Staff Picks

Area X is in a remote and mysterious wilderness and is considered an abandoned, disastrous area. In Annihilation, the12th expedition is an adventurous and a thrilling suspension faced by four brave and smart women. In their experience at Area X, these women are faced with harrowing and unbelievable destinies, and the narration of the story is coming from the perspective of a biologist.

 

Publisher description:
Four women -- a biologist, a psychologist, a surveyor, and an anthropologist -- set out on a scientific expedition to Area X, a quarantined zone that defies all attempts to map its terrain or understand its nature. Eleven previous missions have failed; is the twelfth time the charm, or will these intrepid explorers join their predecessors as casualties of Area X?

 

Danny Rajaratnam has information about a murder that took place in Sydney, but he is afraid to share it with authorities for fear of deportation. Author Arvind Adiga's story of how Danny ended up in this complicated situation has a great humor. I highly recommend the audiobook because certain phrases and words can be heard in their native tongue.

 

Publisher description:

A young illegal immigrant who must decide whether to report crucial information about a murder—and thereby risk deportation. Danny—formerly Dhananjaya Rajaratnam—is an illegal immigrant in Sydney, Australia, denied refugee status after he fled from Sri Lanka. Working as a cleaner, living out of a grocery storeroom, for three years he’s been trying to create a new identity for himself. And now, with his beloved vegan girlfriend, Sonja, with his hidden accent and highlights in his hair, he is as close as he has ever come to living a normal life. But then one morning, Danny learns a female client of his has been murdered. The deed was done with a knife, at a creek he’d been to with her before; and a jacket was left at the scene, which he believes belongs to another of his clients—a doctor with whom Danny knows the woman was having an affair. Suddenly Danny is confronted with a choice: Come forward with his knowledge about the crime and risk being deported? Or say nothing, and let justice go undone? Over the course of this day, evaluating the weight of his past, his dreams for the future, and the unpredictable, often absurd reality of living invisibly and undocumented, he must wrestle with his conscience and decide if a person without rights still has responsibilities.

 

A remarkable story about rediscovering love and relationships and giving life a second chance. Hannah Russell's journey has a few challenging surprises that she needs to learn how to face. Adoption of her beloved friend's child is her focus while finding the love she missed.

 

Publisher description:
Hannah Russell's carefully crafted plans for her life have been upended without warning. When her best friend died suddenly, Hannah became guardian to a five-year-old named Noah. With no experience at motherhood, she's terrified she's not up to the challenge. She and Noah need time to get to know each other, so she decides to rent a country house with stunning views on a lake in rural Colorado. When they arrive at the house, they are greeted by the owner, a handsome man who promises to stay out of their way. But his clumsy Great Dane, Romeo, has other ideas and Noah immediately bonds with the lovable dog. As Hannah learns to become a mother, Owen Abrams, who is recovering from his own grief, can't help but be drawn out of his solitude by his guests. But life throws more challenges at this unlikely trio and they are tested in ways they never thought possible. All three will discover their strengths and, despite their differences, they will fight to become a family. And the people of Sullivan's Crossing will rally around them to offer all of the support they need.

 

In search of their family, four orphans start their epic journey by escaping from the cruel hands of their school headmaster and mistress from Lincoln Indian Training School in Minnesota. This unforgettable and touching story takes place during the Great Depression, and this is a must-read.

 

Publisher description:

In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota's Gilead River, the Lincoln Indian Training School is a pitiless place where Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to Odie O'Banion, a lively orphan boy whose exploits contantly earn him the superintendent's wrath. Odie and his brother, Albert, are the only white faces among hundreds of Native American children at the school. After committing a terrible crime, Odie and Albert are forced to flee from their lives along with their best friend, Mose, a mute young man of Sioux heritage. Out of pity, they also take with them a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy. Together, they steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi in search of a place to call home. Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphan vagabonds journey into the unknown, crossing paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and travelling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds.

 

Fiona Barton wonderfully created this psychological thriller where the reader's curiosity is aroused in each chapter. An investigation of a dead child whose bones were found in a construction site in Woolwich, England, the author guides protagonist Kate Waters very cleverly to solve this mystery.

 

Publisher's description: 

As an old house is demolished in a gentrifying section of London, a workman discovers a tiny skeleton, buried for years. For journalist Kate Waters, it's a story that deserves attention. She cobbles together a piece for her newspaper, but at a loss for answers, she can only pose a question: Who is the Building Site Baby? As Kate investigates, she unearths connections to a crime that rocked the city decades earlier: a newborn baby was stolen from the maternity ward in a local hospital and was never found. Her heartbroken parents were left devastated by the loss ... Kate is drawn, house by house, into the pasts of the people who once lived in this neighborhood that has given up its greatest mystery. And she soon finds herself the keeper of unexpected secrets that erupt in the lives of three women, and torn between what she can and cannot tell.

 

From a cramped city life in Delhi, India, Mr. and Mrs. Jha's family move to an upscale neighborhood, where they have to make few updates to their lifestyle to match with their new posh neighbors. The plot has a touch of cultural snobbery, humor, and a romance that challenges the conventional thought.

 

Publisher's description: 

For the past thirty years, Mr. and Mrs. Jha's lives have been defined by cramped spaces, cut corners, gossipy neighbors, and the small dramas of stolen yoga pants and stale marriages. They thought they'd settled comfortably into their golden years, pleased with their son's acceptance into an American business school. But then Mr. Jha comes into an enormous and unexpected sum of money, and moves his wife from their housing complex in East Delhi to the super-rich side of town, where he becomes eager to fit in as a man of status.

 

In this mystery-thriller, the author keeps the reader in suspense without a clue to guess who the killer is until the end. Vivian's braveness and courage eventually lead her to solve the mystery, and she and her best friend are rewarded with what they both needed badly.

 

Publisher's description:

First in a captivating Jazz age mystery series from author Katharine Schellman, Last Call at the Nightingale beckons readers into a darkly glamorous speakeasy where music, liquor, and secrets flow. New York, 1924. Vivian Kelly's days are filled with drudgery, from the tenement lodging she shares with her sister to the dress shop where she sews for hours every day. But at night, she escapes to The Nightingale, an underground dance hall where illegal liquor flows and the band plays the Charleston with reckless excitement. With a bartender willing to slip her a free glass of champagne and friends who know the owner, Vivian can lose herself in the music. No one asks where she came from or how much money she has. No one bats an eye if she flirts with men or women as long as she can keep up on the dance floor. At The Nightingale, Vivian forgets the dangers of Prohibition-era New York and finds a place that feels like home. But then she discovers a body behind the club, and those dangers come knocking. Caught in a police raid at the Nightingale, Vivian discovers that the dead man wasn't the nameless bootlegger he first appeared. With too many people assuming she knows more about the crime than she does, Vivian finds herself caught between the dangers of the New York's underground and the world of the city's wealthy and careless, where money can hide any sin and the lives of the poor are considered disposable...including Vivian's own.

 

Find Last Call at the Nightingale in our online catalog.

Violeta del Valle's epic journey through her life is a detailed narration of happy, sad, strange, horrific, and dangerous series of events that she shares with her grandson, Camillo. In this account of mostly tragic events taking place during two pandemics, the author Isabelle Allende presents contemporary issues of global crisis such as depression, illness, racial inequality, political corruption, and the evil and selfish ideology of the aftermath of the Spanish Flu outbreak of the early 20th century. The author's constant and vivid descriptions of wealth, love and hate, intimacy and revelations of pain, abuse, the power of money and distrust of relationships of the main character ,make Violeta an entertaining masterpiece of Isabel Allende. This "storytelling style" of narrative dramatically brings you to the economic and social crisis of the early part of the 20th century as well.

 

Publisher's description:

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling. She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics.

Molly Gray, the maid of the title, who learned many of her life's lessons growing up with her grandmother, presents herself as a model maid with a unique character of her own. She is a very caring, confiding, and committed employee at the Regency Grand Hotel. But after she uncovers the mysterious death of Mr. Black, Molly's life is the center of attention when she becomes a prime suspect. The Maid touches the reader's heart with warmth and subtleness.

 

Publisher's description: 

A charmingly eccentric hotel maid discovers a guest murdered in his bed, turning her once orderly world upside down—and inspiring a motley crew of unexpected allies to band together to solve the mystery. Molly Dunn is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and interprets people literally. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by. Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has had to navigate life's complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection. But Molly's orderly life is turned on its head the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself very dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's odd demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect and she finds herself in a web of subtext and nuance she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, a medley of friends she didn't realize she had refuses to let her be charged with murder--but will they be able to discover the real killer before it's too late?

 

Find The Maid in our online catalog.