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Featuring eccentric characters, laugh-out-loud humor, and tremendous heart, this refreshing debut novel has been compared to the works of Anne Tyler and John Irving. Setting her story in contemporary Seattle, Kallos spins a most unusual tale of the friendship between an older woman who has learned of her impending death, and a young woman whose life is unraveling. The book explores the nature of human relationships and offers insight about the hidden strength in people we may see as flawed or imperfect. You won't be able to put down this thought provoking, compelling page turner. Strong character development, an unpredictable plot, and beautifully poetic language combine to make this a winner.

Reviewed by Staci F., South County Regional

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Fresh out of journalism school with his ambitions, his mother’s hopes, and the myth of his father’s renown as a reporter driving him to succeed, Gordon Hatch accepts an entry-level newspaper job as an obituary writer. When the recently widowed Alicia Whiting calls about her husband’s obituary, she dangles the possibility of an important story. Gordon follows-up hoping to launch his career, but their relationship quickly turns from professional to personal, from caring to suspicious, and from romantic to tragic. Then, just after he learns the truth about Alicia’s life, he finds out more about his father and understands the full meaning of a friend’s advice: “No secrets.” While searching for his breakthrough, Gordon finds himself.

Reviewed by Charles D., Morrison Regional

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The Planet Walden was purchased a few generations ago by a visionary who wanted to create a society that emulates the philosophy of Henry David Thoreau. The farmer named Spur is in the hospital recovering from burns he acquired while battling a forest fire. The first human immigrants of Walden are practicing guerilla arson and volunteers like Spur put their lives on the line in order to fight these fires. While fighting off the boredom of convalescence he contacts a mystic, child prince via a galaxy wide web while doing a search of his own name. The child, called the High Gregory, comes to Walden to visit Spur and to do all he can to insert himself into local politics. This short novel displays all that science fiction is capable of. It explores the nature of nature and our relationship with it and the relations between humans and what it means to be human. A short book with big ideas.

Reviewed by Edward M., Morrison Regional

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Diane Setterfield has written a mesmerizing novel, both mysterious and inspirational. Narrated in a richly descriptive prose, bookish Margaret Lea writes a biography about England’s best-selling author, Veda Winter, while offering a glimpse into her own tormented life. After Margaret goes to live with Veda on the beautiful, but desolate Yorkshire estate, she gets a glimpse into the mystery of the Angelfield twins, as told by the enigmatic and famous author. Yet, what exactly is Veda hiding in her story of the bedeviled twins of Angelfield? Is she, herself, one of the twins? What is the secret of the family tragedy? Finally, what is Veda Winter’s untold Thirteenth Tale? Setterfield has written a brilliant story, compellingly told - a perfect page-turner for chilly winter nights.

Reviewed by Rosanne L., Matthews Branch

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Reader's comments about this book

This was one of the most enthralling books I have read in years. Anyone who loves the written word and books in general will find a special interest in this mesmerizing tale! It is one of the works I wish I could read again and again with new eyes.
-Courtney, Charlotte, NC

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Trixie Stone is the average American teenager living in the small town of Bethel, Maine, except for the fact that she has been accused of murder and is currently on the run in Alaska. Her family is also the average American family unless you take into account that her artist father Daniel was once also accused of murder and her Dante scholar mother is currently having an affair with one of her students. In her new novel, Jodi Picoult once again takes us into the lives of what seem to be average individuals to show the secrets hidden deep within the modern everyday family. Family ties, betrayal, and the honesty of love all combine to make this intriguing work truly engrossing and heartfelt.

Reviewed by Courtney A., South County Regional

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Tessa Lee remembers the night she and her brother Travis were left in the campground by their mother. She remembers the two room tent with its mosquitoes and the firefly robe her mother left as a blanket. She always thought her mother was lost to her until she found out she was only two hours down the road working on a local boardwalk. But everything is different now. Tessa Lee is a teenager and her brother Travis, well, his life is different, too. Should she try to see her mother or try to go on without her? If only she could go back in time and change everything. Wonderfully descriptive, detailed and unique, Reynold’s new novel shines like a firefly in the world of fiction.

Reviewed by Courtney A., South County Regional

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Anna Singer, a newly divorced New York-based grant writer, struggles to deal with the loss of her husband to a younger woman and the sudden death of her father. The healing begins as she travels to India in an attempt to understand her enigmatic mother Rose, who spent her youth in Calcutta under the watchful eye of a rigid workaholic father. Armed with Rose's typewritten recollections, Anna arrives in Delhi and immerses herself in the sights and sounds of an overcrowded, slower-paced country. Bacon presents a satisfying story of revelation, reparation, recovery, and restoration as Anna's cathartic journey releases her own guilt - and that of her mother. Without this emotional baggage, they are free to discover that there is room for both of them.

Reviewed by Susanne W., South County Regional

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This disturbing and unforgettable classic, after more than twenty rejections, was published to instant acclaim and was instrumental in winning Golding the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. Few books haunt the reader as this one does as it explores the fine line between schoolboy innocence and primitive savagery with the harrowing tale of young survivors of a wartime airplane crash who establish their own civilization on a deserted island. That civilization rapidly crumbles as responsible leadership is usurped by unbridled hedonism that rapidly descends to madness, resulting in a bloodlust that turns the former leadership into hunted prey.

Reviewed by Jim B., Main Library

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Set during the year leading up to 9/11, this follow-up to Glass’ award winning Three Junes alternates between the urban buzz of New York City and the scenic splendor of New Mexico. Well-developed, complicated characters and colorful metaphors dominate this complex family drama, in which Manhattan pastry chef Greenie Duquette and her psychotherapist husband, Alan, deal with the turbulent disappointments and challenges of middle age while caring for their four year old son George. Fans of literary fiction and family drama will appreciate this rich, compelling story about how random events can send any one of us down a path we never intended to take, and the impact recklessness, chance and choice have on our relationships.

Reviewed by Staci F., South County Regional

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This short, masterful work is not really about spies. Sallis uses the spy genre to lay bare the fluidity of personal identity. David had been an operative for the Agency for years until one day he knows he can’t do it anymore. He left the field to make a life for himself, eventually, as an artist and fell truly in love for the first time. Nine years later, when the Agency is in desperate need of his talents, they come calling. Sallis sees more deeply into the human soul and its mix of dark and light than any author I’ve read lately.

Reviewed by Mark B., Main Library

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Gossip and suspicion are as infectious as disease in this historical novel by Andrea Barrett. Set in a rest home for tuberculosis sufferers in 1917, we follow the arrival of new inmates as they undergo a crisis and its aftermath that nearly destroys the whole community. Barrett is gifted in creating thumbnail sketches of her characters, making them realistic and believable in a few lines, without glossing over the failings of her heroes or the redeeming qualities of her villains. She weaves together science, love, the first world war, and race into a moving account of a community tearing itself apart.

Reviewed by Ian R., North County Regional

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Coming from the perspective of an aspiring writer, I feel The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler is an invaluable tool. If you are a fan of language, its progression in culture, or just the noir style for that matter, then you will love this book. It is wonderful for the literary mind to see how a writer thinks and works and these notebooks serve that purpose like no other book could. In The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler one gets to delve inside the mind of a great writer, and thus use his process to help train the aspiring writer with theirs. This is just an all around fun book to graze through, and an added bonus in the back is a short story “English Summer.”

Reviewed by Joseph D., Morrison Regional

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The celebrated author of The Savage Detectives composed this piece on his deathbed, cementing his place in the literary canon. 2666 is a sprawling epic in five parts, all of which relate to Benno von Archimboldi, a well respected and reclusive writer. The first section follows four scholars who share a love for Archimboldi’s work and a quest to find the mysterious author. Other sections deal with the mysterious deaths of hundreds of women in Santa Teresa, Mexico. Though the five parts seem disparate, the final part ties them all together. Bolaño’s haunting, enigmatic, and multilayered writing leaves the reader with much to think about after putting the book down.

Reviewed by Meri H., University City Regional

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In 1966 Charleston's Carolina Military Institute admits the first black cadet. Will McLean is asked to watch for any trouble that may ensue. Will would rather play basketball and hone his craft as a writer. Being a man of honor and a senior cadet leaves him no choice but to take on the task. Will discovers problems much deeper than he ever expected. Don't avoid this masterful novel thinking that it's a military book; it is much more than that. Honor, honesty, integrity, justice and the struggle for these ideals are the heart of Conroy's novel. He uses the milieu of a Southern military academy in 1966 to drive home themes perfectly suited to such a setting. The military academy is the canvas, not the painting.

Reviewed by Mark B., Main Library

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The book begins with Smokey Barnable’s journey to Edgewood Manor, which is in upstate New York. He has to follow some strange rules to find it, like wearing clothes that are only borrowed and going on foot. Edgewood Manor, you see, exists on the edge of reality. The family who lives there has a rich and bizarre history, as does the manor itself, more a compilation of several manors than a typical country estate. This stunningly written family saga is infused with elements of magic realism and scads of literary references. It deals with the character and history of the United States, particularly our eclectic landscape, history, legends, and architecture. It’s a masterpiece that defies description.

Reviewed by Meri H., University City Regional

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A true writer, David Martín feels he has sold his soul when he accepts a contract to write a pulp series for an ample salary. When a mysterious man with dark eyes and an angel pin approaches him with an unusual but lucrative commission, he accepts. Then strange things begin happening, and David fears that he has gotten into something far more sinister than the gothic novels he writes. The plot twists and turns through the alleys of Zafon’s beloved Barcelona, illustrated with grotesque and beautiful scenes one might find in a film. Fans of The Shadow of the Wind will recognize some recurring characters and settings, though the book stands well on its own. Beautifully written, with carefully constructed action and mystery, this book has something for everyone.

Reviewed by Meri H., University City Regional

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With keen wit and spectacular insight into human nature, George Eliot chronicles the lives of some key characters in a small town in 19th century England. Over a backdrop of marriages, deaths, births, and fortunes gained and lost, the people of Middlemarch thrive and falter, depending on the strength of their characters and the wisdom of their choices. The characters depicted range from the saint to the self-serving criminal, though every character has dual aspects. A classic of Victorian Literature, the book is also an early feminist novel, with several strong female characters and a mocking tone towards the myth of female ignorance. Eliot flavors the entire tale with her grounding wit, which gives us nothing less than a brilliant depiction of human nature.

Reviewed by Meri H., University City Regional

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Leo King has led a troubled life since he found his older brother dead after committing suicide. On June 19, 1969 people who will mold the rest of his life make their entrance into his world. While these people are very different from one another the bonds they form during their senior year in high school become the threads that will be woven together to form their adult lives. The author brings the beauty of Charleston and the low country of South Carolina to life as the city itself becomes a character in this tale. The power of love and friendship is just one of the many themes of this lyrical novel, the author's first in fourteen years. Don’t miss Conroy’s latest gem.

Reviewed by Mark B., Main Library

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Le Carré’s typically reluctant spy, Bruno Salvador is the “zebra” son of an Irish missionary and an unknown Congolese woman. His remarkable gift for languages, which includes fluency in Congolese dialects, guarantees him regular work in London business, as well as the occasional stint with British Intelligence, which he happily embraces as his patriotic duty. His first major assignment is to serve as an interpreter for a mysterious Syndicate dimly associated with British interests at a conference dealing with coming elections in the Congo. Needless to say, he becomes entangled in a world where nothing is as it is presented to be. All parties involved have a hidden – and dishonorable – agenda. Le Carré is at his best here, mixing tragedy and satire with devastating effect.

Reviewed by Jim B., Main Library

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