Staff Recommendations
Daryl M.
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The Twilight Garden
by Adams, Sara Nisha
June 3, 2024
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There are two residences on Eastbourne Road in Stoke Newington on the outskirts of London. Winston has lived in #79, with his boyfriend Lewis, for several years. Bernice, recently divorced, has just purchased #77 as a new home for herself and her young son, Sebastian. The two houses share a garden, which is increasingly becoming a point of contention between the two new neighbors. Just another bullet point on a growing list of grievances each has about the other.One afternoon, Lewis finds an envelope in his mail. It is addressed to “the Young Man at Number 79” and it is filled with... Read Full Review
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A Short Walk Through a Wide World
by Westerbeke, Douglas
May 28, 2024
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Three sisters gather at what they have decided is a wishing well near their home in Paris. The year is 1885. There are so many terrible things happening in the world that they decide they each will make a wish and sacrifice something important to them by casting it into the well, which they believe will ensure their wishes will be granted. The first two make their wishes (a stop to the bombing of public buildings and that Dr. Homais will find a cure for syphilis) and their sacrifices (a gold chain and a favorite doll, respectively). When it comes to Aubry, the youngest, her wish is that a... Read Full Review
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How to solve your own murder : a novel
by Perrin, Kristen
May 20, 2024
Call Number: M
Annie’s Great Aunt Frances has always been a presence in Annie’s life. A rather nebulous, undefined presence, but a presence none the less. Great Aunt Frances owns the house in Chelsea where Annie has grown up with her mother. Communication from Great Aunt Frances has always been sporadic at best and communication about her from her mother or grandparents has been equally limited. What Annie knows is this: Great Aunt Frances had her fortune told at a carnival when she was 16 years old. That fortune predicted that she was going to be murdered. That fortune so shook teenage Frances that she... Read Full Review
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The Final Girl Support Group
by Hendrix, Grady
April 17, 2024
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Any fan of horror movies knows what the term “final girl” means. A final girl is the person left standing at the end of a horror movie. During the course of the film, she evades the threat, usually losing several friends and family members in the process, long enough to have a lethal confrontation that results in the killer’s death (who regularly defies all reason by returning in the sequel). Final girls rarely appear consecutively in these films and are regularly replaced by new characters in subsequent installments, because the main focus for the films, and their franchises, is on the... Read Full Review
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Camp Damascus
by Tingle, Chuck
April 1, 2024
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Rose Darling is a high school senior who has lived her entire life in the small town of Neverton, Montana. She’s also grown up attending Kingdom of the Pine church with her parents. Kingdom of the Pine is a smaller church, compared to some others, but it has an international reputation for operating Camp Damascus, a gay conversion therapy operation with an astounding 100% success rate.As Rose has gotten older, she has experienced some things that have left her with questions. A lot of questions. Like the fact that when she spends time with some of her girl friends, she experiences bone... Read Full Review
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The Djinn waits a hundred years
by Khan, Shubnum
March 18, 2024
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Fifteen-year-old Sana has just moved to Durban, a city on the eastern coast of South Africa, with her father. Her mother, a victim of cancer, died a few years earlier and her father believes the move to the once grand, now dilapidated, estate that is an odd type of apartment building will help both of them. The existing tenants, an eccentric group of older women, along with the landlord, a man known as Doctor, agree on very little, with one exception: the house is haunted.Sana is familiar with ghosts. She was born half of a pair of conjoined twins and has been haunted by the ghost of her twin... Read Full Review
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Women of Good Fortune
by Wan, Sophie
March 11, 2024
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Sophie Wan opens her debut novel with this bit of information:“Sheng nu – ‘leftover women’ – unmarried women over the age of twenty-seven. Later adopted by the internet community to refer to often well-educated women who had passed the appropriate age for marriage.”Wan then goes on to introduce readers to the protagonists of her novel: Rina, a young woman educated in the west who is keenly aware of her ticking biological clock as she pursues her career; Jane, a brand conscious fashionista forced by her parents into an arranged marriage; and Lulu, a restaurant hostess who has been supporting... Read Full Review
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The Fox Wife
by Choo, Yangsze
February 20, 2024
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A detective is approached about discovering the identity of a young woman who is found dead and frozen outside a restaurant. A grieving mother undertakes a search to locate the man she holds responsible for her daughter’s death. As each travels across Manchuria in the early 20th century, it becomes clear that while their stories may seem unrelated, the clues they are each following lead them closer and closer together.In her latest novel, after 2019’s excellent ... Read Full Review
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The Book of Doors
by Brown, Gareth
February 5, 2024
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Cassie Andrews is living a quiet life in New York City. She spends her days and evenings working in a bookshop, and when she goes home each night, more often than not, she curls up with a good book. A set of unusual circumstances in the bookstore result in Cassie coming into possession of a strange, unassuming little book that, according to the title page, is The Book of Doors. Inside, the book is inscribed with the title, some mysterious symbols and drawings, and the inscription that “any door is every door.” Cassie ponders the book and wonders what it means. When she unexpectedly... Read Full Review
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Kill Show
by Sweren-Becker, Daniel
January 16, 2024
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What is it about true-crime that fascinates us? Why, over a century later, are we still fascinated with the brutal murders of five women in the Whitechapel district of London? What draws people to the life and death of notorious bank robbers Bonnie & Clyde almost a century later? Why was interest in Jeffrey Dahmer high enough to make Netflix’s series about the murders he committed from the 1970s-90s a hit show? Who will be the focus of our next national obsession and what is the next real crime that will become a form of entertainment? Daniel Sweren-Becker explores our country’s obsession... Read Full Review
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The Fragile Threads of Power
by Schwab, Victoria
January 8, 2024
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It’s been seven years since the events at the end of V.E. Schwab’s A Conjuring of Light. In Red London, Lila and Kell have been sailing the seas as privateers on her ship, the Grey Barron (They also secretly perform tasks for Red London’s crown.). Rhy Maresh, Kell’s brother, has ascended the Arnesian throne. He has married Nadiya Loreni, and the two now have a daughter named Tieren. Alucard Emery, a former noble and a former privateer, is now the king’s consort, rounding out the royal... Read Full Review
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Unnatural Ends
by Huang, Christopher
December 19, 2023
Call Number: M
Sir Lawrence Linwood, the Lord of Linwood Hollow and a tyrant of a father, is always pushing his adopted children to meet unreasonable demands. Three adult children, Alan, Roger, and Caroline, have escaped their father and their home, but not unscathed. When Sir Lawrence dies, his children return home, as expected, to find not only that their father was murdered but that the latest version of his will declares that the child who solves their father’s murder will inherit his estate.In Unnatural Ends, Christopher Huang uses elements from the golden age of mystery, pitting siblings... Read Full Review