. Her mother encourages her to continue with her education and find not just her voice but her “louding voice”. Adunni’s life becomes hard and arduous after her mother’s death when her father, who is in need of money for himself and her brothers to survive, “sells” her to a much older man to be his third wife. What follows is a life of abuse and misery and a discontinuation of her schooling. Throughout her

If you are a fan of The Time Traveler's Wife,  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and/or The Two Lives of Lydia Bird you should give Oona Out of Order a try.  (And if you haven't checked out any of the previously mentioned titles, you should!)  The novel was published in the early part of 2020 (in the Before Times) and may have slipped by unnoticed.  It's a hard book to explain because time travel but not in your typical sense and yet it was easy to fall in love with Oona and her story.

"By turns tragic and triumphant, heartbreakingly poignant and joyful, this is ultimately an

What a book. What a story. What a family. The Kurcs are a Polish family who will not let the cruelty and dehumanizing Nazi and Soviet rule crush their spirit.  

We see babies born, weddings, and a family desperately wishing they were all together again. They feel lucky just to be with one another.  We follow the lives of the Kurc families’ five children through the war.  

Addy moved to France to finish his studies and stayed after finding a job. Now, he cannot return to Poland because there is no safe way to get there and he doesn’t have the right paperwork. His one hopeful thought is

I’m what we librarians call a gentle horror reader.  I’m fascinated by the supernatural but can’t handle graphic violence or gore.  I normally indulge in juvenile scary stories or classics like Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  I heard a lot of buzz around Matt Ruff’s horror novel, Lovecraft County, after the release of the critically acclaimed HBO drama series adaptation, created by Misha Green.  The premise of resilient and intelligent African American characters grappling with racism and the supernatural in the 1950s intrigued me.  This was the perfect horror novel to

It’s perfect, but is it real? Influence follows the lives of four teen influencers who live what seem like perfect lives: Delilah Rollins, a newbie who shot to fame after posting a viral video, Jasmine Walters-Diaz, a former child star who’s tired of hiding her real self, Fiona Jacobs, an aspiring actress who harbors a dark secret from her past, and Scarlet Leigh, the quintessential mean girl of the group. In the whirlwind of events and auditions and shoots, the tension escalates and one of the girls ends up dead. As the other girls try to root out the killer, they are reminded again and again

Deacon King Kong is a sort of love letter to a few blocks of New York City projects in 1969, and to the endearing cast of colorful characters brimming with personality. McBride has a magical touch bringing to life the adage everyone has a story. His descriptions are vivid, engrossing, and entertaining, giving both people and setting depth and truth. His dialogue, as well. It's a hard setting full of people living hard, flawed lives. McBride never ducks the grit and grime, violence and suffering, yet still manages to find some measure of joy and an abundance of humor. He paints a breathing

Truly one of the best books I've read this year. Very few books can balance heart wrenching grief as well as a mystery; a suspenseful thriller if you will.

Coen Caraway and Elias Santos are engaged to be married in a beautiful resort in Mexico. Just days before the wedding, with guests already en route, the plane Elias is co-piloting crashes into the ocean.  The last words heard on the 'black box' leave more questions than answers and Coen must now plan a memorial instead of a wedding.  

He tells friends and family that if they don’t believe in Elias’s innocence to not bother coming to

“There was no honor among thieves. Boys in the game only respected you in direct proportion to how much they needed you divided by how much they feared you.”

Blacktop Wasteland is full of action and suspense.  Just when you think it may let up, S.A. Cosby shifts the action into another gear.  It is a nonstop adrenaline rush (You know it’s going to be good when the book starts out with a drag race). 

We ride along with Beauregard “Bug” Montage, who is a complex character with many titles: father, husband, son, car mechanic, and getaway driver. He struggles providing an honest living for

The End of Her by Shari Lapena is a psychological, domestic suspense novel that is fast-paced and full of secrets, surprises, and twists. Patrick and Stephanie are a happily married, financially stable couple who are parents to 4-month-old colicky twin daughters. Both are sleep deprived when Erica comes into their lives. Erica is Patrick’s dead first wife’s best friend who comes to blackmail the couple by accusing Patrick of killing his first wife and threatening to go to the police to have the nine-year-old case re-opened and further investigated. Stephanie is shocked by the accusations Erica

Ilze Hugo’s debut novel Down Days was written before the Covid-19 pandemic swept the globe, so the eerie similarities between her fictional version of Cape Town, South Africa and the real world today seem prophetic. Readers are introduced to Sick City ( formerly known as Cape Town )  7 years after a pandemic has affected the entire world. The slang term for the virus is called “the joke”, named for it’s symptom of uncontrollable laughter, but the other symptoms are no joke — a fever followed by organ failure leads to death. Although there is no cure for the infected, a vaccine is administered

The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 has left many searching for a way to cope with daily struggles.  Fran Pintadera’s picture book on the concept of crying serves as a unique tool to explain to all audiences how tears are an essential outlet for facing the various stages and phases of life.  With exquisite full color illustrations by Ana Sender, there is an aura of compassion in the poetic text as a mother explains to her young son why people cry. 

Young Mario spends an afternoon with his mother at the park.  When he asks the all-important question of why people cry, his mother closes her eyes

London based paralegal, Flora, has desperately pined over her American boss for years. He doesn’t know she exists. Flora has all but resigned herself to unrequited love, until one day he calls her into his office. But the love affair of her dreams doesn’t start there, instead she is sent on assignment to the island of her origins, Mure. The Scottish island is not somewhere she planned on returning, but maybe she’ll get a love affair after all.  

Continue Flora’s story along with her brothers and friends in Colgan’s sequel: The Endless Beach. The story just gets sweeter in this follow-up to