The Night Guest

My love for debut novels can be a blessing and a curse.  I recently had someone ask if I tend to read the follow-up to an author's debut.  When I responded with a "pfft", I realized I may have a problem.  However, it can certainly be a great thing when I find one of those under-the-radar titles that winds up being amazing.  Fiona McFarlane's debut, The Night Guest, is one of those titles that reminds me why I love reading debuts.

Ruth is a widow living in a beach house on the coast of Australia.  Her husband, Harry, passed away a year ago and, while Ruth gets along fine for the most part, something is certainly missing from her life now.  Enter Frida, a guest who arrives one night claiming to be a helper from the government.  She cleans, cooks, and even makes conversation with Ruth, getting to know her.  But where did Frida really come from?  And is she a good influence upon Ruth's life or is she too much of an influence?  As Ruth begins piecing together Frida's past, she finds herself wondering about her guest's intentions.

I love books that I have trouble classifying.  This is certainly one of them.  Mystery?  Literary Fiction?  Suspense?  Romance?  Psychological Fiction? All of the above applies here.  The writing style is magnificent and very lyrical.  If that doesn't pique your interest, did I mention the tiger Ruth occasionally hears in her home at night? 

Chris May- Adult Services Manager

Joyce Carol Oates Does It Again

Joyce Carol Oates, esteemed writer of terrific fiction like Blonde and What I Lived For, is one of those timeless authors you must pay attention to.  Her fiction has won many awards, such as the O.Henry Award, National Book Award, and the National Humanities Medal.  She has also been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.  Not a bad career!

Her latest, Evil Eye, is a collection of four novellas about the dangers of love.  In the first work, we meet Mariana, who is the fourth wife to an esteemed college professor.  The first wife, with whom the husband has a polite friendship, comes to visit and Mariana learns a secret through this encounter that rocks the foundation of her marriage.  A shy, awkward teenager meets a young man who shows an immediate interest in her in the second work.  She soon learns that his interest in her goes beyond typical teenage love, towards something far more sinister.  The third work, The Execution, follows young Bart Hansen through a vicious and unthinkable crime.  The results, thanks to the love of his mother, is not what the reader will be expecting.  Finally, the last work follows Cecelia as she tries to deal with the horrible events of her childhood that threaten to ruin her first true love.

Oates creates such atmospheric pieces in these short works of fiction.  The dread and inner turmoil each character deals with through his or her journey comes right off the page, creating a believable look at love gone wrong.  It really is nothing short of amazing.

Chris May- Adult Services Manager

Have You Missed Coffee By the Book?

Coffee By the Book, started last year as a joint venture between the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library and Bailiwicks Coffee Company, has been a rousing success throughout its first year of existence.  This is not your normal book group.  First, there's obviously coffee.  How can you go wrong there?  Second, the book selections may surprise you.  The focus is on debut novels, often quirky, that may have slipped under your radar.  Finally, there is the group itself.  We have a very good group who are energetic and love talking about books.

We discussed The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman at our last meeting.  This heartbreaking novel follows a young man who becomes a lighthouse keeper on a small island off the coast of Australia.  He meets a young woman while on shore leave and they soon get married.  After several failed attempts at starting a family, they find a boat that has washed up on the island.  The boat contains a man who has passed away and a healthy baby. The decision they make ends up haunting them for a long time.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday, November 21 from 6:00 to 7:00 at Bailiwicks.  Herman Koch's The Dinner is our next book.  Koch looks at two brothers who share a dark family secret.  The entire story takes place during a single dinner which gets more and more hostile.  Our discussion should be interesting since the meeting is one week before Thanksgiving!  Copies of the book are now available at the Information Desk. 

Chris May- Adult Services Manager

The Past CAN Come Back

Everyone deserves a second chance, right?  We all make mistakes, especially in our younger years, and can make up for those mistakes.  But sometimes it's not quite that easy.  Alex Marwood shows this in his debut novel, Wicked Girls.

A series of murders in a seaside town in the UK becomes the hot news story for Kirsty, who arrives from one of the larger UK newspapers.  The latest victim, a young girl, is found by Amber, a worker at the local amusement park.  We soon find out that Kirsty and Amber know each other...as Bel and Jade.  The story moves back and forth between present day and the fateful day 25 years earlier in which Bel and Jade became involved in a horrible criminal act.  Their chance meeting during a murdering spree threatens to tear apart everything they have built in their quest for normal lives.

I really enjoyed the fact that this thriller was more about the characters.  Each is developed well and the reader really understands the struggle they go through.  Kirsty and Amber each have their own motivations for not getting involved with the other, but other reasons for finding out what the other knows.  The psychological struggle in this novel makes it one not to be missed!

Chris May- Adult Services Manager

Check Out Library Reads for Book Recommendations

I love making book recommendations through the Readers' Corner blog, the T-SPL Facebook page, and through in-person interactions.  It's one of those cool things I get to do at my job!  But I also love to speak with fellow librarians and receive recommendations for titles I missed.

There is a terrific new resource I would like to share with you called LibraryReads.  This is a program designed for librarians from around the country to make book recommendations.  The top ten titles of the month are then shared on the website!  What makes this program especially wonderful is the fact that multiple publishers are involved, including Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, and Penguin.  The love of reading and making recommendations is bringing these publishers and librarians together.

Check out the November LibraryReads list:

Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield
Through the Evil Days by Julia Spencer-Fleming
The Death of Santini by Pat Conroy
Someone Else's Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson
The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan
Lies You Wanted to Hear by James Whitfield Thomson
The Cartographer of No Man's Land by P.S. Duffy
The Raven's Eye by Barry Maitland
Death of a Nightingale by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis
Parasite by Mira Grant

Man Booker Prize Shortlist

I have been meaning to post the Man Booker Prize Shortlist for a few weeks now, as they were announced on September 10.  If you missed our post on the longlist, you can find it at this link.

It is a bit embarrassing to admit that I have only read one of the titles making its way to the shortlist, We Need New Names, which was a wonderful read.  The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri is currently waiting for me on my Kindle, so maybe I can make up some ground soon.  I promise to catch up and give you all a full report!


Here are the titles making it to the shortlist:

We Need New Names by NoViolete Bulawayo
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Harvest by Jim Crace
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin

What is really interesting about this list is the vast diversity of the authors.  Authors from New Zealand (Catton), England (Lahiri, of Indian descent, and Crace), Canada (Ozeki), Ireland (Toibin), and Zimbabwe (Bulawayo) are represented here.  Take a tour of the world by reading these six finalists!

Chris May- Adult Services Manager

New Zealand, England, Canada, Ireland and Zimbabwe

The Sad Songs of Willow Frost

See what I did there with the title?  It should tell you all you need to know about this beautiful, yet heartbreaking novel by Jamie Ford.  You should remember Ford from his wonderful debut, The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, which was very well reviewed and nominated for a bunch of awards.

 This is a very touching book about young William Eng, a twelve year old boy living in an orphanage outside Seattle. He has vague memories about the night his mother disappeared, and the horrible sight that he saw but does not understand, which led to his placement at Sacred Heart Orphanage. He has never been told why she left and, more importantly, why she never came back.  Unfortunately, many of the young children at Sacred Heart have similar stories.

When the group is taken to a theater, William sees a woman on screen, Willow Frost, who looks just like his mother. He decides he must find this woman in an effort to finally find out the truth.  Aided by his best friend, Charlotte, a young blind girl in the orphanage, William escapes Sacred Heart in a desperate search for Willow Frost in the unlikely event that she is his mother.

The characters are very well developed. Charlotte, in particular, is an amazing young person in this story. Many of her moments with William are both beautiful and heartbreaking.  When you combine William's unfortunate past with Charlotte's, you have some powerful stuff.  But their will to not only survive, but to thrive, makes for a wonderful side story to William's search.  

Chris May- Adult Services Manager

Celebrate Banned Books Week

Libraries and bookstores all across the country will be celebrating Banned Books Week from September 22-28.  The week celebrates our freedom to read what we choose and to challenge ourselves by reading books that past (and current) generations, individuals, organizations, and even countries have either banned or challenged for a variety of reasons.  For more information on Banned Books Week, visit this site.  The American Library Association also has a wonderful page.

I like to pick up at least one banned/challenged title during the week.  This year I chose Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway as my banned title to read.  I may be cheating as I'm currently working my way through all of Woolf's titles, but I like a good two birds with one stone situation.

I also enjoy going through the lists of banned/challenged books and finding those gems I have enjoyed over the years.  Titles like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Beloved, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Catcher in the Rye, and Fight Club wind up on every list.  But there are some others that fly under the radar.  One of the first banned books I enjoyed was Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers.  This title, depicting the realities of the Vietnam War, is often assigned in middle and high school literature classes.  I also have fond memories of reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle.  The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the author of Half Broke Horses, is a powerful memoir of growing up with a mother suffering from mental illness and an alcoholic father.  Another commonly banned title is A Clockwork Orange, which was the first title I read when I became aware of Banned Books Week.  Finally, I loved Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, about a young African American woman dealing with racism in 20th century United States.

Remember to exercise your right to read, not only this week, but throughout the year.

Paul Harding's Follow-Up to Tinkers

I encountered Paul Harding's work in 2010, after his novel Tinkers won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.  Tinkers was about George Washington Crosby, a clock repairman whose own time is about to run out.  As he lays on his deathbed, Crosby relives his troubled childhood and his relationship with his epileptic father.  I had mixed feelings about the book, but Harding's unique and mesmerizing use of language was apparent.  His follow-up, Enon, is due out this month and I was lucky enough to get my hands on an advance copy.

Harding's subject this time is Charlie Crosby, grandson of George Washington Crosby.  The mood, as in the first book, is certainly not light.  Charlie has just lost his daughter in an accident and his wife has left to spend time with her family, though it becomes clear she is not coming back.  The reader delves into Charlie's day to day life which becomes more and more unsettling.  He barely eats, wanders the town of Enon, visits his daughters grave nightly, and has bizarre interactions with the people of the town. 

If there is one thing to take from this book it's that Paul Harding is an absolute master with language.  The disconcerting details of Charlie's plunge into borderline madness, mixed with the vivid descriptions of Enon and its people, are truly amazing.  The subject matter, while unpleasant, shows what a parent with no support could go through after losing a child.

Chris May- Adult Services Manager

Need a Discussion Guide for Your Book Group?

We love helping out local book groups at the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library!  Let us know if you have a group and need help ordering enough copies for your members.  We would be more than happy to help!

But what about book discussion guides?  There's no worse feeling than not having enough interesting questions for the group.  Never fear!  Check out these sites below for excellent book discussion guides (click the images to enter the sites):

NoveList Plus is an excellent subscription service offered for free through the library.  You will be asked for either your zip code or library card number when entering the site.  Click on "Book Discussion Guides" on the right-hand side of the page.

BookBrowse is a tremendous free service for book reviews, author/title read-alikes and book discussion guides.  Hover over the Book Clubs tab on the top of the screen and you will see Reading Guides listed.

LitLovers is similar to BookBrowse.  It even includes useful tips on starting your own book club!  Go to LitResources on the left-hand side of the screen.  Reading Guides is listed under this heading.



Don't forget that the library also offers to book groups!  Let's Talk About It meets on the first Thursday of the month at 10:30 am.  Copies of the next book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, are available at the Information Desk.  Our other book group, Coffee By the Book, meets at Bailiwicks Coffee Company on the third Thursday of the month at 6:00 pm.  Copies of this month's title, The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, are also available.

2013 Ohioana Award Winners Announced

The 2013 Ohioana Award winners were recently announced, with a reception to be held on October 11 at the Ohio Statehouse.  If you are unfamiliar with the Ohioana Library Association, visit the organization's website here.  According to the site "The Ohioana Book Awards are given annually to recognize and honor outstanding books published the previous year by authors who were born in Ohio or who have lived in Ohio for at least five years, the exception being a book about Ohio or an Ohioan and, this year’s the special category, fiction set in Ohio".

Here are this year's award winners:

Ohioana Book Award for Fiction
The Coldest Night by Robert Olmstead

Ohioana Book Award for Nonfiction
The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds by Julie Zickefoose

Ohioana Book Award for Juvenile Literature
His Name Was Raoul Wallenberg: Courage, Rescue and Mystery During World War II by Louise Borden



Ohioana Book Award for Fiction Set in Ohio
The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier

Ohioana Book Award for About Ohio or an Ohioan
America's Other Audubon by Joy Kiser

People Don't Just Disappear

Dani Keller wakes up after late night party with her husband and some of his business associates and starts her regular Sunday morning routine.  A headache looks to be on the horizon and all she wants to do is sit outside of her husband, Ian, and her houseboat and drink some coffee.  Strange, though, that Ian is nowhere to be found.  The minutes turn into hours and, before she knows it, Dani is panicking at the thought of Ian missing.  And thus begins Deb Caletti's thrilling novel, He's Gone.

My expectations were for this work to be a classic thriller/whodunit kind of story.  I was pleasantly surprised to find more substance in Caletti's study of Ian and Dani's marriage.  Both were involved in unhappy marriages before finding each other.  Dani's ex-husband was abusive towards her and Ian's ex-wife simply took advantage of him.  Despite both feeling guilty about their infidelity, Dani and Ian feel that they are soul mates.

However, as Ian remains missing, Dani finds herself dissecting her relationship with Ian.  She quickly finds that not everything is as rosy as she previously thought and there are some unsettled things between them.  Ian's personality, his (and Dani's) relationship with his ex-wife and two children, his relationship with Dani's daughter are just some of the things Dani examines while she investigates Ian's disappearance.  She believes that people don't just disappear and starts to wonder whether Ian would have left on his own.

I flew through this character study to not only find out what happened to Ian, but to find out how he and Dani, while appearing to be soul mates on the surface, were not quite the couple everyone assumed them to be.

Chris May- Adult Services Manager

Amy Falls Down...and Becomes a Star

With a title like Amy Falls Down, I knew I could not possibly resist Jincy Willett's latest novel.  I hate to admit that a title/cover combination is enough to make me want to read the book but, in this particular case, I am very happy I picked this one up.

Amy Gallup is a promising young author who several literary magazines dub the next best thing.  Wait.  That was years ago.  Her books are out of print now and she is happy living her life in obscurity.  But then, as the title suggests, she takes a nasty fall in her garden, hitting her head on a birdbath.  This occurs a few hours before she is to give a brief interview for the local newspaper on local authors.  Amy, not quite knowing what she is saying and having no recollection of it, gives the interview with hilarious results.  Everyone takes her rambling as creative genius.  All of a sudden, Amy is hot again.  Her old agent contacts her, a local writing group wants her to teach, demand for her books goes up, and Amy even begins writing again.  Sounds good, right?  Not to Amy.  She wants to live under the radar and finds her new celebrity as a curse rather than a blessing.

Willett has created a honest, sarcastic, and take-no-prisoners character who is also very likable and sympathetic.  That is a very difficult thing to do.  Amy could easily have been an overbearing character but instead became the one character I could identify with in several ways. 

You'll laugh.  You'll cry.  But whatever you do, stay away from birdbaths!

Chris May- Adult Services Manager

25 Best Debuts of the 2000s

If you are familiar with my posts, you know of my love for debut novels.  There is just something about discovering a new author who not only has a terrific writing style but is also willing to try something different.  The amount of solid debuts over the past few years has been nothing short of astounding.  It looks like others are thinking the same thing. I just ran across this post from BookPage.  The publication is looking at the 25 Best Debuts of the 2000s and, I have to say, it is quite the list.

There are many here that don't surprise me at all.  The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson and The Help by Kathryn Stockett are all-star examples.  But there are a few titles in this list you may have missed.  American Rust by Philipp Meyer and The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff are two examples that may have flown under your radar.

But what about the 2010s?  Granted, it's only 2013, but the past couple years have produced a ton of debut novels.  Beautiful debuts like ML Stedman's The Light Between Oceans, The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets by Kathleen Alcott and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  Some have been downright uncomfortable like Still Missing by Chevy Stevens and Room by Emma Donoghue.  And, of course, some have been downright bizzare like The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson and Bed by David Whitehouse.

What are some of your favorite debut novels?

Chris May- Manager of Adult Services

Man Booker Prize Longlist Announced

 I'm very excited because the longlist for the Man Booker Prize was recently announced.  This award, along with the National Book Awards, is one of the few literary awards I pay attention to year after year.  Besides being excited, I'm also a bit overwhelmed since I have to add most of these to my to-read list.  Keep in mind, a few of these titles are not officially out until the Fall.

Here are the titles:

Five Star Billionaire Tash Aw (Fourth Estate)

We Need New Names NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus)

The Luminaries Eleanor Catton (Granta)

Harvest Jim Crace (Picador)

The Marrying of Chani Kaufman Eve Harris (Sandstone Press)

The Kills Richard House (Picador) 

The Lowland Jhumpa Lahiri (Bloomsbury)

Unexploded Alison MacLeod ( Hamish Hamilton) 

TransAtlantic Colum McCann (Bloomsbury) 

Almost English Charlotte Mendelson (Mantle) 

A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki (Canongate)

The Spinning Heart Donal Ryan (Doubleday)

The Testament of Mary Colm Tóibín (Viking)

- See more at: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/longlist-2013-announced#sthash.xb5SNatr.dpuf

Five Star Billionaire Tash Aw (Fourth Estate)

We Need New Names NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus)

The Luminaries Eleanor Catton (Granta)

Harvest Jim Crace (Picador)

The Marrying of Chani Kaufman Eve Harris (Sandstone Press)

The Kills Richard House (Picador) 

The Lowland Jhumpa Lahiri (Bloomsbury)

Unexploded Alison MacLeod ( Hamish Hamilton) 

TransAtlantic Colum McCann (Bloomsbury) 

Almost English Charlotte Mendelson (Mantle) 

A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki (Canongate)

The Spinning Heart Donal Ryan (Doubleday)

The Testament of Mary Colm Tóibín (Viking)

- See more at: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/longlist-2013-announced#sthash.xb5SNatr.dpuf

Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Harvest by Jim Crace
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris
The Kills by Richard House
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri 
Unexploded by Alison MacLeod 
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson 
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan 
The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

TransAtlantic and We Need New Names have both been reviewed here at the Readers' Corner.  But it looks like I definitely have some catching up to do!

Chris May- Manager of Adult Services

From Africa to America in NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names

NoViolet Bulawayo, born and raised in Zimbabwe, is making a splash with her debut novel, We Need New Names.  The work has already been included in the Man Booker Prize longlist (look for a future post on the list) , making her the only African writer up for the award this year.  Reviews of have been spectacular, so I was eagerly anticipating reading this one.

Darling begins her journey in Zimbabwe.  She spends most of her with a group of her closest friends, getting into the kind of mischief children often get into.  They steal guavas from neighboring rich areas, harass police, make fun of the adults, without missing a chance to laugh at each other.  But each is haunted by the better times that came before military forces destroyed their homes, forcing them to live a life never before imagined.  Darling soon finds herself with an out.  Her aunt, who lives in Detroit, decides to take Darling into her home and give her the opportunity to make it in America.  But Darling finds that America is not quite the America of her dreams.  She is an outsider in a strange land that does not quite live up to the expectations she had while living in Zimbabwe.

This work, at times, will make you laugh out loud.  At other times, it evokes a powerful emotional response.  Above all, it is a very moving and poignant debut novel.  I found myself re-reading sections and even having to set it down after several of the emotional moments.  Bulawayo's triumph is how she makes the reader feel not only Darling's struggle, but the struggle of those who have lost everything and find themselves in a new place. 

Chris May- Manager of Adult Services

The Measures Between Us- Connections Continued

I recently posted my review of The Illusion of Separateness and how it is a beautiful story on the effect of those seemingly minor connections between people.  Ethan Hauser does the same in his debut novel, The Measures Between Us.

There are several players in this powerful novel, but young Cynthia finds herself in the middle.  She is currently living in a mental facility, at the behest of her parents, but she has a very profound effect on others, whether directly or indirectly.  Her father, Vincent, is a high school shop teacher who struggles with the decision of what to do with his troubled daughter.  He seeks the help of pscyhologist, and former student, Henry, who is dealing with the trials of starting his own family.  Jack, Cynthia's on-again, off-again boyfriend, is interning on a project dealing with climate change and a major storm that is threatening the East Coast.  There are others involved here, but the connections between each person, which may seem minor at first, says a lot about the human experience and how we each affect one another in some way.

I really enjoyed the writing style and was not put off by the changes in narrating viewpoints.  The story flows very well, though the language is not as poetic as The Illusion of Separateness.  Still, if you are interested in how people who seem to have nothing in common are still connected, pick this one up.

Chris May- Manager of Adults Services

A Beautiful Book About Connections

There have been books about the small, seemingly insignificant moments in life that connect us to each other.  Sometimes those small connections help shape who we are in a profound way.  Perhaps Simon Van Booy does this better than anyone in his beautifully written book The Illusion of Separateness. 

What do an elderly caretaker at a retirement home, a man with a severe head injury from WWII, blind Amelia and her fiance John is a fighter pilot in the war, seven-year old Danny, and other characters have in common?  Did I mention the story takes place over a roughly 70 year period, so many of these people do not know each other at all?  Van Booy takes the reader into the life of each character, moving forward and backward through time.  Each little connection becomes more apparent as the story moves forward.  The writing style is very lyrical and I found myself rereading passages.

I simply could not put this one down!  It's an incredibly quick read, but Van Booy is able to pack an enormous punch into such a small work.  What it says about the human experience and how our actions can affect those we have not even met is beyond beautiful.  Pick this one up and set aside a few hours because you will not want to leave the lives Van Booy creates.

Chris May- Manager of Adult Services

Chevy Stevens Thrills Us Again

Chevy Stevens' latest thriller, Always Watching, lives up to the expectations set by her previous two novels.  I first encountered Stevens through her 2010 thriller, Still Missing, which tells the story of a young woman, Annie, speaking with her psychiatrist about a harrowing abduction that lasted a year.  The book was very well done as Annie's story was laid out well and made the reader very uncomfortable at times (think Emma Donoghue's Room).  Never Knowing came out the next year and fully established Stevens as a master of the genre.  The story centers on Sara, an adopted child now a young woman, who has always wondered about her birth parents.  What she finds out about her father not only shocks her, but may come back to bite her.

And that leads us to Always Watching.  As a psychiatrist, Nadine Lavoie is used to dealing with other people's problems.  But her own demons come back to haunt her after treating a young woman who has been living in a well-known commune.  Nadine soon finds that the commune is run by the same man, Aaron Quinn, who was running a smaller commune in which Nadine and her family lived for a few months when she was young.  She continues digging and finds parallels between her past life and those of the people living in the commune's current state.  Obsessively, Nadine tries to find the answers behind mysterious gaps in her memory from during the months she lived under Quinn's watchful eye.

This title sets the same tone as Still Missing and Never Knowing.  Even though the revelations throughout can be downright disturbing, I could not put this one down until the final revelation was revealed.  Quinn's character, and his demented brother who helps run the commune, is so well done and creepy that you will genuinely fear for Nadine's safety.  Stevens has established herself as a terrific writer who knows how to create an ominous atmosphere.

If that is not enough to whet your appetite, check out the book trailer below.



Chris May- Manager of Adult Services

A Look at WWII Italy in Bohjalian's New Thriller

Chris Bohjalian is quite the prolific author.  Not only does he churn out a new book every year like clockwork, he also writes on a variety of topics.  I first encountered him when I read The Night Strangers, which is about a family moving to New Hampshire and encountering "herbalists" who slowly take control of their lives.  This was followed by The Sandcastle Girls, set in Syria during the first World War.  These two books alone show how versatile Bohjalian can be, so just imagine going through all fifteen of his titles.

His latest, The Light in the Ruins, is set to be released later this month.  I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy and devoured it in a single day.  This one is set in Italy and takes place during two different years.

1943: The Rosatis, a noble Italian family, hide away in their villa in the hope that it will protect them from the war going on near their home.  Christina, the youngest daughter, falls in love with a young German lieutenant, though finds herself in a tough spot once other Nazi soldiers take over the villa.

1955:  Serafina Bettini, a Florence detective, investigates the murders of multiple members of the Rosatis family.  She must also face her own demons as she is a former soldier who made her way through Italy a dozen years earlier.

This one has a little bit of everything: romance, mystery, thriller, history, and even some art history.  I could not put it down as each chapter set in the past set up what would happen twelve years later.  I have to admit, I did not know much about the effects of WWII on Italy, but this book gave me plenty of reason to do some research.

Pick this one up soon and you won't regret it.

Chris May- Manager of Adult Services