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"When I was your age, television was called books." ~ from The Princess Bride
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New and Recently Released!
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| A Touch of Stardust: A Novel by Kate AlcottFiction. Julie Crawford is busy watching (fake) Atlanta burn when she's first fired by David O. Selznick. Julie, an aspiring screenwriter from Indiana, arrives in California in 1938, finding work on the set of Gone With the Wind before becoming the personal assistant of movie star (and fellow Fort Wayne native) Carole Lombard. Julie's backstage access gives her a front row seat to the blossoming love affair between Lombard and Clark Gable, recently cast as Rhett Butler. Witnessing a burgeoning scandal (Gable's married) that could derail the stars' careers as well as a troubled shoot that's constantly over-budget and behind schedule, Julie quickly discovers the chaos and heartbreak beneath Hollywood's glittering facade. |
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As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust
by C. Alan Bradley
Mystery. Set in 1951, Bradley’s exceptional seventh series whodunit (after 2014’s The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches ) takes Flavia de Luce, a preteen with an interest in poisons, from her family home in Bishop’s Lacey, England, to Canada, where she is to attend her late mother’s alma mater, Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy. On Flavia’s very first night there, a fellow student, P.A. Collingwood, bursts into her room and reveals that three other girls have disappeared. When the head of school, Miss Fawlthorne (aka the Hangman’s Mistress), knocks at Flavia’s door, Collingwood flees up the chimney, dislodging a mummified corpse and detaching its skull. This intriguing setup only gets better, and Bradley makes Miss Bodycote’s a suitably Gothic setting for Flavia’s sleuthing. Through it all, her morbid narrative voice continues to charm.
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Prudence : Library Edition
by Gail Carriger
Steampunk Fantasy. Raised in London as the adopted daughter of the vampire Lord Akeldama, Prudence has inherited a variation of her mother Alexia's preternatural abilities: she can borrow the powers of any werewolf or vampire that she touches. Her father sends her on a mission to India to investigate a possible new source for tea, and Prudence (along with her best friend, Primrose) sails by airship to Bombay where she becomes embroiled in a conflict between the local vampires and shapeshifters. VERDICT This opener, a spin-off of the recently completed steampunk "Parasol Protectorate" series that began with Soulless , has a younger heroine but a similar narrative voice. The deliberately purple prose and exuberant excess take some getting used to for new readers, but the author's humor and affection for her outlandish characters is always appealing. A fun launch for a new line of steampunk adventures from the popular Carriger.
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Mightier Than the Sword
by Jeffrey Archer
Historical Fiction. In the aftermath of an IRA bombing, Harry uses his new literary station to raise awareness for his POW friend while Giles works to secure a political career and Sebastian's past threatens his engagement. By the New York Times best-selling author of Sins of the Father.
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| The Magician's Lie: A Novel by Greer MacallisterFiction. From her tiny jail cell in Janesville, Iowa, famed female magician the Amazing Arden (née Ada Bates) recounts her life story to police officer Virgil Holt, who suspects her of using one of her stage illusions to commit a very real murder. Richly detailed depictions of early 20th-century traveling circuses and Arden's own autobiographical "confession" keep listeners hooked throughout this story's many twists and turns. |
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A Spool of Blue Thread
by Anne Tyler
Fiction. The changing needs of aging parents impact a family gathering during which Abby Whitshank relates how her husband and she fell in love during the summer of 1959 and shared decades of marriage impacted by children and long-held secrets. Reading-group guide available. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Breathing Lessons.
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| Night Film by Marisha PesslThriller. When the 24-year-old daughter of director Stanislas Cordova is found dead in an abandoned Manhattan warehouse, disgraced journalist Scott McGrath has grave doubts that the cause of her death was suicide. Although investigating the reclusive filmmaker nearly ended McGrath's career several years ago, he's determined that this time, he'll discover the truth about Cordova -- from the persistent rumors of child abuse and occult rituals to the director's infamous "night films," cult movies known to fans through underground screenings. With the help of his young assistants, McGrath embarks on a surreal, often dangerous journey through Cordova's life and work to the dark place where art and obsession intersect. |
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Private L.A.
by James Patterson
Mystery. When Hollywood's biggest superstar couple disappears without a word from their ranch, private investigator Jack Morgan confronts dangerous secrets to expose an underworld of desperation and deception.
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| Beautiful Ruins: A Novel by Jess WalterFiction. In 1962, Porto Vergogna, Italy, is a grubby coastal village that even the locals call culo di baldracca, or "the whore's crack." But Pasquale Tursi, proprietor of the Hotel Adequate View, has big dreams for his hometown -- dreams that appear to be coming true when American starlet Dee Moray arrives at what Pasquale optimistically calls his seaside resort. Dee, a minor member of Cleopatra's sprawling cast (which includes real-life celebrity couple Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton), brings some much-needed glamour to Vergogna -- but at what cost? |
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Celebrity in Death
by J. D. Robb
Romantic Suspense. Lieutenant Eve Dallas is no party girl, but she's managing to have a reasonably good time at the celebrity-packed bash celebrating The Icove Agenda, a film based on one of her famous cases. It's a little spooky seeing the actress playing her, who looks almost like her long-lost twin. Not as unsettling, though, as seeing the actress who plays Peabody drowned in the lap pool on the roof of the director's luxury building. Now, she must step into the role she was born to play: cop.
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Mission to Paris : a novel
by Alan Furst
Historical Fiction. Arriving in Paris on the eve of the Munich Appeasement in 1938, Hollywood star Frederic Stahl is unwittingly entangled in the region's shifting political currents when he discovers that his latest film is linked to the destinies of fascists, German Nazis, and Hollywood publicists.
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An Accidental Affair
by Eric Jerome Dickey
Romantic Suspense. When allegations about his actress wife's infidelity are posted online, James, a screenwriter with a violent past, attacks his wife's lover, sparking a media frenzy that compels him to go into hiding and resort to extreme measures to protect his wife.
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Contact your librarians for more great books!
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Forsyth County Public Library 201 North Chestnut Street Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27101 336-703-2665www.forsythlibrary.org |
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