Staff Picks

The critics say it's an enemies-to-lovers story--I'd more likely call it a grumpy/sunshine. Whichever way you look at it, Into the Woods is smart (I had to use a dictionary sometimes), funny (yes, I LOLed), and sweet (sigh) all in a lovely settings of the Northwoods of Minnesota. There's adventure, dancing, singing around the campfire, and did I mention dancing? This spicy romance will make you want to go into the woods yourself.

 

Publisher’s description
Teddy Knight's band has just broken up in spectacular fashion after his longtime bandmate and--he'd thought--closest friend decides to go solo. So when he's offered a last-minute gig to fill in as an artist-in-residence at a summer arts camp--which comes with a lake cabin and lots of free time to work on a revenge album--he takes it. No matter that he knows nothing about nature, dislikes kids, and is generally a grump. Gretchen Miller is having a mid-life crisis. Luckily, her summer job as the dance teacher at Wild Arts summer camp will allow her to drop out of society for a while. Having sworn off dating, she decides she'll go into the woods and become a crone. She might skip the "luring innocent children to their death" part of cronedom, but she's all for the "curse men" aspect. Teddy and Gretchen clash from the get-go when he mistakes her for a fan, and she relegates him to the "entitled jerk" ash heap. Despite their determination to dislike each other, a wary friendship blooms as the magic of the woods starts to unwind them, and they spend long hours by the campfire talking about art, being stuck, and the idea of starting over. But woods are often filled with monsters, and Teddy and Gretchen will have to face their fears if they want to start over together

Find Into the Woods in our online catalog

This pitch-black satire originally written in German imagines the consequences of Adolf Hitler inexplicably arriving alive and well in the twenty-first century--and finding it not so different from the century he just left. With its nuanced take on our global media ecosystem, by turns hilarious and bleak, this is a book that will stick with readers long after closing the cover.

 

Publisher's description: 
He's back. Berlin, Summer 2011. Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of ground, alive and well. Things have changed - no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognizes his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman. And he's notorious. People certainly recognize him, albeit as a flawless impersonator who refuses to break character. The unthinkable, the inevitable happens, and the ranting Hitler goes viral, becomes a Youtube star, gets his own T.V. show, and people begin to listen. But the Fuhrer has another programme with even greater ambition - to set the country he finds a shambles back to rights.

 

B. K. Borison crafts a Nora Ephronian tale (coining that term!) that is a delight to read and difficult to put down. This adorable and steamy romance is perfect for fans of Emily Henry, Kate Goldbeck, and Ashley Poston.

 

Publisher's description:
Aiden Valentine has a secret: he's fallen out of love with love. And as the host of Baltimore's romance hotline, that's a bit of a problem. But when a young girl calls into the station asking for dating advice for her mom, the interview goes viral, thrusting Aiden and Heartstrings into the limelight.

 

Oh, Margo... I don't even know where to start. This book was thought-provoking, heartwarming, and so real. Margo's struggles and triumphs felt like I was right there with her--cheering, cringing, and tearing up. I couldn't put it down. You'll want to read this before the TV show drops in 2025!
 

Publisher's description: 
As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger. Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

Find Margo's Got Money Troubles in our catalog

 

Publisher's description:

Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts college in the Midwest ... His once-promising writing career is in the doldrums, as is his romantic life, in part as the result of his unwise use of his private affairs for his novels ... In short, his life is a tale of woe, and the vehicle this ... novel uses to tell that tale is a series of ... letters of recommendation that Fitger is endlessly called upon by his students and colleagues to produce, each one of which is a small masterpiece of high dudgeon, low spirits, and passive-aggressive strategies.

 

The Rest of Us Just Live Here is an amazing book that is centered around four people who aren't exactly the main protagonists of any other story. They aren't the chosen ones, they just happen to live in the same world that all the weird things happen in. I have never read a book like this before but Patrick Ness pulled it off well. The chapters are engaging and even tell you what is happening with the Indie kids (they are typically the ones to do all of the heroics and world saving). However the book just focuses on smaller problems in the life of Mikey and his friends.

- Kyra, ninth-grade volunteer

 

Publisher's Description:

What if you aren't the Chosen One? The one who's supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death? What if you're like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again. Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week's end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life. Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions.

 

I absolutely ADORED this!!!! It was so sweet and cute and lovely. I loved the concept, a grandmother and granddaughter switching lives, and it was executed so well. This author, who also wrote another favorite of mine, The Flatshare, has a specific British whimsy that I just LOVE. I loved the romance and the side characters and the plot turns. I only wanted MORE. I definitely cried at the ending, because it was so touching and because it was over! That's a sign of a good book.

 

Publisher's description: After Leena and Eileen, her seventy-nine year old grandmother, decide to switch homes for two months, they each discover that love can be found in the most unlikely places.

 

Sweet, funny, and quite spicy, this rom com from Meghan Quinn will warm your heart.

 

Publisher's description: From USA Today bestselling author and the author of the bestselling romantic comedy A Not So Meet Cute, comes a brand new hockey romance about a wayward traveler falling in love with her ex-boyfriend's half-brother. Steamy and unapologetically witty.

 

Comyns' writing is utterly unique and so good, and fortunately, much of her work has recently been rediscovered and republished. Our Spoons Came from Woolworths is quirky, sharp-witted, and darkly funny, all with a fairytale ending. I want to read everything she has written.

 

Publisher's description: I told Helen my story and she went home and cried" begins Our Spoons Came from Woolworths. But Barbara Comyns's beguiling novel is far from maudlin, despite the ostensibly harrowing ordeals its heroine endures. Sophia is twenty-one when she marries fellow artist Charles, and she seems to have nearly as much affection for her pet newt as she does for her husband. Her housekeeping knowledge is lacking (everything she cooks tastes of soap) and she attributes her morning sickness to a bad batch of strawberries. England is in the middle of the Great Depression, and in any case, the money Sophia earns at her occasional modeling gigs are not enough to make up for her husband's lack of interest in keeping the heat on. Predictably, the marriage begins to falter; not so predictably, Sophia's optimistic guilelessness is the very thing responsible for turning her life around