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Retired Staff Picks March 2017 Retired staff Carmen, Char, Chris, Debbie, Ellen, Jane, Linda, Sara, and Trish offer their reading suggestions.
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Another Brooklyn : a novel
by Jacqueline Woodson
Torn between the fantasies of her youth and the realities of a life marked by violence and abandonment, August reunites with a beloved old friend who challenges her to reconcile past inconsistencies and come to terms with the difficulties that forced her to grow up too quickly.
Call Number: F WOODSON, JACQUELINE
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Behold the dreamers : a novel
by Imbolo Mbue
In the fall of 2007, Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Their situation only improves when Jende's wife Neni is hired as household help. But in the course of their work, Jende and Neni begin to witness infidelities, skirmishes, and family secrets. Then, with the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers, a tragedy changes all four lives forever, and the Jongas must decide whether to continue fighting to stay in a recession-ravaged America or give up and return home to Cameroon.
Call Number: F MBUE, IMBOLO
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Child 44
by Tom Rob Smith
Rising Soviet state security force officer Leo Demidov encounters the test of his career when a serial killer challenges his beliefs about the paradise of the working world, resulting in his demotion and threats against the lives of his family members.
Call Number: F SMITH, TOM R.
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Everything We Keep : A Novel
by Kerry Lonsdale
Sous chef Aimee Tierney has the perfect recipe for the perfect life: marry her childhood sweetheart, raise a family, and buy out her parents’ restaurant. But when her fiancé, James Donato, vanishes in a boating accident, her well-baked future is swept out to sea. Instead of walking down the aisle on their wedding day, Aimee is at James’s funeral—a funeral that leaves her more unsettled than at peace. As Aimee struggles to reconstruct her life, she delves deeper into James’s disappearance. What she uncovers is an ocean of secrets that make her question everything about the life they built together. And just below the surface is a truth that may set Aimee free…or shatter her forever.
Call Number: F LONSDALE, KERRY
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A house without windows
by Nadia Hashimi
Accused by her in-laws and imprisoned for the brutal death of her husband, Zeba forges bonds with a group of women who have also been locked up for social violations and places her fate in the hands of an Afghan-born civil rights lawyer.
Call Number: F HASHIMI, NADIA
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Leaving Lucy Pear
by Anna Solomon
Inadvertently reunited with the daughter she secretly abandoned and the girl's Irish-Catholic adoptive mother during the height of America's xenophobic Prohibition era, the adult daughter of a Jewish industrialist finds her life turned upside down by her daughter's bold and unconventional personality.
Call Number: F SOLOMON, ANNA
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The Mark of the King
by Jocelyn Green
After being imprisoned and branded for the death of her client, twenty-five-year-old midwife Julianne Chevalier trades her life sentence for exile to the fledgling 1720s French colony of Louisiana, where she hopes to be reunited with her brother, serving there as a soldier. To make the journey, though, women must be married, and Julianne is forced to wed a fellow convict. When they arrive in New Orleans, there is no news of Benjamin, Julianne's brother, and searching for answers proves dangerous. What is behind the mystery, and does military officer Marc-Paul Girard know more than he is letting on?
Call Number: LP F GREEN, JOCELYN
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They may not mean to, but they do
by Cathleen Schine
Refusing to age quietly, take antidepressants or accept the inevitable loss of her longtime husband, Joy Bergman shocks her children when, after becoming a widow, she reconnects with a former flame from her college days, turning as willful and rebellious as the younger members of their family.
Call Number: F SCHINE, CATHLEEN
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The most dangerous place on earth : a novel
by Lindsey Lee Johnson
In an edenic community of wealthy Bay Area families, Molly Nicholl, a replacement teacher from a poorer, scrubbier version of California, arrives in the middle of the school year and soon becomes intrigues by the hidden lives of her privileged students. Unknown to her, a tragedy from their middle school years continues to reverberate for 'her' kids. Among these are Callista, a hippie outcast who hides her intelligence for reasons of her own; Ryan the star pitcher and sex object; Dave, the nice kid whose parents' obsession with his SAT scores threatens to upend his life; Emma, a dancer who balances her dreams of bright stagelights with wildness on the weekends, and Nick, the uneasy kingpin of schemes, pranks, and parties.
Call Number: F JOHNSON, LINDSEY L.
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The one man
by Andrew Gross
Physics professor Alfred Mendl is separated from his family and sent to the men's camp, where all of his belongings are tossed on a roaring fire. His books, his papers, his life's work. The Nazis have no idea what they have just destroyed. And without that physical record, Alfred is one of only two people in the world with his particular knowledge. Nathan Blum works behind a desk at an intelligence office in Washington, DC, but he longs to contribute to the war effort in a more meaningful way, and he has a particular skill set the U.S. suddenly needs. Nathan is fluent in German and Polish, he is Semitic looking, and he proved his scrappiness at a young age when he escaped from the Polish ghetto. Now, the government wants him to take on the most dangerous assignment of his life: Nathan must sneak into Auschwitz, on a mission to find and escape with one man.
Call Number: F GROSS, ANDREW
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The pursuit : a Fox and O'Hare novel
by Janet Evanovich
Fox and O'Hare #5
Nicolas Fox, international con man, thief, and one of the top ten fugitives on the FBI’s most-wanted list, has been kidnapped from a beachfront retreat in Hawaii. What the kidnapper doesn’t know is that Nick Fox has been secretly working for the FBI. It isn’t long before Nick’s covert partner, Special Agent Kate O’Hare, is in hot pursuit. The trail leads to Belgium, France, and Italy, and pits Nick and Kate against their deadliest adversary yet: Dragan Kovic, an ex–Serbian military officer. He’s plotting a crime that will net him billions and cost thousands of American lives.
Call Number: F EVANOVICH, JANET
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Shining sea : a novel
by Anne Korkeakivi
An arresting and absorbing novel spans decades, drawing readers into the turbulent lives of a family in Southern California after the sudden death of the father.
Call Number: F KORKEAKIVI, ANNE
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Small admissions : a novel
by Amy Poeppel
Becoming profoundly unmotivated after being dumped by her French boyfriend, a summa cum laude graduate takes a job in the admissions department of a prestigious school, where she endures a season of nasty applicants, winsome underdogs and pushy parents.
Call Number: F POEPPEL, AMY
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The thirteenth tale : a novel
by Diane Setterfield
Having spent six decades creating a series of alternate lives designed to bring her fame and fortune while hiding the truth about her tragic past, reclusive and enigmatic Vida Winter finds herself torn by young Margaret Lea's simple request for the truth about her own birth.
Call Number: F SETTERFIELD, DIANE
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The weird sisters
by Eleanor Brown
Unwillingly brought together to care for their ailing mother, three sisters who were named after famous Shakespearean characters discover that everything they have been avoiding may prove more worthwhile than expected.
Call Number: F BROWN, ELEANOR
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