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Handpicked by Mary Kay July 2018
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Thank you for checking out my picks! I work as the Adult Services Manager on the second floor of RFPL and my favorite hobbies are a) reading; and b) listening to audiobooks while taking walks. My favorite genres right now are psychological suspense, literary fiction, and political nonfiction. I also love movies and tv shows with a dark edge. However, I enjoy helping readers / watchers of ALL stripes find that next great book or show at the library! Feel free to contact me for a custom list at mkakers@rflib.org. I hope to see you in the library soon.
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The Cactus by Sarah HaywoodFor Susan Green, messy emotions don't fit into the equation of her perfectly ordered life. She has a flat that is ideal for one, a job that suits her passion for logic and an 'interpersonal arrangement' that provides cultural and other, more intimate, benefits. But suddenly confronted with the loss of her mother and the news that she is about to become a mother herself, Susan's greatest fear is realized. She is losing control. When she learns that her mother's will inexplicably favors her indolent brother, Edward, Susan's already dismantled world is sent flying into a tailspin. As Susan's due date draws near and her family problems become increasingly difficult to ignore, Susan finds help and self-discovery in the most unlikely of places.
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The Gunners by Rebecca Kauffman"Kauffman has done something remarkable with The Gunners . . . She's made spending time with [her characters] not just tolerable but delightful. And she's achieved this not by manufacturing likability, but by so convincingly rendering the affection between them that you accept each character's foibles as readily as they do one another's . . . There's so much generosity and spirit and humor shared by whatever characters are on the page at any given time that I was always happy to accompany them." -- The New York Times Book Review
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The high season : a novel by Judy BlundellThe ultimate summer read--featuring indelible characters, crackling wit, and sophisticated storytelling--about one season when everything in a woman's life goes wrong. On Memorial Day weekend in a seaside town on Long Island, Ruthie, her still-adored ex-husband, Mike, and the couple's sullen fifteen-year-old daughter, Jem, are packing up the last bits of their household in preparation for the yearly arrival of a wealthy renter from Manhattan. It is what Jem calls "the summer bummer"; her parents own a beautiful house that they have renovated by hand from top to bottom, but which they can only afford to keep by leasing it out during the best part of the year. This is a novel about the dreams and ambitions of youth coming to terms with the realities of middle-age; about the way desperation can make us astonish ourselves; and about how the most disruptive events in our lives can sometimes twist endings into new beginnings.
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The Outsider by Stephen KingAn eleven-year-old boy's violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City's most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad. But Maitland has an alibi, and it turns out that his story has incontrovertible evidence of its own. How can two opposing stories be true? What happens to a family when an accusation of this magnitude is delivered? When must reason or rationality be abandoned in order to explain the unexplicable? Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face?
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That kind of mother : a novel by Rumaan AlamLike many first-time mothers, Rebecca Stone finds herself both deeply in love with her newborn son and deeply overwhelmed. Struggling to juggle the demands of motherhood with her own aspirations and feeling utterly alone in the process, she reaches out to the only person at the hospital who offers her any real help--Priscilla Johnson--and begs her to come home with them as her son's nanny. Rebecca is white, and Priscilla is black, and through their relationship, Rebecca finds herself confronting, for the first time, the blind spots of her own privilege.When Priscilla dies unexpectedly in childbirth, Rebecca steps forward to adopt the baby. But she is unprepared for what it means to be a white mother with a black son. As she soon learns, navigating motherhood for her is a matter of learning how to raise two children whom she loves with equal ferocity, but whom the world is determined to treat differently.
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The wife between us by Greer HendricksA psychologically charged tale of suspense follows the unexpected twists that shape a divorce and second marriage that are anything but what they seem.
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Kudos by Rachel CuskA woman writer visits a Europe in flux, where questions of personal and political identity are rising to the surface and the trauma of change is opening up new possibilities of loss and renewal. Within the rituals of literary culture, Faye finds the human story in disarray amid differing attitudes toward the public performance of the creative persona. She begins to identify among the people she meets a tension between truth and representation, a fissure that accrues great dramatic force as Kudos reaches a profound and beautiful climax.
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My Ex-life by Stephen McCauley"I didn't know how much I needed a laugh until I began reading Stephen McCauley's new novel, My Ex-Life . This is the kind of witty, sparkling, sharp novel for which the verb 'chortle' was invented." -- Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air
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Still lives : a novel by Maria HummelA young editor at a Los Angeles art museum is pulled into the disturbing and dangerous world of a famous artist who goes missing on the opening night of her exhibition.
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