“Trust others to do the right thing. If you can’t do that, trust yourself to survive what happens.” – Susan Mallery
FICTION
We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida ★
Teenage Eulabee and her magnetic best friend, Maria Fabiola, own the streets of Sea Cliff, their foggy oceanside San Francisco neighborhood. They know Sea Cliff’s homes and beaches, its hidden corners and eccentric characters—as well as the upscale all-girls’ school they attend. One day, walking to school with friends, they witness a horrible act—or do they? Eulabee and Maria Fabiola vehemently disagree on what happened, and their rupture is followed by Maria Fabiola’s sudden disappearance—a potential kidnapping that shakes the quiet community and threatens to expose unspoken truths.
Suspenseful and poignant, We Run the Tides is Vendela Vida’s masterful portrait of an inimitable place on the brink of radical transformation. Pre–tech boom San Francisco finds its mirror in the changing lives of the teenage girls at the center of this story of innocence lost, the pain of too much freedom, and the struggle to find one’s authentic self. Told with a gimlet eye and great warmth, We Run the Tides is both a gripping mystery and a tribute to the wonders of youth, in all its beauty and confusion.
Description from Goodreads.
“[A]n engaging, intelligent story.” – Town & Country
“[An] atmospheric, glistering novel of adolescence and innocence lost… Vida perfectly captures the panicky feeling inherent to adolescence, of wanting to know everything that’s going on, but being aware that you’ll probably only ever scratch the surface of the truth.” – Refinery29
“Set in a pre-tech boom San Francisco that feels moody, foreboding, and magical, this enigmatic tale of adolescent friendship, a disappearance, and coming-of-age is smart, sly, and as knowing about the mind and heart of a teenage girl as an Elena Ferrante novel.” – O, the Oprah Magazine
“…an enchanting, literary novel… Vida’s readers will be changed, too, by this cleverly woven story about honesty, betrayal, charm and illusion, about what matters in youth and what matters always.” – Shelf Awareness
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook | eAudiobook
Super Host by Kate Russo
Bennett Driscoll is a Turner Prize-nominated artist who was once a rising star. Now, at age fifty-five, his wife has left him, he hasn’t sold a painting in two years, and his gallery wants to stop selling his work, claiming they’ll have more value retrospectively… when he’s dead. So, left with a large West London home and no income, he’s forced to move into his artist’s studio in the back garden and list his house on the popular vacation rental site, AirBed.
A stranger now in his own home, with his daughter, Mia, off at art school, and any new relationships fizzling out at best, Bennett struggles to find purpose in his day-to-day. That all changes when three different guests–lonely American Alicia; tortured artist Emma; and cautiously optimistic divorcée Kirstie–unwittingly unlock the pieces of himself that have been lost to him for too long.
Warm, witty, and utterly humane, Super Host offers a captivating portrait of middle age, relationships, and what it truly means to take a new chance at life.
Description from Goodreads.
“Here’s that rare thing: a wise, literary novel that is also funny as hell… the perfect antidote to this time of being shut in at home. Super Host gives me hope for the future, when we can all open our doors, and our hearts, once more.” – BuzzFeed
“Funny, sharp, and artistic… A wonderful book flanked with irony, perversity, Rear Window voyeurism, and women who understand the task of reinvention, Super Host is a case study of what we talk about when we talk about success.” – Literary Hub
“Kate Russo’s novel hasn’t yet been compared to Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, but it should be. The character at its heart… is the perfect blend of impossible and beloved, and the story is handled with a mix of wise humor and compassion.” – BookPage
Available Formats:
Print Book
Rabbit Island: Stories by Elvira Navarro
Combining the gritty surrealism of David Lynch with the explosive interior meditations of Clarice Lispector, the stories in Elvira Navarro’s Rabbit Island traverse the fickle, often terrifying terrain between madness and freedom. In the title story, a so-called “non-inventor” conducts an experiment on an island inhabited exclusively by birds and is horrified by what the results portend. “Myotragus” bears witness to a man of privilege’s understanding of the world being violently disrupted by the sight of a creature long thought extinct. Elsewhere, an unsightly “paw” grows from a writer’s earlobe; a grandmother floats silently in the corner of a room.
These eleven stories from one of Granta’s “Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists” are psychogeographies of dingy hotel rooms, shape-shifting cities, and graveyards. They act as microscopes fixed upon the regions of our interior lives we often neglect, where the death of God and the failures of institutions have given way to alternative modes of making sense of the world. They are cracked bedroom mirrors. Do you like what you see?
Description from Goodreads.
“Full of colorful, precise descriptions and sharp insights into the mind and body, Elvira Navarro’s story collection Rabbit Island is inventive and atmospheric, arising where the everyday world ends and dreams begin.” – Foreword Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Navarro showcases her ability to lead her characters from relative normalcy into nightmare terrain in starkly elegant prose and with a winking sense of humor.” – Publishers Weekly
“Set between the seemingly familiar and elusively surreal, Navarro’s tales unsettle readers through oneiric landscapes… Navarro―adroitly anglophone-enabled by award-winning Christina MacSweeney―distinctly proves her inarguable facility with short fiction.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
Hoopla eBook
The Invisible Woman by Erika Robuck
France, March 1944. Virginia Hall wasn’t like the other young society women back home in Baltimore–she never wanted the debutante ball or silk gloves. Instead, she traded a safe life for adventure in Europe, and when her beloved second home is thrust into the dark days of war, she leaps in headfirst.
Once she’s recruited as an Allied spy, subverting the Nazis becomes her calling. But even the most cunning agent can be bested, and in wartime trusting the wrong person can prove fatal. Virginia is haunted every day by the betrayal that ravaged her first operation, and will do everything in her power to avenge the brave people she lost.
While her future is anything but certain, this time more than ever Virginia knows that failure is not an option. Especially when she discovers what–and whom–she’s truly protecting.
Description from Goodreads.
“Robuck delivers an edge-of-the-seat WWII spy story based on the life of OSS agent Virginia Hall. Skillfully weaving events from the agent’s past with the tension-filled days and nights of 1944, Robuck creates an indelible portrait of an unforgettable hero.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Full of heart, this is a harrowing tale of survival and bravery during one of the world’s darkest times.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook
SUSPENSE
Black Widows by Cate Quinn
Polygamist Blake Nelson built a homestead on a hidden stretch of land—a raw paradise in the wilds of Utah—where he lived with his three wives:
Rachel, the first wife, obedient and doting to a fault, with a past she’d prefer to keep quiet.
Tina, the rebel wife, everything Rachel isn’t, straight from rehab and the Vegas strip.
And Emily, the young wife, naïve and scared, estranged from her Catholic family.
The only thing that they had in common was Blake. Until all three are accused of his murder.
When Blake is found dead under the desert sun, all three wives become suspect—not only to the police, but to each other. As the investigation draws them closer, each wife must decide who can be trusted. With stories surfacing of a notorious cult tucked away in the hills, whispers flying about a fourth wife, and evidence that can’t quite explain what had been keeping Blake busy, the three widows face a reckoning that might shatter all they know to be true.
Description from Goodreads.
“A compulsively readable page-turner with a surprisingly heart-warming message, Cate Quinn’s latest is not to be missed.” – CrimeReads
“While Quinn writes with spirit on weighty subjects like domestic abuse, polygamy and religious cults, her primary and most poignant theme seems to be female friendship.” – New York Times Book Review
“…intriguing… Quinn is a writer to watch.” – Publishers Weekly
Available Formats:
Hoopla eBook
The Power Couple by Alex Berenson
Rebecca and Brian Unsworth appear to have it all. A nice house in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Two well-behaved, healthy teenage children. Important government jobs—Rebecca working in counterterrorism for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Brian serving as a coder for the National Security Agency. Their lives stand to improve even more as Brian, in his off-hours, has just developed and sold a highly profitable app.
However, the Unsworths’ marriage isn’t as perfect as it seems. After two decades together, they’ve drifted apart, talking little and having sex even less. Seeking to revive their strained relationship, they decide for their twentieth wedding anniversary to take their two kids, Kira and Tony, on a European getaway.
They have a blast… until one night in Barcelona when Kira doesn’t come home from a dance club. She’s gone. Abducted. Over the course of a single weekend, the Unsworths will do everything possible to find her—as Kira herself discovers just how far she’ll go to break free of the trap that’s been set for her. And even as Rebecca and Brian come together for Kira, they realize their marriage is more tenuous than they realized.
The Power Couple is both a fast-paced, globe-trotting espionage novel full of surprising twists and a nuanced look at modern marriage—the challenges of balancing career, parenthood, sex, and love.
Description from Goodreads.
“Berenson writes with vigor and pace… This thriller is tailor-made for the big screen.” – Publishers Weekly
“The pace is unrelenting, and Berenson has a few twists in his arsenal. He also creates an engaging character in the brave and resourceful Kira, who is so much more than a helpless victim. A fast-paced and engaging political thriller.” – Kirkus Reviews
“[A] very enjoyable, fast-paced, and intriguing espionage novel.” – Bookends
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook
Never Far Away by Michael Koryta
Once a wife, mother, and witness to a gruesome crime, Leah Trenton was extended a miraculous olive branch in the form of the state’s protected witness program. But for this second chance at life, Leah would have to leave behind her Midwestern roots to the northernmost tip of Maine. Alone and isolated along the banks of the Allagash River, she is determined to focus on the present, on her reclaimed future, but the demons of her past are relentlessly chipping away at Leah’s protected hideaway.
Meanwhile, in the wake of their father’s untimely death, Leah’s children are sent to stay with her, though they are desperate to return back home. They embark on a cross country homeward journey but before they reach their destination, danger finds them and it is Leah who must come out of her seclusion to search for and protect her children.
Told with the deft plotting and enthralling storytelling of a genre master, these two captivating chase narratives will converge along the rugged Allagash River, in the wilds of Maine, where the wills, morals, and ingenuity of a broken family will be tested against all odds.
Description from Goodreads.
“[A] stellar thriller… Well-developed characters enhance the high-octane plot. Fans of nail-biting suspense will be in heaven.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“…loaded with nail-biting suspense and parent-child emotion… the book hits the ground running and never slows down.” – Kirkus Reviews
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook
MYSTERY
Faithless in Death by J.D. Robb
The scene in the West Village studio appears to be classic crime-of-passion: two wine glasses by the bed, music playing, and a young sculptor named Ariel Byrd with the back of her head bashed in. But when Dallas tracks down the wealthy Upper East Side woman who called 911, the details don’t add up. Gwen Huffman is wealthy, elegant, comforted by her handsome fiancé as she sheds tears over the trauma of finding the body–but why did it take an hour to report it? And why is she lying about little things?
As Eve and her team look into Gwen, her past, and the people around her, they find that the lies are about more than murder. As with sculpture, they need to chip away at the layers of deception to find the shape within–and soon they’re getting the FBI involved in a case that involves a sinister, fanatical group and a stunning criminal conspiracy.
Description from Goodreads.
“With the fifty-second exceptional entry in her Eve Dallas series, Robb (aka Nora Roberts) once again hits her readers’ sweet spot by serving up another addictive mix of high-octane pacing, memorable characterization, and ingenious plotting.” – Booklist
“This long-running series shows no sign of losing steam.” – Publishers Weekly
“Only J.D. Robb can write a story that’s as detailed and thrilling as this book is.” – Fresh Fiction
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook | Hoopla eAudiobook
HISTORICAL FICTION
The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles
Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet has it all: her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into Paris, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved library. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books. But when the war finally ends, instead of freedom, Odile tastes the bitter sting of unspeakable betrayal.
Montana, 1983: Lily is a lonely teenager looking for adventure in small-town Montana. Her interest is piqued by her solitary, elderly neighbor. As Lily uncovers more about her neighbor’s mysterious past, she finds that they share a love of language, the same longings, and the same intense jealousy, never suspecting that a dark secret from the past connects them.
A powerful novel that explores the consequences of our choices and the relationships that make us who we are—family, friends, and favorite authors—The Paris Library shows that extraordinary heroism can sometimes be found in the quietest of places.
Description from Goodreads.
“What makes The Paris Library such a tender read is Charles’s firsthand experience… Her meticulous research brings these figures to life… Together the true storylines provide wonderful insight into relationships and friendships that transcend time and place.” – BookPage
“Intelligent and sensuously rich… A novel tailor-made for those who cherish books and libraries.” – Kirkus Reviews
“A love letter to Paris, the power of books, and the beauty of intergenerational friendship.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
Playaway | eBook | eAudiobook
ROMANCE
The Vineyard at Painted Moon by Susan Mallery
Mackenzie Dienes seems to have it all—a beautiful home, close friends and a successful career as an elite winemaker with the family winery. There’s just one problem—it’s not her family, it’s her husband’s. In fact, everything in her life is tied to him—his mother is the closest thing to a mom that she’s ever had, their home is on the family compound, his sister is her best friend. So when she and her husband admit their marriage is over, her pain goes beyond heartbreak. She’s on the brink of losing everything. Her job, her home, her friends and, worst of all, her family.
Staying is an option. She can continue to work at the winery, be friends with her mother-in-law, hug her nieces and nephews—but as an employee, nothing more. Or she can surrender every piece of her heart in order to build a legacy of her own. If she can dare to let go of the life she thought she wanted, she might discover something even more beautiful waiting for her beneath a painted moon.
Description from Goodreads.
“Mallery is an expert at writing about strong women, their friendships, and their romances.” – Booklist
“The Vineyard at Painted Moon is a prime example of the talent of Susan Mallery… a study of human relationships, emotions, expectations, and spirit.” – Fresh Fiction
“…another in a long line of great character driven novels featuring strongly written women. She is one of the top writers of this kind of story and she never, ever disappoints with her books.” – Red Carpet Crash
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook | Hoopla eAudiobook
Ladies of the House by Lauren Edmondson
No surprise is a good surprise. At least according to thirty-four-year-old Daisy Richardson. So when it’s revealed in dramatic fashion that her esteemed father had been involved in a public scandal before his untimely death, Daisy’s life becomes complicated—and fast.
For one, the Richardsons must now sell the family home in Georgetown they can no longer afford, and Daisy’s mother is holding on with an iron grip. Her younger sister, Wallis, is ready to move on to bigger and better things but falls fast and hard for the most inconvenient person possible. And then there’s Atlas, Daisy’s best friend. She’s always wished they could be more, but now he’s writing an exposé on the one subject she’s been desperate to avoid: her father.
Daisy’s plan is to maintain a low profile as she works to keep her family intact amid social exile, public shaming, and quickly dwindling savings. But the spotlight always seems to find the Richardsons, and when another twist in the scandal comes to light, Daisy must confront the consequences of her continued silence and summon the courage to stand up and accept the power of her own voice.
Description from Goodreads.
“[F]resh… an emotionally engaging and hopeful” story.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“[A] charming debut… The novel finds Austen’s themes alive and well in contemporary society… This retelling is a witty success.” – Publishers Weekly
“While The Ladies of the House stays true to the heart of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility it also accurately portrays life in America’s capital and politics that will resonate with many… a powerfully, profound women’s fiction with romantic overtones.” – Austen Prose
Available Formats:
Hoopla eAudiobook
HORROR
Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo
This horrifying retelling of the Pied Piper fairytale set in present-day Chicago is an edge of your seat, chills up the spine, thrill ride.
When Detective Lauren Medina sees the calling card at a murder scene in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, she knows the Pied Piper has returned. When another teenager is brutally murdered at the same lagoon where her sister’s body was found floating years before, she is certain that the Pied Piper is not just back, he’s looking for payment he’s owed from her. Lauren’s torn between protecting the city she has sworn to keep safe, and keeping a promise she made long ago with her sister’s murderer. She may have to ruin her life by exposing her secrets and lies to stop the Pied Piper before he collects.
Description from Goodreads.
“Pelayo has crafted a love story to Chicago, particularly the Latinx community, weaving history, culture, and landmarks into the fabric of the story until the city practically breathes. It is also a love story to fairy tales, and Pelayo intersperses retellings throughout the book, examining the structure, meaning, and value of the original tales. Pelayo’s dark, reimagined fairy tale will have readers leaving their lights on long after they’ve turned the last page.” – Booklist
“Pelayo masterfully ratchets up the tension and the scares. Robert McCammon fans will be pleased.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“With superior worldbuilding, a relentless pace, a complex heroine, and a harrowing story that preys off of current events as much as its well-developed monster, this is a stellar horror novel that fires on all cylinders, from the first page through to its horrible conclusion. For fans of dark fantasy based on fairy tales such as Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series or novels by Helen Oyeyemi, with just the right touch of Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski.” – Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
Hoopla eBook
YOUNG ADULT
As Far As You’ll Take Me by Phil Stamper
Marty arrives in London with nothing but his oboe and some savings from his summer job, but he’s excited to start his new life–where he’s no longer the closeted, shy kid who slips under the radar and is free to explore his sexuality without his parents’ disapproval.
From the outside, Marty’s life looks like a perfect fantasy: in the span of a few weeks, he’s made new friends, he’s getting closer with his first ever boyfriend, and he’s even traveling around Europe. But Marty knows he can’t keep up the facade. He hasn’t spoken to his parents since he arrived, he’s tearing through his meager savings, his homesickness and anxiety are getting worse and worse, and he hasn’t even come close to landing the job of his dreams. Will Marty be able to find a place that feels like home?
Description from Goodreads.
“Stamper does a beautiful job with his characters and their intricate relationships.” – Booklist
“Stamper offers readers a realistic and sympathetic antihero.” – School Library Journal
“The book’s real strength is Marty’s complexity: even when his anxiety flares up, he finds ways to maintain his mental health and cope with the things that threaten his dreams.” – Publishers Weekly
Available Formats:
Print Book
NONFICTION
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert ★
In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world’s rarest fish, which lives in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a super coral that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth.
One way to look at human civilization, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world. Now she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation.
Description from Goodreads.
“[An] eye-opening—and at times terrifying—examination of just how far scientists have already gone in their attempts to re-engineer the planet.” – Gizmodo
“Brilliantly executed and urgently necessary.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Urgent, absolutely necessary reading as a portrait of our devastated planet.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“[Written] with trenchant wit and stinging matter-of-factness… A master elucidator, Kolbert is gratifyingly direct as she assesses our predicament between a rock and a hard place, creating a clarion and invaluable ‘book about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems.'” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
Print Book | Audiobook | eBook | eAudiobook
Unfinished: A Memoir by Priyanka Chopra Jonas
Unfinished is a collection of personal essays, stories, and observations by actor, producer, activist and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Priyanka Chopra.
“The flavor of the book will be honest, funny, spirited, bold, and rebellious, just like me. I have always been a private person; I’ve never spoken about my feelings during my journey but I am ready to do so now. I was raised to be fearless when it came to opinions, and I would like to tell my story in the hopes of inspiring people–especially women–to change the conversation, to shatter glass ceilings. Women are always told we can’t have everything. I want everything, and I believe anyone else can have it too. I’m proof of it.” – Priyanka Chopra
Description from Goodreads.
“A lively memoir from a hardworking entertainer.” – Kirkus Reviews
“…warm, funny, sassy, inspiring, bold, and rebellious.” – Storizen
“Chopra Jonas leaves no stone unturned in this moving examination of her personal life and the strange realities of being famous.” – PopSugar
Available Formats:
Print Book
The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing by Sonia Faleiro
The girls’ names were Padma and Lalli, but they were so inseparable that people in the village called them Padma Lalli. Sixteen-year-old Padma sparked and burned. Fourteen-year-old Lalli was an incorrigible romantic.
They grew up in Katra Sadatganj, an eye-blink of a village in western Uttar Pradesh crammed into less than one square mile of land. It was out in the fields, in the middle of mango season, that the rumors started.
Then one night in the summer of 2014 the girls went missing; and hours later they were found hanging in the orchard. Who they were, and what had happened to them, was already less important than what their disappearance meant to the people left behind.
In the ensuing months, the investigation into their deaths would implode everything that their small community held to be true, and instigate a national conversation about sex and violence. Slipping deftly behind political maneuvering, caste systems and codes of honor in a village in northern India, The Good Girls returns to the scene of Padma and Lalli’s short lives and shameful deaths, and dares to ask: what is the human cost of shame?
Description from Goodreads.
“A modern-day Rashomon that offers multiple views of the widely publicized deaths of two young women in rural India… A gripping story.” – Kirkus Reviews
“A riveting–sometimes astonishing–work of forensic journalism that chronicles the girls’ lives as well as the circumstances of their death.” – Wall Street Journal
“[A] gripping, real-life murder mystery… Taut with dramatic tension, The Good Girls vividly captures the sights, sounds, smells, preoccupations and oppressiveness of the village… [and] effectively captures the circus-like atmosphere that typically follows heinous crimes in India… Faleiro writes sensitively about her subjects’ actions and motivations.” – Financial Times
Available Formats:
Hoopla eBook
Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City by Rosa Brooks
In her forties, with two children, a spouse, a dog, a mortgage, and a full-time job as a tenured law professor at Georgetown University, Rosa Brooks decided to become a cop. A liberal academic and journalist with an enduring interest in law’s troubled relationship with violence, Brooks wanted the kind of insider experience that would help her understand how police officers make sense of their world–and whether that world can be changed. In 2015, against the advice of everyone she knew, she applied to become a sworn, armed reserve police officer with the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department.
Then as now, police violence was constantly in the news. The Black Lives Matter movement was gaining momentum, protests wracked America’s cities, and each day brought more stories of cruel, corrupt cops, police violence, and the racial disparities that mar our criminal justice system. Lines were being drawn, and people were taking sides. But as Brooks made her way through the police academy and began work as a patrol officer in the poorest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods of the nation’s capital, she found a reality far more complex than the headlines suggested.
In Tangled Up in Blue, Brooks recounts her experiences inside the usually closed world of policing. From street shootings and domestic violence calls to the behind-the-scenes police work during Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential inauguration, Brooks presents a revelatory account of what it’s like inside the blue wall of silence. She issues an urgent call for new laws and institutions, and argues that in a nation increasingly divided by race, class, ethnicity, geography, and ideology, a truly transformative approach to policing requires us to move beyond sound bites, slogans, and stereotypes. An explosive and groundbreaking investigation, Tangled Up in Blue complicates matters rather than simplifies them, and gives pause both to those who think police can do no wrong–and those who think they can do no right.
Description from Goodreads.
“Through evocative storytelling coupled with research and analysis… Brooks discusses the complex intersections of race and socioeconomic status in interactions between civilians and police while highlighting the often blunt enforcement of laws. A thoughtful, piercing read, Tangled Up in Blue creates nuanced portrayals of her fellow officers, the members of the community they served, and the people affected by the criminal justice system in the United States.” – Booklist
“A thoughtful book that offers abundant material to rile up—and edify—Blue Lives Matter and Defund the Police advocates alike.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Delivers a nuanced and revealing chronicle of her experiences training to be a reserve police officer in Washington, D.C… [Brooks] vividly sketches her patrol partners and the D.C. residents they encounter, and highlights problems caused by mass incarceration, racial discrimination, and lawmakers turning ‘trivial forms of misbehavior’ into jailable offenses… This immersive, illuminating, and timely account takes a meaningful step toward bridging the gap between what American society asks of police and what they’re trained to deliver.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
Print Book
The Princess Spy: The True Story of World War II Spy Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones by Larry Loftis
When Aline Griffith was born in a quiet suburban New York hamlet, no one had any idea that she would go on to live “a life of glamour and danger that Ingrid Bergman only played at in Notorious” (TIME). As the US enters the Second World War, the young college graduate is desperate to aid in the war effort, but no one is interested in a bright-eyed young woman whose only career experience is modeling clothes.
Aline’s life changes when, at a dinner party, she meets a man named Frank Ryan and reveals how desperately she wants to do her part for her country. Within a few weeks, he helps her join the Office of Strategic Services—forerunner of the CIA. With a code name and expert training under her belt, she is sent to Spain to be a coder, but is soon given the additional assignment of infiltrating the upper echelons of society, mingling with high-ranking officials, diplomats, and titled Europeans, any of whom could be an enemy agent. Against this glamorous backdrop of galas and dinner parties, she recruits sub-agents and engages in deep-cover espionage to counter Nazi tactics in Madrid.
Even after marrying the Count of Romanones, one of the wealthiest men in Spain, Aline secretly continues her covert activities, being given special assignments when abroad that would benefit from her impeccable pedigree and social connections.
Filled with twists, romance, and plenty of white-knuckled adventures fit for a James Bond film, The Princess Spy brings to vivid life the dazzling adventures of a remarkable American woman who risked everything to serve her country.
Description from Goodreads.
“A brisk narrative filled with glamour, glitz, and mysterious characters… Sumptuous… A lively history of a spirited woman.” – Kirkus Reviews
“An entertaining biography [with a] fast-moving narrative… Sketches the battles between German, American, and British spies… with precision. Espionage buffs will be enthralled.” – Publishers Weekly
“Loftis, a historian who’s written two previous nonfiction spy thrillers, delivers a rich, deeply researched account of Griffith’s espionage escapades.” – Washington Post
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook | eAudiobook
The New Normal: A Roadmap to Resilience in the Pandemic Era by Jennifer Ashton, M.D., M.S. with Sarah Toland
In March 2020, “normal” life changed, perhaps forever. In its place we were confronted with life and routines that were unusual and different: the new normal. As we’ve all learned since then, the new normal isn’t just about wearing masks and standing six feet apart—it’s about recognizing how to stay safe and sane in a world that is suddenly unfamiliar. And no one understands this evolving landscape better than Dr. Jennifer Ashton. As ABC’s Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Ashton has been reporting on the novel coronavirus daily, helping Americans comprehend the urgent medical updates that have shaped the nation’s continued response to this public health crisis.
Now in The New Normal, Dr. Ashton offers the essential toolkit for life in this unfamiliar reality. Rooted in her reporting on COVID-19 and the understanding that the virus isn’t going anywhere overnight, The New Normal is built on a simple foundation: thriving in this evolving world demands accepting the new normal for what it is, not what we want it to be. No longer is wellness a buzzword, but an imperative for surviving this unprecedented time. Using her trademark practical, easy-to-follow advice, Dr. Ashton gives you all the necessary information to reclaim control of your life and live safely—from exercise, to diet, to general health—showing how to prepare your body and mind for challenges such as:
– Taking proper medical precautions to protect yourself and your loved ones
– Exercising during the pandemic, even if you no longer feel safe at the gym
– Finding emotional balance through these uncertain times
– Deciphering complicated medical news to learn what to trust and what to ignore
With these straightforward and accessible strategies and many more, Dr. Ashton helps empower you to make the unexpectedly hard decisions about socializing, food-shopping, seeing doctors, and most of all, finding normalcy. At once reassuring and urgent, The New Normal is a holistic roadmap through the ongoing struggles of the pandemic, providing the guidance you need to navigate this unsettling time and take charge of your future wellbeing.
Description from Goodreads.
“A sobering, educative assessment of the changes that the pandemic has wrought on our world.” – Kirkus Reviews
-
-
-
-
-