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. |
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The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex -- Historical Fiction
It's New Year's Eve, 1972, when a boat pulls up to the Maiden Rock lighthouse with relief for the keepers. But no one greets them. When the entrance door, locked from the inside, is battered down, rescuers find an empty tower. A table is laid for a meal not eaten. The Principal Keeper's weather log describes a storm raging round the tower, but the skies have been clear all week. And the clocks have all stopped at 8:45.
Two decades later, the wives who were left behind are visited by a writer who is determined to find the truth about the men's disappearance. Moving between the women's stories and the men's last weeks together in the lighthouse, long-held secrets surface and truths twist into lies as we piece together what happened, why, and who to believe.
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The Windsor Knot by S. J. Bennett -- Mystery
It is the early spring of 2016 and Queen Elizabeth is at Windsor Castle in advance of her 90th birthday celebrations. But the preparations are interrupted when a guest is found dead in one of the Castle bedrooms. The scene suggests the young Russian pianist strangled himself, but a badly tied knot leads MI5 to suspect foul play was involved. The Queen leaves the investigation to the professionals—until their suspicions point them in the wrong direction.
Unhappy at the mishandling of the case and concerned for her staff’s morale, the monarch decides to discreetly take matters into her own hands. With help from her Assistant Private Secretary, Rozie Oshodi, a British Nigerian and recent officer in the Royal Horse Artillery, the Queen secretly begins making inquiries. As she carries out her royal duties with her usual aplomb, no one in the Royal Household, the government, or the public knows that the resolute Elizabeth will use her keen eye, quick mind, and steady nerve to bring a murderer to justice.
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In the Quick by Kate Hope Day -- Science Fiction
June is a brilliant but difficult girl with a gift for mechanical invention who leaves home to begin astronaut training at the National Space Program. 6 years later, she has gained a coveted post as an engineer on a space station but is haunted by the mystery of Inquiry, a revolutionary spacecraft powered by her beloved late uncle’s fuel cells. The spacecraft went missing when June was 12 years old, and while the rest of the world seems to have forgotten the crew, June alone has evidence that makes her believe they are still alive.
She seeks out James, her uncle’s former protégé who has been trying to discover why Inquiry’s fuel cells failed. James and June forge an intense intellectual bond that becomes an electric attraction. But the relationship that develops between them as they work to solve the fuel cell’s fatal flaw threatens to destroy everything they’ve worked so hard to create—and any chance of bringing the Inquiry crew home alive.
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Red Island House by Andrea Lee -- Literary Fiction
When Shay, a Black American professor who’s always had an adventurous streak, marries Senna, an Italian businessman, she doesn’t imagine that her life’s greatest adventure will carry her far beyond their home in Milan to an idyllic stretch of beach in Madagascar. Before she knows it, Shay has become the somewhat reluctant mistress of a sprawling household, caught between her privileged American upbringing and her connection to the continent of her ancestors.
At first, she’s content to be an observer of the passionate affairs and fierce rivalries around her, but over 20 tumultuous years of marriage, as she and Senna raise children and establish their own rituals at the house, Shay finds herself drawn ever deeper into a place where a blend of magic, sexual intrigue, and transgression forms a modern-day parable of colonial conquest. Soon the collision of cultures comes right to Shay’s door, forcing her to make a life-altering decision that will change her and Senna’s lives forever.
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Are you participating in our 2021 Reading Challenge? Here are some ideas for April! There are lots of goodies here to get you reading different things. Download the full challenge list here and READ ON!
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Kim Schimmel, Cataloging and Acquisitions Associate, recommends reading You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey by Amber Ruffin & Lacey Lamar.
She likes the book because it's very funny while also explaining the racism that Amber and Lacey have endured their entire lives.
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Anita Mehuys, Adult Services Librarian, recommends reading How to Catch a Queen by Alyssa Cole.
She likes this book because it's a sweet love story about an already married couple and how their love blossomed from an arranged marriage.
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Jennifer Christiansen, Circulation Services Coordinator, recommends reading Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson.
She likes this book because Wilkerson writes in an engaging style while tackling the difficult subject of our nation's history of racism.
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Click on any of these book covers to place your holds! |
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