Books of the month

Books of the month for May

General Fiction: Luke Brown – My Biggest Lie

British Crime: Mark Sanderson Robin Hood Yard

Tough Crime: Lou Berney – The Long and Faraway Gone

Science Fiction: Jane Lindskold – Artemis Awakening

Fantasy: S. Andrew Swann – Dragon Princess

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: John Birmingham – Emergence: Dave vs. the Monsters

Classic of the Month: Joseph ConradThe Secret Agent

Teen reading: Cammie McGovern Say What You Will

Luke Brown – My Biggest LieMark Sanderson – Robin Hood YardLou Berney – The Long and Faraway Gone Jane Lindskold – Artemis AwakeningS. Andrew Swann – Dragon PrincessJohn Birmingham – Emergence: Dave vs. the Monsters Joseph Conrad – The Secret AgentCammie McGovern – Say What You Will

Books of the month for April

General Fiction: Rufi Thorpe – The Girls From Corona del Mar

British Crime: Matthew Frank – If I Should Die

Tough Crime: Salar Abdoh – Tehran at Twilight

Science Fiction: Ursula K. Le Guin – The Left Hand of Darkness

Fantasy: Stephen Leigh – Immortal Muse

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Lynsay Sands – The Immortal Who Loved Me

Classic of the Month: William Shakespeare – Macbeth

Teen reading: Jandy Nelson – I'll Give You the Sun

Rufi Thorpe – The Girls From Corona del MarMatthew Frank – If I Should DieSalar Abdoh – Tehran at Twilight Ursula K. Le Guin – The Left Hand of DarknessStephen Leigh – Immortal MuseLynsay Sands – The Immortal Who Loved MeWilliam Shakespeare – MacbethJandy Nelson – I'll Give You the Sun

Books of the month for March

General Fiction: Laline Paull – The Bees

British Crime: Judith Flanders – A Murder of Magpies

Tough Crime: Yuri Herrera – Signs Preceding the End of the World

Science Fiction: Rjurik Davidson – Unwrapped Sky

Fantasy: Katherine Addison – The Goblin Emperor

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Diana Rowland – How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back

Classic of the Month: Charlotte Brontë – Villette

Teen reading: Lee Harper – To Kill A Mockingbird

Laline Paull – The BeesJudith Flanders – A Murder of MagpiesYuri Herrera – Signs Preceding the End of the WorldRjurik Davidson – Unwrapped SkyKatherine Addison – The Goblin EmperorDiana Rowland – How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back Charlotte Brontë – Villette Harper Lee – To Kill A Mockingbird

Books of the month for February

General Fiction: Dinaw Mengestu – All Our Names

British Crime: Susan Elia MacNeal – Mr Churchill's Secretary (Maggie Hope #1)

Tough Crime: Edney Silvestre – Happiness is Easy

Science Fiction: Allen Steele – V-S Day

Fantasy: Marshall Ryan Maresca – The Thorn of Dentonhill (Maradaine #1)

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Anne Bishop – Written in Red (Others #1)

Classic of the Month: Aldous Huxley – Brave New World

Teen reading: Kate Hendrick – The Accident

Dinaw Mengestu – All Our NamesSusan Elia MacNeal – Mr Churchill's Secretary (Maggie Hope #1) Edney Silvestre – Happiness is Easy Allen Steele – V-S DayMarshall Ryan Maresca – The Thorn of Dentonhill (Maradaine #1) Anne Bishop – Written in Red (Others #1) Aldous Huxley – Brave New World Kate Hendrick – The Accident

Books of the month for January

General Fiction: Matt Haig – The Humans

British Crime: Ann Granger – The Testimony of the Hanged Man

Tough Crime: G. M. Ford – Chump Change (Leo Waterman #8)

Science Fiction: Jacey Bedford – Empire of Dust (Psi-Tech #1)

Fantasy: C. S. Friedman – Dreamwalker (#1)

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Karen Marie Moning – Iced (O'Malley #1)

Classic of the Month: Djuna Barnes – Nightwood

Teen reading: Jennifer Niven – All the Bright Places

The Humans by Matt HaigThe Testimony of the Hanged Man by Ann GrangerChump Change (Leo Waterman #8)  by G. M. FordEmpire of Dust (Psi-Tech #1) by Jacey BedfordDreamwalker (#1) by C. S. FriedmanIced (O'Malley #1) by Karen Marie MoningNightwood by Djuna BarnesAll the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Books of the month for November

Natalie Haynes – The Amber Fury

General Fiction: Natalie Haynes – The Amber Fury

When you open up, who will you let in? When Alex Morris loses her fiance in dreadful circumstances, she moves from London to Edinburgh to make a break with the past. Alex takes a job at a Pupil Referral Unit, which accepts the students excluded from other schools in the city. These are troubled, difficult kids and Alex is terrified of what she's taken on.

Jane Casey – The Kill

British Crime: Jane Casey – The Kill

A killer is terrorising London but this time the police are the targets. Urgently re-assigned to investigate a series of brutal attacks on fellow officers, Maeve Kerrigan and her boss Josh Derwent have little idea what motivates the killer's fury against the force. But they know it will only be a matter of time before the killer strikes again.

Alison Gaylin – And She Was...

Tough Crime: Alison Gaylin – And She Was...

Missing persons investigator Brenna Spector has a rare neurological disorder that enables her to recall every detail of every day of her life. A blessing and a curse, it began in childhood, when her older sister stepped into a strange car never to be seen again, and it’s proven invaluable in her work. But it hasn’t helped her solve the mystery that haunts her above all others—and it didn’t lead her to little Iris. When a local woman, Carol Wentz, disappears eleven years later, Brenna uncovers bizarre connections between the missing woman, the long-gone little girl … and herself.

Robert Charles Wilson – Burning Paradise

Science Fiction: Robert Charles Wilson – Burning Paradise

Cassie Klyne, nineteen years old, lives in the United States in the year 2015--but it's not our United States, and it's not our 2015. Cassie's world has been at peace since the Great Armistice of 1918. There was no World War II, no Great Depression. Poverty is declining, prosperity is increasing everywhere; social instability is rare. But Cassie knows the world isn't what it seems. Her parents were part of a group who gradually discovered the awful truth: that for decades--back to the dawn of radio communications--human progress has been interfered with, made more peaceful and benign, by an extraterrestrial entity. That by interfering with our communications, this entity has tweaked history in massive and subtle ways. That humanity is, for purposes unknown, being farmed. Cassie's parents were killed for this knowledge, along with most of the other members of their group. Since then, the survivors have scattered and gone into hiding. Cassie and her younger brother Thomas now live with her aunt Nerissa, who shares these dangerous secrets. Others live nearby. For eight years they have attempted to lead unexceptional lives in order to escape detection. The tactic has worked. Until now. Because the killers are back. And they're not human.

Wen Spencer – Eight Million Gods

Fantasy:  Wen Spencer – Eight Million Gods

A contemporary fantasy of mystery and death as American expats battle Japanese gods and monsters to retrieve an ancient artifact that can destroy the world.

On Saturday afternoon, Nikki Delany thought, "George Wilson, in the kitchen, with a blender." By dinner, she had killed George and posted his gory murder to her blog. The next day, she put on her mourning clothes and went out to meet her best friend for lunch to discuss finding a replacement for her love interest. …

Stephen Blackmoore – Broken Souls

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Stephen Blackmoore – Broken Souls

Sister murdered, best friend dead, married to the patron saint of death, Santa Muerte. Necromancer Eric Carter’s return to Los Angeles hasn’t gone well, and it’s about to get even worse.

His link to the Aztec death goddess is changing his powers, changing him, and he’s not sure how far it will go. He’s starting to question his own sanity, wonder if he’s losing his mind. No mean feat for a guy who talks to the dead on a regular basis.

While searching for a way to break Santa Muerte’s hold over him, Carter finds himself the target of a psychopath who can steal anyone’s form, powers, and memories. Identity theft is one thing, but this guy does it by killing his victims and wearing their skins like a suit. He can be anyone. He can be anywhere.

Now Carter has to change the game — go from hunted to hunter. All he has for help is a Skid Row bruja and a ghost who’s either his dead friend Alex or the manifestation of Carter’s own guilt-fueled psychotic break.

Everything is trying to kill him. Nothing is as it seems. If all his plans go perfectly, he might survive the week.

He’s hoping that’s a good thing.

E. M. Forster – Maurice

Classic of the Month: E. M. Forster – Maurice

Maurice Hall is a young man who grows up confident in his privileged status and well aware of his role in society. Modest and generally conformist, he nevertheless finds himself increasingly attracted to his own sex. Through Clive, whom he encounters at Cambridge, and through Alec, the gamekeeper on Clive's country estate, Maurice gradually experiences a profound emotional and sexual awakening.

A tale of passion, bravery and defiance, this intensely personal novel was completed in 1914 but remained unpublished until after Forster's death in 1970. Compellingly honest and beautifully written, it offers a powerful condemnation of the repressive attitudes of British society, and is at once a moving love story and an intimate tale of one man's erotic and political self-discovery.

Eleanor Updale – The Last Minute

Teen reading: Eleanor Updale – The Last Minute

9.21am: business as usual on a high street in England.

9.22am: the explosions are heard for miles around, and in the early confusion there is talk of a gas leak, a plane crash, and even terrorism .…

The people of Heathwick had been preparing for Christmas unaware that many would die, and the rest would be transformed for ever. Travel with them, second-by-second, through the hopes, fears, love, worries, gossip, cruelty, kindness and trivia that dominated their final minute before tragedy struck.

And in the everyday story of an ordinary street, look for clues to what happened, and why.

Books of the month for October

Karen Joy Fowler – We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

General Fiction: Karen Joy Fowler – We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

As a child, Rosemary used to talk all the time. So much so that her parents used to tell her to start in the middle if she wanted to tell a story. Now Rosemary has just started college and she barely talks at all. And she definitely doesn’t talk about her family. So we're not going to tell you too much either: you'll have to find out for yourself what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any other. Rosemary is now an only child, but she used to have a sister the same age as her, and an older brother. Both are now gone - vanished from her life. But there's something unique about Rosemary's sister, Fern. So now she's telling her story; a looping narrative that begins towards the end, and then goes back to the beginning. Twice.

Craig Robertson – The Last Refuge

British Crime: Craig RobertsonThe Last Refuge

You can run from your past but you can never hide from yourself. When John Callum arrives on the Faroe Islands, determined to sever all ties with his previous life and make a new start, he is surprised by how quickly he is welcomed into the close-knit community. But no matter what he changes in his outward life, the debilitating nightmares that haunt him just won't stop.

Michael Craven – The Detective and the Pipe Girl

Tough Crime:  Michael Craven – The Detective and the Pipe Girl

Private Detective John Darvelle is a man of specific tastes—simple design, smart women, cheap American beer. He’s a man of specific opinions—drive a car nobody can remember, avoid brunch at all costs, and don’t live in Brentwood. And he adheres to his own professional code—an indelible blend of commitment, loyalty, and experience. He also plays a lot of ping-pong.

Arthur Vonz is one of Tinseltown’s most powerful men, a filmmaker among the ranks of Spielberg, Coppola, and Kubrick. He hires Darvelle to find a young woman named Suzanne Neal, an incandescent beauty who just might be hiding something.

What starts as an easy assignment soon has Darvelle plunging deep into the seductive and hidden world of Hollywood’s elite. A twisting, turning journey that puts him face-to-face with the LAPD, a ruthless underground crime operation, and a cold-blooded killer.

It’s the case of a lifetime that could end his life.

L. E. Modesitt Jr. – The One-Eyed Man

Science Fiction: L. E. Modesitt Jr. – The One-Eyed Man

The colony world of Stittara is no ordinary planet. For the interstellar Unity of the Ceylesian Arm, Stittara is the primary source of anagathics: drugs that have more than doubled the human life span. But the ecological balance that makes anagathics possible on Stittara is fragile, and the Unity government has a vital interest in making sure the flow of longevity drugs remains uninterrupted, even if it means uprooting the human settlements.

Offered the job of assessing the ecological impact of the human presence on Stittara, freelance consultant Dr. Paulo Verano jumps at the chance to escape the ruin of his personal life. He gets far more than he bargained for: Stittara’s atmosphere is populated with skytubes—gigantic, mysterious airborne organisms that drift like clouds above the surface of the planet. Their exact nature has eluded humanity for centuries, but Verano believes his conclusions about Stittara may hinge on understanding the skytubes’ role in the planet’s ecology—if he survives the hurricane winds, distrustful settlers, and secret agendas that impede his investigation at every turn.

Django Wexler – The Thousand Names

Fantasy:  Django Wexler – The Thousand Names

Captain Marcus d’Ivoire, commander of one of the Vordanai empire’s colonial garrisons, was serving out his days in a sleepy, remote outpost—until a rebellion left him in charge of a demoralized force clinging to a small fortress at the edge of the desert.

To flee from her past, Winter Ihernglass masqueraded as a man and enlisted as a ranker in the Vordanai Colonials, hoping only to avoid notice. But when chance sees her promoted to command, she must lead her men into battle against impossible odds.

Mary Behre – Guarded

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Mary Behre – Guarded

She’s given up on finding love…

Veterinarian Shelley Morgan has always preferred animals to humans, and not simply because she can communicate with them psychically. Unlike most people she’s known, animals have never broken her heart. But after six months in her new town, some of her favorite four-legged companions begin disappearing from the local zoo. Determined to track down the animals and their thief, the telepathic vet decides to investigate, unknowingly delving into a deadly mystery…

He’s ready to make her heart go wild…

Although his bear-like physique has been an advantage in the Tidewater Police Department, Dev Jones’s size often intimidates people. Only Shelley has seen past his massive build to the intelligent man inside, but that was years ago. So when she contacts him requesting his help to solve a series of animal kidnappings, he’s eager to reconnect with her. But the thefts escalate to murder and all the evidence points to Shelley as the killer, and Dev faces a devastating choice: forsake his career or risk losing the woman he’s grown to love…

Shirley Jackson – We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Classic of the Month: Shirley Jackson – We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Merricat Blackwood lives on the family estate with her sister Constance and her uncle Julian. Not long ago there were seven Blackwoods - until a fatal dose of arsenic found its way into the sugar bowl one terrible night. Acquitted of the murders, Constance has returned home, where Merricat protects her from the curiosity and hostility of the villagers. Their days pass in happy isolation until cousin Charles appears. Only Merricat can see the danger, and she must act swiftly to keep Constance from his grasp.

 

Andrew Smith – Winger

Teen reading: Andrew Smith – Winger

Ryan Dean West is a fourteen-year-old boy at a boarding school for rich kids. He's living in Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troublemakers, and rooming with the biggest bully on the rugby team. And he's madly in love with his best friend Annie, who thinks of him as a little boy.

With the help of his sense of humour, rugby buddies, and his penchant for doodling comics, Ryan Dean manages to survive life's complications and even find some happiness along the way. But when the unthinkable happens, he has to figure out how to hold on to what's important, even when it feels like everything has fallen apart.

Filled with hand-drawn illustrations and told in a pitch-perfect voice, this realistic depiction of a teen's experience strikes an exceptional balance of hilarious and heartbreaking.

Books of the month for September

Dave Eggers – The Circle

General Fiction: Dave Eggers – The Circle

When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users' personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. … What begins as the captivating story of one woman's ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.

The Devil in the Marshalsea – The Devil in the Marshalsea

British Crime: The Devil in the MarshalseaThe Devil in the Marshalsea

London, 1727 - and Tom Hawkins is about to fall from his heaven of card games, brothels and coffee-houses into the hell of a debtors' prison.

The Marshalsea is a savage world of its own, with simple rules: those with family or friends who can lend them a little money may survive in relative comfort. Those with none will starve in squalor and disease. And those who try to escape will suffer a gruesome fate at the hands of the gaol's rutheless governor and his cronies. A twisting mystery, a dazzling evocation of early 18th Century London.

Peter Farris – Last Call for the Living

Tough Crime:  Peter Farris Last Call for the Living

For bank teller Charlie Colquitt it was another Saturday. For Hobe Hicklin, an ex-con with nothing to lose, it was another score. For Hobe’s drug-addled, sex-crazed girlfriend, it was more lust, violence, and drugs. But Hicklin’s first mistake was double-crossing his partners in the Aryan Brotherhood. His second was taking a hostage. He and Charlie could hide out for only so long before Hicklin’s past catches up to them. Hot on Hicklin’s trail are a pair of Brotherhood soldiers, ready to burn a path of murder and mayhem to get revenge. GBI Special Agent Sallie Crews and Sheriff Tommy Lang catch the case, and soon Crews is making some dangerous connections. For hard-drinking, despondent Lang, rescuing Charlie might be the key to personal salvation.

James Smythe – The Machine

Science Fiction: James Smythe – The Machine

Vic returned from war tormented by his nightmares. His once happy marriage to Beth all but disintegrated. A machine promised salvation, purging him of all memory.

Now the machines are gone, declared too controversial, the side-effects too harmful. But within Beth’s flat is an ever-whirring black box. She knows that memories can be put back and that she can rebuild her husband piece by piece.

Steven Brust & Skyler White – The Incrementalists

Fantasy:  Steven Brust & Skyler White – The Incrementalists

The Incrementalists—a secret society of two hundred people with an unbroken lineage reaching back forty thousand years. They cheat death, share lives and memories, and communicate with one another across nations, races, and time. They have an epic history, an almost magical memory, and a very modest mission: to make the world better, just a little bit at a time. Their ongoing argument about how to do this is older than most of their individual memories.

Phil, whose personality has stayed stable through more incarnations than anyone else’s, has loved Celeste—and argued with her—for most of the last four hundred years. But now Celeste, recently dead, embittered, and very unstable, has changed the rules—not incrementally, and not for the better. Now the heart of the group must gather in Las Vegas to save the Incrementalists, and maybe the world.

John Lambshead – Wolf in Shadow

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: John Lambshead – Wolf in Shadow

Urban fantasy in one of the world’s greatest cities.

Rhian, a girl from the Welsh valleys on the run from tragedy and herself, finds a new home in the modern East End of London, where the world’s largest financial center spins a web of money and power from glistening towers of chrome and glass. Beneath the digital façade lurks the old East End where the layers of two thousand years of dramatic and violent history slide over one another like glaciers, spilling out in avalanches that warp the real world.

As bodies begin to litter the East End streets, The Commission dispatches its best enforcers to deal with the situation: Karla is not human, and Jameson left his humanity behind in pieces in Northern Ireland and Afghanistan. Rhian makes new friends, dangerous friends; and where Rhian goes, the wolf is always in her shadow, just a heartbeat away.

Among the bankers and traders of the East End walk demons in human form and who is to say which are the monsters? London is a magical bomb waiting to explode and somewhere a fuse is hissing.

Nathanael West – Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust

Classic of the Month: Nathanael West – Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust

The title for our Classics bok club is The Day of the Locust, published 1939, set in Hollywood, California, during the Great Depression. Its themes deal with the alienation and desperation of a broad group of odd individuals who exist at the fringes of the Hollywood movie industry.

Miss Lonelyhearts, published in 1933 an Expressionist black comedy set in New York City during the Great Depression. Miss Lonelyhearts is an unnamed male newspaper columnist writing an advice column that the newspaper staff considers a joke. As Miss Lonelyhearts reads letters from desperate New Yorkers, he feels terribly burdened and falls into a cycle of deep depression, accompanied by heavy drinking and occasional bar fights. He is also the victim of the pranks and cynical advice of Shrike, his feature editor at the newspaper.

 

William Sutcliffe – Bad Influence

Teen reading: William Sutcliffe – Bad Influence

Highly recommended by Jan.

Meet Carl: cruel, fun, exciting a bit older than you, and totally in control. Your best friend Ollie likes Carl maybe even more than he likes you. You don't want to lose Ollie, so you tag along: playing Carl's games, doing what he says, getting into trouble. But how far will Carl go before he stops? And just how bad does he have to get before you say No?

Books of the month for August

Nathan Filer - Shock of the Fall

General Fiction: Nathan Filer – Shock of the Fall

Winner of the Costa Best First Novel Award! 'I'll tell you what happened because it will be a good way to introduce my brother. His name's Simon. I think you're going to like him. I really do. But in a couple of pages he'll be dead. And he was never the same after that.' The Shock of the Fall is an extraordinary portrait of one man's descent into mental illness. It is a brave and groundbreaking novel from one of the most exciting new voices in fiction.

Alex Grecian – The Yard (Murder Squad Novel #1)

British Crime: Alex Grecian – The Yard (Murder Squad Novel #1)

1890, London.  Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror is finally over, but a new one is just beginning…Victorian London is a cesspool of crime and Scotland Yard has only twelve detectives – known as “The Murder Squad” – to investigate countless murders every month.  Created after the Metropolitan police’s spectacular failure to capture Jack the Ripper, The Murder Squad suffers rampant public contempt.  They have failed their citizens.  But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own…one of twelve…

Christopher Irvin – Federales

Tough Crime: Christopher Irvin – Federales

Mexican Federal Agent Marcos Camarena dedicated his life to the job. But in a country where white knights die meaningless deaths, martyred in a hole with fifty other headless bodies in the desert, corruption is not an attribute but a scale; no longer a stigma but the status quo.

When Marcos’s life is threatened, he leaves law enforcement and his life in Mexico City behind for a coastal resort town—until an old friend asks him to look after an outspoken politician, a woman who knows cartel violence all too well. Despite his best efforts, Marcos can’t find it in his heart to refuse, and soon finds himself isolated on the political front lines of the war on drugs.

Inspired by true events, Federales is a story of survivors’ compulsive devotion to a cause in the face of ever-darkening circumstances.

Jay Martel – Channel Blue

Science Fiction: Jay Martel – Channel Blue

Earth used to be Galaxy Entertainment's most lucrative show. The inhabitants of the Western Galaxy – the saviest, richest demographic in the Milky Way – just couldn't get enough of the day-to-day details of the average Earthling's live.

But Channel Blue's ratings are flagging and its producers are planning a spectacular finale. In just three weeks, their TV show will go out with a bang. The trouble is, so will Earth.

Only one man can save our planet and he's hardly a likely hero...

Arianne 'Tex' Thompson – One Night in Sixes

Fantasy: Arianne 'Tex' Thompson – One Night in Sixes

Appaloosa Elim is a man who knows his place. On a good day, he's content with it. Today is not a good day. Today, his so called 'partner' - that lily-white lordling Sil Halfwick - has ridden off west for the border, hell-bent on making a name for himself in native territory. And Elim, whose place is written in the bastard browns and whites of his cow-spotted face, doesn't dare show up home again without him.

The border town called Sixes is quiet in the heat of the day, but Elim's heard the stories about what wakes at sunset: gunslingers and shapeshifters and ancient animal gods whose human faces never outlast the daylight. And about the only thing worse than finding whatever's left of Sil is the thought of getting caught out after dark - of discovering how much magic is living in Elim's own flesh, and how far he'll go to survive the night.

Jamie Schulz – Premonitions

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Jamie Schulz – Premonitions

It’s the kind of score Karyn Ames has always dreamed of—enough to set her crew up pretty well and, more important, enough to keep her safely stocked on a very rare, very expensive black market drug. Without it, Karyn hallucinates slices of the future until they totally overwhelm her, leaving her unable to distinguish the present from the mess of certainties and possibilities yet to come.

The client behind the heist is Enoch Sobell, a notorious crime lord with a reputation for being ruthless and exacting—and a purported practitioner of dark magic. Sobell is almost certainly condemned to Hell for a magically extended lifetime full of shady dealings. Once you’re in business with him, there’s no backing out.

Karyn and her associates are used to the supernatural and the occult, but their target is more than just the usual family heirloom or cursed necklace. It’s a piece of something larger. Something sinister.

Karyn’s crew and even Sobell himself are about to find out just how powerful it is… and how powerful it may yet become.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman – Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland & Selected Stories

Classic of the Month: Charlotte Perkins Gilman – Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland & Selected Stories

First published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's physical and mental health.

M Molly Backes – The Princesses of Iowa

Teen reading: M Molly Backes – The Princesses of Iowa

Paige Sheridan has the perfect life. She's pretty, rich, and popular, and her spot on the homecoming court is practically guaranteed. But when a night of partying ends in an it-could-have-been-so-much worse crash, everything changes. Her best friends start ignoring her, her boyfriend grows cold and distant, and her once-adoring younger sister now views her with contempt. The only bright spot is her creative writing class, led by a charismatic new teacher who encourages students to be true to themselves. But who is Paige, if not the homecoming princess everyone expects her to be? In this arresting and witty debut, a girl who was once high-school royalty must face a truth that money and status can't fix, and choose between living the privileged life of a princess, or owning up to her mistakes and giving up everything she once held dear.

Books of the month for July

David Leavitt – Two Hotel Francforts

General Fiction: David Leavitt – Two Hotel Francforts

It is the summer of 1940, and Lisbon, Portugal, is the only neutral port left in Europe—a city filled with spies, crowned heads, and refugees of every nationality, tipping back absinthe to while away the time until their escape. Awaiting safe passage to New York on the SS Manhattan, two couples meet: Pete and Julia Winters, expatriate Americans fleeing their sedate life in Paris; and Edward and Iris Freleng, sophisticated, independently wealthy, bohemian, and beset by the social and sexual anxieties of their class. As Portugal’s neutrality, and the world’s future, hang in the balance, the hidden threads in the lives of these four characters—Julia’s status as a Jew, Pete and Edward’s improbable affair, Iris’s increasingly desperate efforts to save her tenuous marriage—begin to come loose. This journey will change their lives irrevocably, as Europe sinks into war.

Ian Sansom – The Norfolk Mystery

British Crime: Ian Sansom – The Norfolk Mystery

Love Miss Marple? Adore Holmes and Watson? Professor Morley's guide to Norfolk is a story of bygone England; quaint villages, eccentric locals - and murder! It is 1937 and disillusioned Spanish Civil War veteran Stephen Sefton is stony broke. So when he sees a mysterious advertisement for a job where 'intelligence is essential', he applies. Thus begins Sefton's association with Professor Swanton Morley, an omnivorous intellect.A must-read for fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, every county is a crime scene, and with 39 counties in store there'll be plenty of murder, mystery and mayhem to confound and entertain you for years to come.

C. J. Box – The Highway

Tough Crime: C. J. Box – The Highway

When two sisters set out across a remote stretch of Montana road to visit their friend, little do they know it will be the last time anyone might ever hear from them again. The girls—and their car—simply vanish.  Former police investigator Cody Hoyt has just lost his job and has fallen off the wagon after a long stretch of sobriety.  Convinced by his son and his former rookie partner, Cassie Dewell, he begins the drive south to the girls’ last known location.  As Cody makes his way to the lonely stretch of Montana highway where they went missing, Cassie discovers that Gracie and Danielle Sullivan aren’t the first girls who have disappeared in this area.  This majestic landscape is the hunting ground for a killer whose viciousness is outmatched only by his intelligence.

Ben Bova – New Earth

Science Fiction: Ben Bova – New Earth

The entire world is thrilled by the discovery of a new Earthlike planet. Advance imaging shows that the planet has oceans of liquid water and a breathable oxygen-rich atmosphere. Eager to gain more information, a human exploration team is soon dispatched to explore the planet, now nicknamed New Earth.

All of the explorers understand that they are essentially on a one-way mission. The trip takes eighty years each way, so even if they are able to get back to Earth, nearly 200 years will have elapsed. They will have aged only a dozen years thanks to cryonic suspension, but their friends and family will be gone and the very society that they once knew will...

J. Kathleen Cheney – Golden City

Fantasy: J. Kathleen Cheney – Golden City

For two years, Oriana Paredes has been a spy among the social elite of the Golden City, reporting back to her people, the sereia, sea folk banned from the city’s shores….

When her employer and only confidante decides to elope, Oriana agrees to accompany her to Paris. But before they can depart, the two women are abducted and left to drown. Trapped beneath the waves, Oriana survives because of her heritage, but she is forced to watch her only friend die. Vowing vengeance, Oriana crosses paths with Duilio Ferreira—a police consultant who has been investigating the disappearance of a string of servants from the city’s wealthiest homes. Duilio also has a secret: He is a seer and his gifts have led him to Oriana. Bound by their secrets, not trusting each other completely yet having no choice but to work together, Oriana and Duilio must expose a twisted plot of magic so dark that it could cause the very fabric of history to come undone….

Chloe Neill – Some Girls Bite (Chicagoland Vampires #1)

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Chloe Neill – Some Girls Bite (Chicagoland Vampires #1)

They killed me. They healed me. They changed me.

Sure, the life of a graduate student wasn’t exactly glamorous, but it was Merit’s. She was doing fine until a rogue vampire attacked her. But he only got a sip before he was scared away by another bloodsucker–and this one decided the best way to save her life was to make her the walking undead. Turns out her savior was the master vampire of Cadogan House. Now she’s traded sweating over her thesis for learning to fit in at a Hyde Park mansion full of vamps loyal to Ethan Sullivan. Of course, as a tall, green-eyed, four-hundred- year-old vampire, he has centuries’ worth of charm, but unfortunately he expects her gratitude–and servitude. But an inconvenient sunlight allergy and Ethan’s attitude are the least of her concerns. Someone?s still out to get her. Her initiation into Chicago’s nightlife may be the first skirmish in a war–and there will be blood.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman – Herland & Selected Stories

Classic of the Month: Charlotte Perkins Gilman – Herland & Selected Stories

Written in 1915, this text is about three male explorers and the utopian female society they stumble upon. This is a community where war, famine and other "man-made" disasters do not exist.

Walter Dean Myers – Darius & Twig

Teen reading: Walter Dean Myers – Darius & Twig

Darius and Twig are an unlikely pair: Darius is a writer whose only escape is his alter ego, a peregrine falcon named Fury, and Twig is a middle-distance runner striving for athletic success. But they are drawn together in the struggle to overcome the obstacles that life in Harlem throws at them. The two friends must face down bullies, an abusive uncle, and the idea that they'll be stuck in the same place forever.

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