Library Lovers Book Picks

Love Your LibraryWhat do Sewickley Public Library users love to read?  During Love Your Library month we asked you, and received about 100 responses on our display.  Here is a highlight of some of the responses, maybe you can find something new that would spark your interest!

 

Where’d You Go Bernadette / Maria Semple

When her notorious, hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled and agoraphobic mother goes missing, teenage Bee begins a trip that takes her to the ends of the earth to find her.

Where the Crawdads Sing / Delia Owens

Viewed with suspicion in the aftermath of a tragedy, a beautiful hermit who has survived for years in a marsh becomes targeted by unthinkable forces.

The Handmaid’s Tale / Margaret Atwood

Offred, a Handmaid, describes life in what was once the United States, now the Republic of Gilead, a shockingly repressive and intolerant monotheocracy, in a satirical tour de force set in the near future.

100 Years of Solitude / Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town is mirrored in the family history of the Buendias.

The Godfather / Mario Puzo

The Godfather is an extraordinary novel which has become a modern day classic. Puzo pulls us inside the violent society of the Mafia and its gang wars. The leader, Vito Corleone, is the Godfather. He is a benevolent despot who stops at nothing to gain and hold power. His command post is a fortress on Long Island from which he presides over a vast underground empire that includes the rackets, gambling, bookmaking, and unions. His influence runs through all levels of American society, from the cop on the beat to the nation’s mighty.

Ten Thousand Doors of January / Alix Harrow

A woman navigating the out-of-place artifacts in her caretaker’s sprawling early 20th-century mansion discovers a mysterious book that reveals impossible truths about the world and her own past.

And Then There Were None / Agatha Christie

Ten houseguests, trapped on an isolated island, are the prey of a diabolical killer. A famous nursery rhyme is framed and hung in every room of the mansion: Ten little Indian boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine–When they realize that murders are occurring as described in the rhyme, terror mounts. Who has choreographed this dastardly scheme? And who will be left to tell the tale?

The Thursday Murder Club / Richard Osman

Meeting weekly in their retirement village’s Jigsaw Room to exchange theories about unsolved crimes, four savvy septuagenarians propose a daring but unorthodox plan to help a woman rookie cop solve her first big murder case.

7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle / Stuart Turton

Doomed to repeat the same day over and over, Aiden Bishop must solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle in order to escape the curse in a world filled with enemies where nothing and no one are quite what they seem

Cloud Cuckoo Land / Anthony Doerr

Follows four young dreamers and outcasts through time and space, from 1453 Constantinople to the future, as they discover resourcefulness and hope amidst peril in the new novel by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author All the Light We Cannot See.

Running with Scissors / Augusten Burroughs

The author describes his bizarre coming-of-age years after his adoption by his mother’s psychiatrist, during which he witnessed such misadventures as a fake suicide attempt and front-lawn family/patient sleepovers.

President’s Club / Nancy Gibbs

Traces the history of the presidential fraternity conceived by Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover during Eisenhower’s inauguration, exploring the ways in which the nation’s presidents depended on, sabotaged, and formed alliances that had world-changing impacts.

 

 

New Books for October

New Books for October

The Shadow Murders by Jussi Adler-Olsen

On her sixtieth birthday, a woman takes her own life. When the case lands on Detective Carl Mørck’s desk, he can’t imagine what this has to do with Department Q, Copenhagen’s cold cases division since the cause of death seems apparent. However, his superior, Marcus Jacobsen, is convinced that this is related to an unsolved case that has been plaguing him since 1988.


Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

The #1 bestselling, award-winning author of Life after Life transports us to a restless London in the wake of the Great War–a city fizzing with money, glamour, and corruption–in this spellbinding tale of seduction and betrayal.

 


The Winners by Fredrik Backman

A breathtaking new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anxious People and A Man Called Ove , The Winners returns to the close-knit, resilient community of Beartown for a story about first loves, second chances, and last goodbyes.


The Old Place by Bobby Finger

A few months into her retirement Mary Alice Roth does not know how to fill her days. At least there’s Ellie, who stops by each morning for coffee and whose re-emergence in Mary Alice’s life is the one thing soothing the sting of retirement.  But when Mary Alice’s sister arrives on her doorstep with a staggering piece of news, it jeopardizes the careful shell she’s built around her life.


Fairy Tale by Stephen King

Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher–for that world or ours.

 


Mother Daughter Traitor Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal

A mother and daughter find the courage to go undercover after stumbling upon a Nazi cell in Los Angeles during the early days of World War II–a tantalizing novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Maggie Hope series.

 


Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

In a society consumed by fear, 12-year-old Bird Gardner, after receiving a mysterious letter, sets out on a quest to find his mother, a Chinese-American poet who left when he was 9 years old, leading him to NYC where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.


Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult

Her life upended when her husband revealed a darker side, Olivia MacAfee and her teenage son Asher move back to her New Hampshire hometown for a new beginning, until Asher is implicated in the death of his girlfriend and she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.


Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and on-again, off-again friend, William. For the next several months, it’s just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody, swirling sea.


Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match by Sally Thorne

The younger sister of Victor Frankenstein embarks on her own project, resurrecting an intended beau who is more intent on uncovering his forgotten identity than in romance in the new novel from the best-selling author of The Hating Game.

 

 

 

 

 

Haunting Tales: Selections for Your Halloween Reading

Haunting Tales: Selections for Your Halloween Reading

From mysteries to supernatural stories, folklore to the macabre – we’ve got titles old & new to spark your spooky-bone this Halloween season!


Cover Image Marple: Twelve New Mysteries by Agatha Christie

Legendary sleuth Jane Marple returns to solve twelve baffling cases in this brand-new collection, penned by a host of acclaimed authors skilled in the fine art of mystery and murder.

 

 

Cover Image Devil House by John Darnielle

True crime writer Gague Chandler, the protagonist of Darnielle’s Devil House, jumps at the opportunity to live at the “Devil House” a building where two gruesome, possibly satanic murders took place in 1986. At once a magnetic thriller and an intriguing look at the true crime genre, Darnielle’s novel is filled with rich themes, including the slippery nature of crime reporting and the demands of the artistic process.

 

 

Cover ImageThistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

This tale explores Slavic folklore and magical realism through the lives of estranged siblings Bellatine and Isaac Yaga who couldn’t be more different in their personalities and their mysterious abilities. When they reunite to collect a family inheritance, it’s to discover their great-great-grandmother, Baba Yaga, has left them Thistlefoot, a sentient cottage with chicken legs. This story explores the folktales surround Baba Yaga – a magical crone, hidden deep in the forests of Eastern Europe, who -depending on her mood – can be friend or foe.

 

Cover ImageJackal by Erin A. Adams

A young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside her white rust belt town. But she’s not the first-and she may not be the last. . .  Adams transcends the typical hometown mystery with an effective blend of social and supernatural terrors. The author skillfully presents changing theories about the possible humans involved as characters struggle with who to trust and navigate dreamscapes that seem increasingly real. The first-person narration draws readers in as they sympathize with the character’s plight.

 

 

Cover ImageA Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782 , deep in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont. Harkness has created a universe to rival those of Anne Rice, Diana Gabaldon, and Elizabeth Kostova, and she adds a scholar’s depth to this riveting tale of magic and suspense. The story continues in the All Souls Series.

 

 

Cover ImageNettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Nettle & Bone is the kind of book that immediately feels like an old friend. Fairytale mythic resonance meets homey pragmatism in this utterly delightful story. It’s creepy, funny, heartfelt, and full of fantastic characters.

 

 

 

Cover ImageAll the Living and the Dead: from Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life’s Work by Haley Campbell

A deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and the people–morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners–who work in it and what led them there. A dazzling work of cultural criticism, All the Living and the Dead weaves together reportage with memoir, history, and philosophy, to offer readers a fascinating look into the psychology of Western death.

 

 

Cover ImageOver My Dead Body : Unearthing the Hidden History of America’s Cemeteries by Greg Melville

Melville’s Over My Dead Body is a lively (pun intended) and wide-ranging history of cemeteries, places that have mirrored the passing eras in history but have also shaped it. Cemeteries have given birth to landscape architecture and famous parks, as well as influenced architectural styles. They’ve inspired and motivated some of our greatest poets and authors–Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson. They’ve been used as political tools to shift the country’s discourse and as important symbols of the United States’ ambition and reach. Over My Dead Body explores everything–history, sustainability, land use, and more–and what it really means to memorialize.

 

New Mysteries for August

New Mysteries for August

The Murder Book by Mark Billingham

The latest thriller from internationally bestselling author Mark Billingham finds Tom Thorne settling into a newly content existence, but a spate of brutal murders sets him off on an investigation that may just shatter every happiness he has built.


The Hidden One by Linda Castillo

The discovery of an Amish bishop’s remains leads chief of police Kate Burkholder to unearth a chilling secret in The Hidden One, a new thriller from bestselling author Linda Castillo.


The Birdcage by Eve Chase

In the spirit of Lisa Jewell and Kate Morton, an emotional mystery set in the rugged remote landscape of north Cornwall full of dark secrets and twists, about three unusual sisters forced to confront the past.


Hatchet Island by Paul Doiron

A call for help from a former colleague leads Maine game warden investigator Mike Bowditch and his girlfriend Stacey Stevens on a sea kayaking trip to a research station far off the coast.


The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

Sulari Gentill delivers a sharply thrilling read with The Woman in the Library, an unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated nature of friendship and shows us that words can be the most treacherous weapons of all.


Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare

The glittering RMS Queen Mary. A nightclub singer on the run. An aristocratic family with secrets worth killing for. With seductive glamor, simmering family drama, and dizzying twists, Louise Hare makes her beguiling US debut.


Take No Names by Daniel Nieh

A riveting thriller about a fugitive in search of a quick payday in Mexico City who finds himself in the crosshairs of a dangerous international scheme.

 


The Swell by Allie Reynolds

Point Break meets And Then There Were None in a pulse-pounding beach read that explores the dangerous ties between a group of elite surfers who are determined to find the perfect waves at any cost…even murder.


Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

For fans of A Man Called Ove, a charming, witty and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow’s unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

 

New Mysteries and Thrillers

Crowbones by Anne Bishop

Deep in the territory controlled by the Others-shape-shifters, vampires, and even deadlier paranormal beings-Vicki DeVine has made a new life for herself running The Jumble, a rustic resort. When she decides to host a gathering of friends and guests for Trickster Night, at first everything is going well between the humans and the Others.

 


Wild Irish Rose by Rhys Bowen

New York Times bestselling author Rhys Bowen, now writing in partnership with her daughter, Clare Broyles, transports and enthralls readers through the incomparable Molly Murphy Sullivan. Wild Irish Rose is the next novel in this beloved mystery series, a cause for celebration for readers and critics alike.

 


The Recovery Agent by Janet Evanovich

#1 New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich returns with the launch of a blockbuster new series that blends wild adventure, hugely appealing characters, and pitch-perfect humor, proving once again why she’s “the most popular mystery writer alive” ( The New York Times ).

 


Like A Sister by Kellye Garrett

In this “tense, twisting mystery” (Megan Miranda), no one bats an eye when a Black reality TV star is found dead–except her estranged half-sister, whose refusal to believe the official story leads her on a dangerous search for the truth.

 


The Darkest Place by Phillip Margolin

Robin Lockwood is an increasingly prominent defense attorney in the Portland community. A Yale graduate and former MMA fighter, she’s becoming known for her string of innovative and successful defense strategies. As a favor to a judge, Robin takes on the pro bono defense of a reprehensible defendant charged with even more reprehensible crimes. But what she doesn’t know–what she can’t know–is how this one decision, this one case, will wreak complete devastation on her life and plans.


The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

In 1977, Claire Lake was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders: Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect, but she was acquitted. In 2017, Shea Collins runs a true crime website, a passion fueled by the attempted abduction she escaped as a child. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To Shea’s surprise, Beth says yes. The allure of learning the truth about the case from the smart, charming Beth is too much to resist, but even as they grow closer, Shea senses something isn’t right.

New Mysteries and Thrillers

New Mysteries and Thrillers

All the Queen’s Men by S. J. Bennett

Amateur detective Queen Elizabeth II is back in this hugely entertaining follow-up to the bestseller The Windsor Knot, in which Her Majesty must determine how a missing painting is connected to the shocking death of a staff member inside Buckingham Palace.

 


The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up – to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? – he’s not there.


The Berlin Exchange by Robert Kanon

From “master of the genre” ( The Washington Post ) Joseph Kanon, an espionage thriller set at the height of the Cold War, when a captured American who has spied for the KGB is swapped by the British and returns to East Berlin needing to know who arranged his release and what they want from him.


The Verifiers by Jane Pek

Introducing Claudia Lin: a sharp-witted amateur sleuth for the 21st century. This debut novel follows Claudia as she verifies people’s online lives, and lies, for a dating detective agency in New York City. Until a client with an unusual request goes missing. . . .

 


The Love of My Life by Rosie Walsh

Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: she’d do anything for them. But almost everything she’s told them about herself is a lie.  And she might just have got away with it, if it weren’t for her husband’s job. Leo is an obituary writer; Emma a well-known marine biologist. When she suffers a serious illness, Leo copes by doing what he knows best – researching and writing about his wife’s life. But as he starts to unravel the truth, he discovers the woman he loves doesn’t really exist. Even her name isn’t real.

Snowy Mysteries

Snowy Mysteries

The snow has finally arrived in Pittsburgh, and there is no better time to cozy up with a winter mystery. If you are looking for something suitably cold, check out one of these winter thrillers. Sure to give you chills!


The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands–the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves.

The trip begins innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps, just as a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world. Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead. . . and another of them did it.


The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter, Gertie. Now, in present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara’s farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that suddenly proves perilous when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished without a trace. Searching for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea’s diary hidden beneath the floorboards of her mother’s bedroom. As Ruthie gets sucked deeper into the mystery of Sara’s fate, she discovers that she’s not the only person who’s desperately looking for someone that they’ve lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself. 


In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Clare Fergusson, St. Alban’s new priest, fits like a square peg in the conservative Episcopal parish at Miller’s Kill, New York. She is not just a “lady,” she’s a tough ex Army chopper pilot, and nobody’s fool. Then a newborn infant left at the church door brings her together with the town’s police chief, Russ Van Alstyne, who’s also ex-Army and a cynical good shepherd for the stray sheep of his hometown. Their search for the baby’s mother quickly leads them into the secrets that shadow Miller’s Kill like the ever-present Adirondacks. What they discover is a world of trouble, an attraction to each other-and murder…


The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg

Returning to her hometown of Fjallbacka after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice-cold bath, it seems that she has taken her own life. Erica conceives a book about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will answer questions about their own shared past. While her interest grows into an obsession, local detective Patrik Hedstrom is following his own suspicions about the case. But it is only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about a small town with a deeply disturbing past.


Hunting Game by Helene Tursten

Embla Nystrom, Detective Inspector in the mobile unit in Gothenburg, Sweden and talented hunter and prize-winning Nordic welterweight, is glad to be taking a vacation from her high-stress job to attend the annual moose hunt with her family and friends. But when Embla arrives in rural Dalsland, she sees an unfamiliar face has joined the group: Peter, enigmatic, attractive, and making their group an unlucky 13. Sure enough, a string of unsettling incidents follow, culminating in the disappearance of two hunters. Embla delves into the dark pasts of her fellow hunters in search of a killer.

 

Books on Books

Books on Books

Books about Books!  What could be more fun!  Here’s a sampling of titles — mysteries, fiction, and memoirs — that highlight the all-encompassing world of books.

Lynne @ SPL


Cover ImageThe Last Chance Library – Freya Sampson

Lonely librarian June Jones has never left the sleepy English village where she grew up. Shy and reclusive, the thirty-year-old would rather spend her time buried in books than venture out into the world. But when her library is threatened with closure, June is forced to emerge from behind the shelves to save the heart of her community and the place that holds the dearest memories of her mother.

…”a sweet testament to the power of reading, community, and the library.” — Booklist


Cover ImageThe Reading List – Sara Nisha Adams  

Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home.

“Readers will be charmed and touched.” – Publishers Weekly   


Cover ImageMr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour BookstoreRobin Sloan

The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. But after a few days on the job, Clay discovers that the store is more curious than either its name or its gnomic owner might suggest. The customers are few, and they never seem to buy anything–instead, they “check out” large, obscure volumes from strange corners of the store.


Cover ImageBy Its Cover – Donna Leon

One afternoon, Commissario Guido Brunetti gets a frantic call from the director of a prestigious Venetian library. Someone has stolen pages out of several rare books. After a round of questioning, the case seems clear: the culprit must be the man who requested the volumes, an American professor from a Kansas university. The only problem–the man fled the library earlier that day, and after checking his credentials, the American professor doesn’t exist.


Cover ImageThe Book Woman of Troublesome Creek – Kim Michele Richardson

This gem of a historical from Richardson features an indomitable heroine navigating a community steeped in racial intolerance. In 1936, 19-year-old Cussy Mary Carter works for the New Deal–funded Pack Horse Library Project, delivering reading material to the rural people of Kentucky. It’s a way of honoring her dead mother, who loved books, and it almost makes her forget the fact that her skin is blue, a family trait that sets her apart from the white community.


Cover ImageBooked to DieJohn Dunning

Denver cop Cliff Janeway probably knows as much about books as he does about homicide.  His living room resembles an adjunct to the public library.  But when local book scout Bobby Westfall is murdered, Janeway is sure he knows who did it.  His detective talents are as important as his knowledge of books as he follows the twists and turns of this great mystery.  There are only four books in the Cliff Janeway series, but you’re sure to want to read them all.  Great stuff.


Cover ImageTolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical ReadingNina Sankovitch

Grief-stricken by the loss of her sister, a mother of four spends one year savoring a great book every day, from Thomas Pynchon to Nora Ephron and beyond. In the tradition of Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and Joan Didion’s A Year of Magical Thinking, the author’s literary-minded memoir is a chronicle of loss, hope, and redemption. Nina turns to reading as therapy and through her journey illuminates the power of books to help us reclaim our lives.  Fascinating.


Cover ImageOne for the Books – Joe Queenan

If you love books and reading, this is the book to check out.  At times, laugh out-loud funny as well as mordantly insightful, Queenan takes on all comers in his defense of reading and books.   He’s never one to shy away from expressing his opinions – whether it’s about libraries, bookstores, authors or that goliath, Middlemarch.  Along the way we learn about his life in books and where those books have led him in life.  I enjoyed it!

Cozy Fall Mysteries

Cozy Fall Mysteries

The leaves are turning, and thoughts are on Halloween and Thanksgiving. Settle into this cozy season with one of these delightful mysteries.


Haunted Hibiscus by Laura Childs

It is the week before Halloween and Theodosia Browning, proprietor of the Indigo Tea Shop, and her tea sommelier, Drayton, are attending the grand opening of their literary and historical themed haunted house. But during the opening, amid a parade of characters dressed as Edgar Allan Poe, Lady Macbeth, and the Headless Horseman, the Heritage Society patriarch’s grandniece is suddenly tossed from the third-floor window and left to dangle at the end of a rope. Now Theodosia must find a killer on the eve before Halloween.


Wicked Witch Murder by Leslie Meier

As the air turns crisp and the trees blaze red and gold in the tiny town of Tinker’s Cove, Maine, a newcomer arrives who seems to suit the Halloween season. Diana Ravenscroft has just opened Solstice, a charming little shop featuring candles, crystals, jewelry, and psychic readings. But after an unnervingly accurate reading by Diana, Lucy starts to get more than a little spooked. . Then there’s the dead body Lucy finds, way up on one of the old logging roads behind her house. The deceased is identified as Malcolm Malebranche, a seemingly harmless magician who worked at children’s birthday parties. When it turns out that Diana knew the murder victim, Ike Stoughton, a prominent local businessman, starts a campaign against Diana, blaming “the witch” for everything from the unseasonal dry spell to his wife’s illness and his pumpkins’ lack of plumpness.


Antiques Ravin’ by Barbara Allan

Small-town Antiqua, known for its quaint Main Street lined with antique shops, had set out to celebrate the gothic poet with food, fun, and rare memorabilia. Instead, the Master of the Macabre’s twisted tales come to life-with deadly results. With a bone-rattling mystery sending an entire community into panic mode, the bodacious Borne gals are determined to decipher the telltale signs of cold-blooded murder, and make sure a stark-ravin’-mad killer strikes “nevermore!” Don’t miss Brandy Borne’s tips on hunting for valuable antiques!


Raspberry Danish Murder by Joanne Fluke

Hannah has felt as bitter as November in Minnesota since Ross vanished without a trace and left their marriage in limbo. Still, she throws herself into a baking frenzy for the sake of pumpkin pie and Thanksgiving-themed treats while endless holiday orders pour into The Cookie Jar. Hannah even introduces a raspberry Danish pastry to the menu, and P.K., her husband’s assistant at KCOW-TV, will be one of the first to sample it. But instead of taking a bite, P.K., who is driving Ross’s car and using his desk at work, is murdered. Was someone plotting against P.K. all along or did Ross dodge a deadly dose of sweet revenge? Hannah will have to quickly sift through a cornucopia of clues and suspects to stop a killer from bringing another murder to the table . . .


Pies and Prejudice by Ellery Adams

When the going gets tough, Ella Mae LaFaye bakes pies. So when she catches her husband cheating in New York, she heads back home to Havenwood, Georgia, where she can drown her sorrows in fresh fruit filling and flakey crust. But her pies aren’t just delicious. They’re having magical effects on the people who eat them–and the public is hungry for more.

Discovering her hidden talent for enchantment, Ella Mae makes her own wish come true by opening the Charmed Pie Shoppe. But with her old nemesis Loralyn Gaynor making trouble, and her old crush Hugh Dylan making nice, she has more than pie on her plate. and when Loralyn’s fiancé is found dead–killed with Ella Mae’s rolling pin–it’ll take all her sweet magic to clear her name.


A Catered Thanksgiving by Isis Crawford

In this seventh installment of Crawford’s delicious cozy series featuring catering sisters Bernie and Libby Simmons, a Thanksgiving dinner goes awry thanks to a killer who’s hiding a cornucopia of secrets.

Women in Translation

Women in Translation

Check out these titles for #WIT Month


The Unwomanly Face of War : an Oral history of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich; translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

For more than three decades, Svetlana Alexievich has been the memory and conscience of the twentieth century. When the Swedish Academy awarded her the Nobel Prize, it cited her invention of “a new kind of literary genre,” describing her work as “a history of emotions . . . a history of the soul.”

In The Unwomanly Face of War, Alexievich chronicles the experiences of the Soviet women who fought on the front lines, on the home front, and in the occupied territories. These women–more than a million in total–were nurses and doctors, pilots, tank drivers, machine-gunners, and snipers. They battled alongside men, and yet, after the victory, their efforts and sacrifices were forgotten.


The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald ; translated from the Swedish by Alice Menzies

Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara: Sara traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her book-loving pen pal Amy, but when she arrives she finds Amy’s funeral guests just leaving. The residents of Broken Wheel are happy to look after their bewildered visitor–there’s not much else to do in a dying small town that’s almost beyond repair. You certainly wouldn’t open a bookstore. And definitely not with Sara the tourist in charge.

You’d need a vacant storefront (Main Street is full of them), books (Amy’s house is full of them), and…customers. The bookstore might be a little quirky. Then again, so is Sara. But Broken Wheel’s own story might be funnier, more eccentric and surprising than she thought.


Windward Heights by Maryse Condé ; translated from the French by Richard Philcox

Prizewinning writer Maryse Condé reimagines Emily Brontë’s passionate novel as a tale of obsessive love between the “African” Razyé and Cathy, the mulatto daughter of the man who takes Razyé in and raises him, but whose treatment goads him into rebellious flight. Retaining the emotional power of the original, Condé shows the Caribbean society in the wake of emancipation.


The Time in Between by Maria Duenas ; translated by Daniel Hahn

The inspiring international bestseller of a seemingly ordinary woman who uses her talent and courage to transform herself first into a prestigious couturier and then into an undercover agent for the Allies during World War II.

An outstanding success around the world, The Time in Between has sold more than two million copies and inspired the Spanish television series based on the book, dubbed by the media as the “Spanish Downton Abbey.” In the US it was a critical and commercial hit, and a New York Times bestseller in paperback. It is one of those rare, richly textured novels that enthrall down to the last page. María Dueñas reminds us how it feels to be swept away by a masterful storyteller


The Vegetarian by Han Kang; translated by Deborah Smith

Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams–invasive images of blood and brutality–torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It’s a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her, but also from herself.


In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri ; translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein

In Other Words is a revelation. It is at heart a love story–of a long and sometimes difficult courtship, and a passion that verges on obsession: that of a writer for another language. For Jhumpa Lahiri, that love was for Italian, which first captivated and capsized her during a trip to Florence after college. Although Lahiri studied Italian for many years afterward, true mastery always eluded her.

Seeking full immersion, she decides to move to Rome with her family, for “a trial by fire, a sort of baptism” into a new language and world. There, she begins to read, and to write–initially in her journal–solely in Italian. In Other Words, an autobiographical work written in Italian, investigates the process of learning to express oneself in another language, and describes the journey of a writer seeking a new voice.


Earthlings by Sayaka Murata; translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori

As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit in with her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut, who talks to her. He tells her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth. One summer, on vacation with her family and her cousin Yuu in her grandparents’ ramshackle wooden house in the mountains of Nagano, Natsuki decides that she must be an alien, which would explain why she can’t seem to fit in like everyone else. Later, as a grown woman, living a quiet life with her asexual husband, Natsuki is still pursued by dark shadows from her childhood, and decides to flee the “baby factory” of society for good, searching for answers about the vast and frightening mysteries of the universe–answers only Natsuki has the power to uncover.


The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda; translated from the Japanese by Alison Watts

On a stormy summer day the Aosawas, owners of a prominent local hospital, host a large birthday party. The occasion turns into tragedy when 17 people die from cyanide in their drinks. The only surviving links to what might have happened are a cryptic verse that could be the killer’s, and the physician’s bewitching blind daughter, Hisako, the only person spared injury. But the youth who emerges as the prime suspect commits suicide that October, effectively sealing his guilt while consigning his motives to mystery. The police are convinced that Hisako had a role in the crime, as are many in the town, including the author of a bestselling book about the murders written a decade after the incident, who was herself a childhood friend of Hisako’ and witness to the discovery of the murders. The truth is revealed through a skillful juggling of testimony by different voices: family members, witnesses and neighbors, police investigators and of course the mesmerizing Hisako herself.


The Dead Girls’ Class Trip : Selected Stories by Anna Seghers ; translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo

This selection of Seghers’s best stories, written between 1925 and 1965, reflects the range of her creativity over the years and includes her most famous stories, such as the autobiographical “The Dead Girls’ Class Trip,” as well as those translated into English for the first time, like “Jans Must Die.” Here are psychologically penetrating stories about young men corrupted by desperation and women bound by circumstance, as well as enigmatic tales of bewilderment and enchantment, stories based on myths and legends like “The Best Tales of Woynok the Thief,” “The Legends of Artemis,” and “The Three Trees.” Seghers used the German language in especially unconventional and challenging ways in her stories, and Margot Bettauer Dembo’s sensitive and skilled translation preserves this distinction.


Flights by Olga Tokarczuk; translated by Jennifer Croft

From the incomparably original Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, Flights interweaves reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. Chopin’s heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time. Where are you from? Where are you coming in from? Where are you going? we call to the traveler. Enchanting, unsettling, and wholly original, Flights is a master storyteller’s answer.


Snowdrift / Helene Tursten ; translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy

It’s been fourteen years since Detective Inspector Embla Nystrom’s best friend disappeared from a nightclub, but Embla recognises her voice on a surprise call before it is abruptly disconnects. Embla is thrilled to learn Lollo is still alive, but before she can find out more, she gets another call this time from a relative. A man has been found shot dead in one of the guest houses he manages in rural Sweden. Could she come take a look? When Embla arrives on the scene, she receives another shock. The dead man is Milo Stavic, a well-known gang member and one of the last people seen with Lollo.
https://adult.sewickleylibrary.org/category/books/fiction/mystery/
adult.sewickleylibrary.org
crawl=CC-MAIN-2022-49
133931
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:YEVNK4KI75P4J3CULCJEI467HCKCZV4V
<urn:uuid:ac0874e1-7240-4443-820e-519411a6b47c>
2022-12-05T18:32:49Z
66.39.158.91
text/html
sha1:6ALH3LMSGK25JLRFCEPF4HCOY36PLP6C
<urn:uuid:d701fc8a-fed7-469b-9bbb-7274237c737b>
https://adult.sewickleylibrary.org/category/books/fiction/mystery/
response
<urn:uuid:dbf00401-d6c5-4cdf-b295-219830057932>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2022-49
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for November/December 2022
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-92
software: Apache Nutch 1.19 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.4-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/