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Staff Picks September 2020
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A Good Neighborhood by Therese FowlerIn Oak Knoll, a verdant, tight-knit North Carolina neighborhood, professor of forestry and ecology Valerie Alston-Holt is raising her bright and talented biracial son, Xavier, who's headed to college in the fall. All is well until the Whitmans--a family with new money and a secretly troubled teenage daughter--raze the house and trees next door to build themselves a showplace. With little in common except a property line, these two families quickly find themselves at odds: first, over an historic oak tree in Valerie's yard, and soon after, the blossoming romance between their two teenagers.
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The Fifth Avenue Story Society by Rachel Hauck When five New Yorkers receive an anonymous, mysterious invitation to the Fifth Avenue Story Society, they suspect they're victims of a practical joke. No one knows who sent the invitations or why. No one has heard of the literary society. And no one is prepared to reveal their deepest secrets to a roomful of strangers. Yet curiosity and loneliness bring them back week after week to the old library. And it's there they discover the stories of their hearts, and the kind of friendship and love that heals their souls.
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A Robot in the Garden by Deborah Install Ben's really great at failing at things--his job, being a husband, taking the garbage out. But then he finds a battered robot named Tang in his garden. And Tang needs Ben. More ornery and prone to tantrums than one would expect from something made of gears and springs, Tang desperately must be fixed--and he just might be the thing to fix what's broken in Ben. Together they will discover that friendship can rise up under the strangest of circumstances, and what it really means to be human.
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From the Kitchen of Half Truth by Maria GoodinInfused with the delicious warmth of "Chocolat" and the captivating feeling of "School of Essential Ingredients," this is the warm, tender story of Meg, whose cooking-obsessed mother has always regaled her with fantastical memories of their lives which Meg knows are not true, but now that her mother is gravely ill, she and Meg spend one last summer together as Meg tries to find out the truth.
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The Dressmaker's Gift by Fiona ValpyParis, 1940. With the city occupied by the Nazis, three young seamstresses go about their normal lives as best they can. But all three are hiding secrets. War-scarred Mireille is fighting with the Resistance; Claire has been seduced by a German officer; and Vivienne's involvement is something she can't reveal to either of them. Two generations later, Claire's English granddaughter Harriet arrives in Paris, rootless and adrift, desperate to find a connection with her past. Living and working in the same building on the Rue Cardinale, she learns the truth about her grandmother - and herself - and unravels a family history that is darker and more painful than she ever imagined.
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The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant by Kayte Nunn1951. Esther Durrant, a young mother, is committed to an isolated mental asylum by her husband. Run by a pioneering psychiatrist, the hospital is at first Esther's prison but soon becomes her refuge. 2017. Free-spirited marine scientist Rachel Parker embarks on a research posting in the Isles of Scilly, off the Cornish coast. When a violent storm forces her to take shelter on a far-flung island, she discovers a collection of hidden love letters. Captivated by their passion and tenderness, Rachel determines to track down the intended recipient.
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The Moment of Everything by Shelly KingMaggie, recently fired from a tech startup, spends her time at a used book store, waiting for something to come along, but when she finds an antique copy of "Lady Chatterley's Lover," everything changes. The edition she finds at the bookstore is no Penguin Classics Chatterley-it's an ancient hardcover with notes in the margins between two besotted lovers of long ago. What Maggie finds in her search for the lovers and their fate, and what she learns about herself in the process, will surprise and move readers.
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Gaining Visibility by Pamela HearonCelebrating her victory over breast cancer, Julia Berkwith, in her late 40s, arrives in the Italian countryside where an injury leads her into the home and arms of 30-something stone mason and extraordinarily talented sculptor Vitale DeLuca, who sees something inside of her that no one else ever has.
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Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong WashburnIn 1995 Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, on a rare family vacation, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls overboard a cruise ship into the Pacific Ocean. When a shiver of sharks appears in the water, everyone fears for the worst. But instead, Noa is gingerly delivered to his mother in the jaws of a shark, marking his story as the stuff of legends. Nainoa's family, struggling amidst the collapse of the sugarcane industry, hails his rescue as a sign of favor from ancient Hawaiian gods--a belief that appears validated after he exhibits puzzling new abilities. But as time passes, this supposed divine favor begins to drive the family apart.
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Inside Out: A Memoirby Demi MooreIn this deeply candid and reflective memoir, Moore pulls back the curtain and opens up about her career and personal life--laying bare her tumultuous relationship with her mother, her marriages, her struggles balancing stardom with raising a family, and her journey toward open heartedness.
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