Don't miss these book happenings - including new materials at our library, featured recommendations, and more! Click on any of these book covers to place your holds.
New Materials
The 22 Murders of Madison May by Max Barry -- Psychological Suspense

Young real estate agent Madison May is shocked when a client at an open house seems to know far too much about her and professes his love - shortly before he murders her. 

Felicity Staples hates reporting on murders. As a journalist for a midsize New York City paper, she knows she must take on the assignment to research Madison May's shocking murder, but the crime seems random, and the suspect is in the wind. That is, until Felicity spots the killer on the subway, right before he vanishes.

Soon, Felicity senses her entire universe has shifted. No one remembers Madison May, or Felicity's encounter with the mysterious man. And her cat is missing. Felicity realizes that in her pursuit of Madison's killer, she followed him into a different dimension - one where everything about her existence is slightly altered. At first, she is determined to return to the reality she knows, but when Madison May - in this world, a struggling actress - is murdered again, Felicity decides she must find the killer - and learns that she is not the only one hunting him. 

For Fans of Dean Koontz and Blake Crouch.
Home Stretch by Graham Norton -- Literary Fiction

It is 1987, and a small Irish community is preparing for a wedding. The day before the ceremony, a group of young friends, including the bride and groom, are involved in an accident. Three survive. Three are killed.
The lives of the families are shattered and the rifts between them ripple throughout the small town. Connor survived, but living among the angry and the mourning is almost as hard as carrying the shame of having been the driver. He leaves the only place he knows for another life, taking his secrets with him. Travelling first to Liverpool, then London, he eventually makes a home - of sorts - for himself in New York, where he finds shelter and the possibility of forging a new life.

But the secrets - the unspoken longings and regrets that have come to haunt those left behind - will not be silenced. Before long, Connor will have to confront his past.

For fans of Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger.
This Is Your Mind On Plants by Michael Pollan -- Science Writing
 
Of all the things humans rely on plants for - sustenance, beauty, medicine, fragrance, flavor, fiber - surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate or calm, fiddle with or completely alter, the qualities of our mental experience.

The author dives deep into three plant drugs - opium, caffeine, and mescaline - and throws the fundamental strangeness, and arbitrariness, of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs while consuming (or, in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them.

In this unique blend of history, science, and memoir, Pollan examines and experiences these plants from several very different angles and contexts, and shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively - as a drug, whether licit or illicit. This groundbreaking and singular consideration of psychoactive plants, and our attraction to them through time, holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds, and our entanglement with the natural world.

For fans of history and science investigations.
Dear Miss Metropolitan by Carolyn Ferrell -- Literary Fiction

Fern seeks refuge from her mother’s pill-popping and boyfriends via Soul Train; Gwin finds salvation in the music of Prince much to her congregation’s dismay and Jesenia, miles ahead of her classmates at her gifted and talented high school, is a brainy and precocious enigma. None of this matters to Boss Man, the monster who abducts them and holds them captive in a dilapidated house in Queens.

On the night they are finally rescued, throngs line the block gawking and claiming ignorance. Among them is lifetime resident Miss Metropolitan, advice columnist for the local weekly, but how could anyone who fancies herself a “newspaperwoman” have missed a horror story unfolding right across the street? And why is it that only two of the three girls—now women—were found? The mystery haunts the two remaining “victim girls” who are subjected to the further trauma of becoming symbols as they continuously adapt to their present and their unrelenting past.

For fans of The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead.
Featured Recommendations
2021 Reading Challenge
Are you participating in our 2021 Reading Challenge? Here are some ideas for July! There are lots of goodies here to get you reading different things. Download the full challenge list here and READ ON!
May We Suggest...
Jan LaRoche, Young Adult Librarian, recommends reading Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley.

She likes this book because it was a good blend of mystery, family story, and a little bit of romance. She loved the introduction to the culture, and especially liked listening to the audiobook to hear the native words.
Jessica Hill, Children's Library Associate, recommends reading True Grit by Charles Portis.

She likes this book because it's a Western for people who don't like Westerns. It's funny, exciting, authentic, and just good fun. She liked this revenge tale wonderfully narrated by the whip-smart and stubborn teenager Mattie Ross.
Lora Wegener, our NEW Adult Services Librarian, recommends reading The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden.

She likes this book because you could tell the author did her research about Russian folklore and language. She loved the dark, magical fairytale with a strong female protagonist.
Click on any of these book covers to place your holds!