Did you know that the library has a recreational reading collection? There's both recent non-fiction and fiction--a little something for everyone. Browse them all when you stop by and pick up your next “fun” read!
Nonfiction
Call Number: BF698.35.S83 J67 2025
ISBN: 9781668082461
Are you... - Constantly worried about what people think of you, if they like you, if they're mad at you? - The eldest daughter and/or the angry daughter? - Anxious, a perfectionist, or an overachiever? - Always overextending yourself (and then resentful)? - Someone who avoids conflict at all costs? - Fearful of getting into trouble or being seen as "bad"? - Silencing your needs for the comfort and happiness of everyone else? - Prone to overexplain or over apologize? Psychotherapist Meg Josephson is here to show you that people-pleasing is not a personality trait. It's a common survival mechanism known as "fawning": an instinct often learned in childhood to become more appealing to a perceived threat in order to feel safe. Yet many people are stuck in this way of being for their whole lives. Are You Mad at Me? weaves Josephson's own moving story with that of fascinating client stories and thought-provoking exercises to show you how to move closer to yourself and find a life that no longer depletes you, but brings you joy.
Call Number: E169.12 .S47 2025
ISBN: 9781668097885
In a world split between noble Lions and destructive Scavengers, only the brave can lead the way. Lions, like America's founding fathers, strive for the highest good, building systems that promote freedom, prosperity, and equality of opportunity. Meanwhile, Scavengers degrade these ideals, spreading resentment and entitlement that threaten to dismantle the foundations of Western civilization. With the stakes higher than ever, this book is a gripping exploration of the ongoing war between those who cherish our nation and those who seek to undermine it. The triumph of the Lions is essential for America's continued success. It's a rallying cry for those who refuse to bow to the Scavengers' demands.
Call Number: QB54 .B37 2025
ISBN: 9781324090663
"There is Life on the Planet Mars" --New York Times, December 9, 1906. This New York Times headline was no joke. In the early 1900s, many Americans actually believed we had discovered intelligent life on Mars. At the center of the story is Percival Lowell, the Boston Brahmin and Harvard scion, who observed "canals" etched into the surface of Mars. Lowell devised a grand theory that the red planet was home to a utopian society that had built gargantuan ditches to funnel precious meltwater from the polar icecaps to desert farms and oasis cities. The public fell in love with the ambitious amateur astronomer who shared his findings in speeches and wildly popular books. While at first people treated the Martians whimsically--Martians headlining Broadway shows, biologists speculating whether they were winged or gilled--the discussion quickly became serious. Inventor Nikola Tesla announced he had received radio signals from Mars; Alexander Graham Bell agreed there was "no escape from the conviction" that intelligent beings inhabited the planet. Martian excitement reached its zenith when Lowell financed an expedition to photograph Mars from Chile's Atacama Desert, resulting in what newspapers hailed as proof of the Martian canals' existence. Triumph quickly yielded to tragedy. Those wild claims and highly speculative photographs emboldened Lowell's critics, whose withering attacks gathered steam and eventually wrecked the man and his theory--but not the fervor he had started. Although Lowell would die discredited and delusional in 1916, the Mars frenzy spurred a nascent literary genre called science fiction, and the world's sense of its place in the universe would never be the same.
Fiction
The Winds from Further West by
Call Number: PR6063.C326 W55 2025
ISBN: 9780385551410
Dr. Neil Anderson has just started a new position at the University of Edinburgh when he meets Chrissie, an intelligent and ambitious colleague at the institute. Before long, the two move into a gorgeous flat on the south side of the city. Things seem to be going well for Neil, until an accusation of insensitive comments lands him in hot water with the university and he discovers a troubling secret about his relationship. Suddenly feeling as though his life is unraveling, he leaves everything behind for the remote and secluded beauty of the Isle of Mull off the west coast of Scotland. Not long after his arrival, a ship comes in to the harbor whose cargo--two wolf cubs--will drastically change the course of his life yet again. These cubs spark controversy on the island, leading Neil to Katie, the island's resident veterinarian, and bring with them the possibility of new beginnings and a budding romance.
Call Number: PR6106.A93 B74 2025
ISBN: 9781668024812
Alice, a professional mother of one, is hosting a playdate with friends at her upscale London home when a disturbed man breaks in. With her child in the next room, Alice panics and kills him--an act later ruled to have been in self-defense. Everyone tries to encourage Alice to move on with her life--but with strange comments appearing online, a mysterious phone call telling her all is not as it seems, and her husband, nanny, and friends behaving strangely, Alice finds herself drawn to the mystery of who her intruder really was. As she digs deeper, she discovers a trail of dark secrets that spiral closer to home than she ever could have imagined.
Call Number: PR6113.O75535 I83 2025
ISBN: 9780593540336
A hilarious and thought-provoking murder mystery about the death of a friendship, and one woman's quest to track down the best friend who disappeared. Isabella's NOT dead. That's what Gwen tells anyone who asks about the friend who ghosted them all fifteen years ago. But if Isabella's not dead, then where is she? And why did she leave, just when Gwen needed her most? Freshly fifty-three, out of a job, and with children who are starting to fly the nest, Gwen decides to turn detective. Setting out to solve the mystery, Gwen embarks on an adventure across England--then across Europe--that will test her marriage and put her on a collision course with reluctant acquaintances, a mother-in-law best described as eccentric, and a rabbit hole full of clues. But Isabella's not the only one who's lost. A tale of deep, frayed friendship, fractured memories, and skewed perspectives, Isabella's Not Dead is the story of one woman's quest to reclaim her best friend--and herself.
Call Number: PR6115.Y49 N49 2025
ISBN: 9780593718773
What if the different sides of your personality had trust issues with each other? Kinga is a woman who is just trying to make it through the week. There's a Kinga for every day: On Mondays, you can catch Kinga-A deleting food delivery apps. By Friday, Kinga-E is happy to spend the days soaking, wine-drunk, in the bath. Kingas A-G, perhaps unsurprisingly, live a varied life. There is a professional matchmaker, a scent-crazed perfumer, and a window cleaner, all with varying degrees of apathy, anger, introversion, and bossiness. At least three of them are Team Toxic. It's an arrangement that's not without its fair share of admin, grudges, and half-truths. But when Kinga-A discovers a man tied up in their apartment, the Kingas have to reckon with the possibility that one of them might be planning to destroy them all. How many versions of oneself can one self safely contain?
Call Number: PR6125.A8593 R33 2025
ISBN: 9781335550972
When Ali McCain, an eighteen-year-old from Los Angeles, is accepted at Oxford, it's a chance to fulfill his dreams. To study English literature in England; to meet true intellectuals; and to glimpse the life he might have lived had his father--British rock star Gel McCain, legendary frontman of the Pale Fires--not abandoned him and his mother when he was a toddler. But not long after he arrives at the storied campus, Ali is drawn into a dark, disorienting world where events grow more and more curious by the day. Trading on his father's name, he gains entry into one of Oxford's oldest and most selective secret societies, the Saracens. As he immerses himself in this rarefied world, he inadvertently sets in motion a series of events that might culminate in disaster.
Call Number: PS3563.I27 S68 2025
ISBN: 9781496741318
Growing up, Madison Taylor and her younger brother Lincoln lived in privilege, but their sheltered existence abruptly ended when their father was arrested for fraud and the family assets were seized. Since then, Madison has carved out a new path, studying fashion and working her way up to editor in chief of La Femme magazine, while Lincoln teaches wealth management at a small college outside the city. Both have separated themselves from their family and their past--until an unexpected bequest arrives from their late uncle. Madison and Lincoln are now the new co-owners of a marina at Smugglers Cove on the Navesink river. Instead of a fabulous, Hamptons-style property, Smugglers Cove offers little beyond a dilapidated dock, a few gas pumps, and a handful of clam boats. Madison's plan to sell the property goes awry when a dead body is found floating under their dock and transforms their new inheritance into a crime scene. Suddenly, Madison is swapping her city-girl wardrobe for cargo pants and flannel shirts, while she and Lincoln receive a crash course in small-town Jersey shore life, complete with quirky characters, pirate legends, and a mysterious treasure map. They're discovering more about themselves and each other every day, but with a mystery to solve, and big decisions to make, these are lessons they'll need to learn fast…
Call Number: PS3569.M5377 H68 2025
ISBN: 9781982188382
In the latest installment of Martin Cruz Smith's celebrated Arkady Renko series, the legendary Moscow investigator seeks to solve the murder of a diplomat as Russia's invasion of Ukraine wears on and the effects of Renko's Parkinson's Disease worsen. Helped by his lover, journalist Tatiana Petrovna, Renko traces the murder to a Russian paramilitary group aided by a government official who also used to be a romantic partner of Renko. Before long, those responsible for the killing look to similarly dispatch Arkady and Tatiana--all of it leading to a thrilling and action-packed climax.
Call Number: PS3573.I38616 W39 2025
ISBN: 9780063118270
In 1968 we meet six teens confined at the Good Shepherd--a dark and secretive institution controlled by Sisters of Charity nuns--locked away merely for being gay, pregnant, or simply unruly. Mairin-- free-spirited daughter of Irish immigrants, committed to keep her safe from her stepfather. Angela--denounced for her attraction to girls, sent to the nuns for reform, but instead found herself the victim of a predator. Helen--the daughter of intellectuals detained in Communist China, she saw her "temporary" stay at the Good Shepherd stretch into years. Odessa--caught up in a police dragnet over a racial incident, she found the physical and mental toughness to endure her sentence. Denise--sentenced for brawling in a foster home, she dared to dream of a better life. Janice--deeply insecure, she couldn't decide where her loyalty lay--except when it came to her friend Kay, who would never outgrow her childlike dependency. Sister Bernadette--rescued from a dreadful childhood, she owed her loyalty to the Sisters of Charity even as her conscience weighed on her. Wayward Girls is a haunting but thrilling tale of hope, solidarity, and the enduring strength of young women who find the courage to break free and find redemption...and justice.
Call Number: PS3601.H556 U57 2025
ISBN: 9781668057667
Isla Hansen, a mother reeling from a devastating loss, is beside herself when a mysteriously orphaned child appears on the outskirts of the Hansens' secluded Colorado property. Although strange and unexplainable, the child's presence breathes new life into Isla. But as the child settles in, Isla's husband, Luke, and their five children notice peculiarities that hint at something far beyond the ordinary--anomalies that challenge the very fabric of reality itself. The tension within the Hansen household grows, and with it, the sense that there is something very wrong with the new kid in the house.
Call Number: PS3602.L3252413 A94 2025
ISBN: 9781538767528
Every Thursday night, former country music heartthrob Luke Randall has to sing "Another Love Song." God, he hates that song. But performing his lone hit at an interstate motel lounge is the only regular money he still has. Then, Luke receives the opportunity of his dreams, opening for his childhood idol--90's era Black country music star, JoJo Lane, who's being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. But the concert is in Arcadia, Arkansas, the small hometown he swore he'd never see again. Going back means facing a painful past of abuse and neglect. It also means facing JoJo's daughter, August Lane--the woman who wrote the lyrics he's always claimed as his own. August also hates that song, but she hates Luke Randall even more. When he shows up ten years too late to apologize for his betrayal, she isn't interested in making amends. Instead, she threatens to expose his lies unless he co-writes a new song with her and performs it at the concert. Desperate to keep his secret, Luke agrees to put on the rogue performance. When Luke's guitar reunites with August's soulful alto, neither can deny that the passionate bond they formed as teenagers is still there.
The Possession of Alba Díaz by
Call Number: PS3603.A533 P67 2025
ISBN: 9780593641071
In 1765, plague sweeps through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancé, Carlos, to his family's isolated mine for refuge. But safety proves fleeting as other dangers soon bare their teeth: Alba begins suffering from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking, and violent convulsions. She senses something cold lurking beneath her skin. Something angry. Something wrong. Elías, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune and escape his family's legacy of greed. Alba, as his cousin's betrothed, is none of his business. Which is of course why he can't help but notice the growing tension between them every time she enters the room...and why he notices her deteriorate when the demon's thirst for blood gets stronger. In the fight for her life, Alba and Elías become entangled with the occult, the Church, long-kept secrets, and each other…not knowing that one of these things will spell their doom.
Call Number: PS3603.H686 A6 2025
ISBN: 9780593298381
A mail order bride from Taiwan is packed up in a cardboard box and sent via express shipping to California, where her much older husband awaits her. Two teenage girls meticulously plan how to kill and cook their downstairs neighbor. An American au pair moves to Paris to find herself, only to find her actual French doppelgänger. A father reunites with his estranged daughter in unusual circumstances: as a background actor on the set of her film. A writer's affair with a married artist tests the line between fact and fiction, self-victimization and the victimization of others. Six singular stories and a novella that pivot from the terrible to the beautiful to the surreal.
Call Number: PS3606.R3855 V56 2025
ISBN: 9781668067796
Violet Adams is the perfect, youngest child in a family of loud, passionate women on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina. As the sweet, traditional one, she's always been the steady hand in her family but after a sudden breakup and subsequent tragedy, she doesn't know who she is anymore. Aly Knox, Violet's best friend, is a young influencer still struggling with the loss of her mother and adjusting to joining Violet in Southern living. With her best friend's help, Violet is determined to break out of her shell--and who she thought she was--no matter what. And what better place to look for success, meaning, and possibly love than the Lowcountry of South Carolina?
Call Number: PS3611.A543 F66 2025
ISBN: 9780593298855
Winter 1952. Penelope Fitzgerald's husband is a struggling alcoholic, their literary journal is on the brink, and she is pregnant with their third child. When she receives a letter from two elderly sisters named Delaney, distant relations with a silver mine, who dangle the possibility of an inheritance, she recognizes it as a creative and practical lifeline. She leaves her two-year-old, Tina, with relatives and sails for New York with her six-year-old, Valpy, in tow. From there, mother and son take a bus all the way to…Fonseca. But when they arrive, nothing goes to plan. There are others vying for the Delaney money, and for three months, from Day of the Dead to Candlemas, Penelope must navigate a quixotic household and guide her impressionable son. More and more people frequent the house: an ambitious American couple, various local entrepreneurs and artists (including Edward Hopper and his wife, Jo), and finally a handsome stranger who claims he is a Delaney.
Call Number: PS3611.U17 K38 2025
ISBN: 9780063446243
Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek: The story of a hero's descent to the underworld. Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world. That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault. Grimes is now in Hell, and she's going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the very same conclusion. With nothing but the tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them, enough chalk to draw the Pentagrams necessary for their spells, and the burning desire to make all the academic trauma mean anything, they set off across Hell to save a man they don't even like. But Hell is not like the storybooks say, Magick isn't always the answer, and there's something in Alice and Peter's past that could forge them into the perfect allies, or lead to their doom.
Call Number: PS3615.N93 H37 2025
ISBN: 9781250782977
Fortune always left whatever room I walked into, which is why I don't leave my place much these days... Veteran and private eye Boubacar doesn't need much--least of all trouble--but trouble always seems to find him. Work has dried up, and he'd rather be left alone to deal with his bills as the Harmattan rolls in to coat the city in dust. But Bouba is a down on his luck deux-fois, suspended between two cultures and two worlds. When a bleeding woman stumbles onto his doorway, only to vanish just as quickly, Bouba reluctantly finds himself enmeshed in the secrets of a city boiling on the brink of violence. The French occupiers are keen to keep the peace at any cost, and the indigenous dugulen have long been shattered into restless factions vying for a chance to reclaim their lost heritage and abilities. As each hard-won clue reveals horrifying new truths, Bouba may have to carve out parts of himself he's long kept hidden, and decide what he's willing to offer next.
Call Number: PS3618.A4565 T68 2025
ISBN: 9781668065853
Steph Harper is on the run. When she was five, her mother fled an abusive husband--with Steph and her younger sister in tow--to Cherokee Nation, where she hoped they might finally belong. In response, Steph sets her sights as far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon. Spanning three decades and several continents, To the Moon and Back encompasses Steph's turbulent journey, along with the multifaceted and intertwined lives of the three women closest to her: her sister Kayla, an artist who goes on to become an Indigenous social media influencer, and whose determination to appear good takes her life to unexpected places; Steph's college girlfriend Della Owens, who strives to reclaim her identity as an adult after being removed from her Cherokee family through a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act; and Hannah, Steph and Kayla's mother, who has held up her family's tribal history as a beacon of inspiration to her children, all the while keeping her own past a secret. In Steph's certainty that only her ambition can save her, she will stretch her bonds with each of these women to the point of breaking, at once betraying their love and generosity, and forcing them to reconsider their own deepest desires in her shadow.
Call Number: PS3618.I5655 W45 2025
ISBN: 9781368101455
Eld should've known better. Hell, he did know better. But watching lesser men hit big paydays--men who didn't fight in Europe--grew unbearable. So, when the opportunity arises, he reaches for a little something extra for his family, and even more for himself. With Prohibition expiring in a matter of months, his turn from fisherman to rumrunner was supposed to be temporary. It seemed the perfect plan. Even Maggie, Eld's normally sensible wife, is on board. Things don t go to plan. They tempt fate and throw the dice. One bitterly cold night packing whiskey across Lake Huron costs Eld dearly, and his family even more. Hunted by gangsters and squeezed by the Depression, Eld, Maggie, and the children are scattered: Eld to Canada on a doomed quest, Maggie and her daughter forced into finding sanctuary in a faith more cult than religion. When they finally reunite, they may not even recognize each other as the people they once were.
Call Number: PS3618.O35745 R63 2025
ISBN: 9780778387237
Within the shores of Isla Bestia, guests from around the world discover a utopia of ever-changing performances, sumptuous feasts and beautiful monsters. Many enter, but few ever leave--the wine is simply too sweet, the music too fine and the revelry endless. Sofía, a freedwoman from a nearby colonized island, cares little for this revelry. Born an enslaved mestiza on a tobacco plantation, she has neither wealth nor title, only a scholarly pragmatism and a hunger for answers. She travels to el Carnaval de Bestias in search of her twin brother, who disappeared five years ago. There's a world of wonder waiting for her on the shores of this legendary island, one wherein conquerors profit from Sofia's ancestral lands and her people's labor. But surrounded by her former enslavers, she finds something familiar in the performances--whispers of the island's native tongue, music and stories from her Taike'ri ancestors...a culture long hidden in the shadows, thrust into the light. As the nights pass, her mind begins unraveling, drowning in the unnatural, almost sentient thrall of Carnaval. And the sense that someone is watching her grows. To find her brother and break free, Sofia must peel back the glamorous curtain and face those behind Carnaval, before she too loses herself to the island…
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by
Call Number: PS3619.C4848 B87 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
A young girl grows up wild and wily--her beauty is only outmatched by her dreams of escape. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice. She vows to have no regrets. This is a story about love. 1827. London. A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family's estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte's tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow--but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined. This is a story about rage. 2019. Boston. College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That's why Alice moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life behind. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, her present, and her future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers…and revenge. This is a story about life--how it ends, and how it starts.
Call Number: PS3619.O865 R67 2025
ISBN: 9781538775813
The war is over, the dark forces have won, and the hero who was supposed to save them is dead. Captured as her castle is overrun by the enemy, the world as Briony Rosewood knows it is changed forever. Evil has won, and her people face imminent servitude, imprisonment, or death. Stripped of her Magic and her freedom, Briony and the other survivors are quickly sold off to the highest bidders in an auction--and as Evermore's princess, she fetches the highest price. After a fierce bidding war, she's sold to none other than Toven Hearst, scion of a family known for their cruelty. Yet despite the horrors of her new world and the role she must learn to play within it, all is not lost. Help--and hope--may yet arise in the most unlikely of places...
Call Number: PS3620.S25 M46 2025
ISBN: 9781645662082
Kiana Strade can dive deeper into blood memories than anyone alive. But instead of devoting her talents to the temple she's meant to lead, Key wants to do research for the Museum of Human Memory…and to avoid the public eye. Valerian IV's twin swords protect Key from murderous rivals and her own enthusiasm alike. Vale cares about Key as a friend--and maybe more--but most of all, she needs to keep her job so she can support her parents and siblings in the storm-torn south. But when Key collects a memory that diverges from official history, only Vale sees the fallout. Key's mentor suspiciously dismisses the finding; her powerful mother demands she stop research altogether. And Key, unusually affected by the memory, begins to lose moments, then minutes, then days. As Vale becomes increasingly entangled in Key's obsessive drive for answers, the women uncover a shattering discovery--and a devastating betrayal. Key and Vale can remain complicit, or they can jeopardize everything for the truth. Either way, Key is becoming consumed by the past in more ways than one, and time is running out.
Call Number: PS3623.A45568 L66 2025
ISBN: 9780316581332
Ruth, an only child of recent immigrants to New England, lives in an emotionally cold home and attends the local Catholic girl's school on a scholarship. Maria, a beautiful orphan whose Panamanian mother dies by suicide and is taken care of by an ill, unloving aunt, is one of the only other students attending the school on a scholarship. Ruth is drawn forcefully into Maria's orbit, and they fall into an easy, yet intense, friendship. Her devotion to her charming and bright new friend opens up her previously sheltered world. While Maria, charismatic and aware of her ability to influence others, eases into her full self, embracing her sexuality and her desire to be an artist, Ruth is mostly content to follow her around: to college and then into the early-nineties art world of New York City. There, ambition and competition threaten to rupture their friendship, while strong and unspoken forces pull them together over the years. Whereas Maria finds early success in New York City as an artist, Ruth stumbles along the fringes of the art world, pulled toward a quieter life of work and marriage. As their lives converge and diverge, they meet in one final and fateful confrontation.
Call Number: PT8951.31.L56 J4613 2025
ISBN: 9781324066354
"By writing down what happened, by telling the story as truthfully as I can, I'm trying to bring them together into one body--the woman from 2021 and the girl from 1983. I don't know if it can be done." Paris, a winter's night in 1983. She is sixteen years old, lost in unfamiliar streets. On a scrap of paper in her pocket is the address of a photographer, K, thirty years her senior. Almost four decades later, as her life and the world around her begin to unravel, the grown woman seeks to comprehend the young girl of before.