Susan's Staff Picks
"Nisha apparently has it all – everything she worked to achieve – an 18 year marriage to a rich older man, designer clothes, extravagant world travel, multiple homes and penthouse suites – but it all comes crashing down when her husband locks her out of her life – no money, no credit, no home, no passport, no way to get to her 15 year old son in boarding school in NY.
With the strength found in new alliances with other women who are slowly working through their problems she finds herself re-evaluating what is important. She and the others begin as frenemies, become partners in schemes and eventually are truly friends of the heart.
This was a funny, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes heartwarming and ultimately satisfying story."
"Every Erica Bauermeister story is unique and worth reading in my opinion. I fell in love with Alice, the primary character in this novel. We meet her as a young girl living under the radar in her family where it is her older brother who gets all the attention and recognition. She is content with her books and her mostly solitary life. Eventually she wrote a novel about a boy named Theo and I fell in love again. For many of us, this is why we read. Finding an author whose characters live and breathe off the page and inhabit your thoughts and maybe even your soul. I would give this 10 stars!! Great story and beautiful writing."
"Holland has written a story about an immortal, but it is so far removed from the more traditional vampire story that I was drawn into the depths of the writing just to grasp how this woman could be so intriguing.
As a child living in the 1830’s she is growing up in the aftermath of the Salem witch trials when some of the superstitions still are alive and well in small towns. When people begin to die from tuberculosis, the whispering starts – how to rid the bad spirits. When her father dies, the townspeople dig him up, burn his body and feed his ashes to his two children. A grandfather comes too late to save her brother but he whisks Anya away, tires to save her but when death in imminent, he bites her and gives her immortal life.
The bulk of this story is about her finding meaning in life – she never wanted or wants to be immortal. She feeds on animals and tries to find value in life. Phenomenally well written!"
"This is a fantastic story – one all should read - maybe because it will remind you of what books you loved as a child. And I believe you would love this as an adult reader. Jack Masterson has written 66 books about the mysteries and delights of Clock Island which have thrilled and comforted children for a few generations. But a few years ago he stopped writing. Just announced – Jack has a new book; 4 adults will be invited to Clock Island to solve a mystery and win the manuscript of his newest book. All 4 were fans as children and are still fans. They arrive and find themselves in their childhood wonderland and the game has the potential to change each of their lives. Read it please! 10 stars from me!"
"Christmas Eve Day in 1959 in Adelaide Hills, Australia and a mother and 3 of her children are found dead at a picnic site; the baby is missing.
This tragedy runs through three generations with no complete understanding of what actually happened that day. The secrets, the lies, the connections between people are not understood until a grandmother’s death. When her only granddaughter comes home to spend a last few days with her grandmother, she starts to review the stories and memories of her childhood. After Nora’s death, Jess searches through the grand old house for paperwork and finds a book about the Turner family tragedy. She recognizes the connections between this tragedy and her own family and she goes searching for answers.
Well written descriptions of Australia, engaging mystery and the beginning of a family finally healing. I highly recommend this story!"
"This is Bea’s story – as an eleven year old girl, she sails from London to Boston with other children to live through WWII safe from the London blitz and whatever follows. She finds a second family – mother, father, and two boys who become her bookends. One is slightly older; the other slightly younger and they are vastly different in temperament. She is the bridge between them. It is also our story. The path we take from our teenage years into our adulthood is seldom the road we envisioned. It can be great but…there is often the feeling of nostalgia as we imagine the pathway of our teenage dreams. Laura Spencer-Ash has written the words to this story as we follow both of Bea’s families through the years and she has magically captured those interior “what if” emotions."
"Three women across five generations share the same bloodline and were all considered wayward (weird) by their neighbors and especially by the men in their lives. The first was tried as a witch and escaped with help from friends. The later women learned to stand up for themselves to some extent but it was only the third who put the historical pieces of her family history and mysteries together. A very believable depiction of how unusual women were viewed with suspicion and fear and were often misunderstood and traumatized by the men in their families and their lives. Well written story!!"
"A new Louise Penny novel is always a reason to celebrate! This story begins with a university graduation and the hidden undercurrents felt by Inspector Gamache, Jean Paul and other associates. One of the graduates was a child at the scene of the crime when Gamache and Jean Paul first met. At the time they thought they were rescuing two children but the intervening years have revealed pieces of the characters of both of the now adult children. In hindsight, the original crime might have been misinterpreted and if either of these children can be trusted, both Gamache and Jean Paul and their families are in danger.
Good writing. Good story."
"Nora is a mother with two children – and her husband is more like a third child than a responsible adult. She writes screenplays for a romance channel and when her husband leaves her and the kids, she writes the collapse of her marriage into a screenplay that is selected by a major movie company and they come to film at her small farm. The iconic leading man brought a trailer to live in while filming and he likes the area so much that he stays. He pays her rent for the space his trailer occupies so she doesn’t want to tell him to leave. Lots of laughs, some fun romance and true to life family dynamics make for an all around good read."
"Allen’s writing is magical and yet also amazingly believable. Zoey is traveling to Mallow Island off the coast of Charleston, SC with an apparently empty birdcage and an invisible bird named Pigeon. Though she didn’t know her mother well, she has inherited her mother’s island condo. She moves into this home in search of an understanding of her mother and to resolve some family mysteries. She finds a place to call home and a family. Fun, mysterious at times and always magical."
"You might think that this is a story about hockey. That would be correct since it is the third in the Beartown hockey trilogy. But it isn’t completely correct because this book is so much more.
Backman has written a story about everything – winning & losing, loving & hating, friends & enemies, families you are born into and families who find you …and on it goes.
There is story and there is philosophy all within these pages. The whole world. I believe this is a masterpiece."
"While centering this story around one family, Celeste Ng has given us a future possibility that would threaten and thereby affect all of us! Beautiful writing, engaging story. Bird and his mother and father have a story to tell that is both compelling and frightening. A cautionary tale...we may already be on the road to this future."
"Though this is a Swedish mystery it has similarities to a Sherlock Holmes/Watson story. The case concerns a murdered asylum seeker from Afghanistan. Micaela Vargas is a street smart cop and Professor Hans Rekke is a world renowned expert on interrogation techniques. He worked in the US for a time, is extremely observant (like Holmes) and has a fragile mental state. (he also is an expert pianist and plays while he thinks)
They find themselves working together outside the boundaries of the police department and in spite of the US and Swedish officials.
This is a convoluted, smart mystery that threatens to disclose some buried events of international importance. Well done."
"Rita Todacheene lived with her grandmother on a Navajo reservation until her unusual ability ostracized her from most of the tribe. – ghosts talk to her. Now she lives in Albuquerque and works as a forensic psychologist.
'Souls don’t scatter like the rest of the body…they are the best witnesses to their last breaths.'
As witnesses they talk to Rita and her photographs are extraordinary because of this. As the tension increases, Rita’s heritage and her skills merge to enable her to pursue a killer. The dichotomy of crime in the city l and the tribal understanding of life made this a very interesting crime story. Definitely worth reading!"
"A man chokes on a grape while riding a commuter train into the city. A fellow commuter saves his life and sparks an awareness that a number of these commuters see each other nearly every day and yet never speak. Each has traveled in his own bubble and now the bubble has been broken. Gradually they get to know each other and find that each has something to offer another traveler.
Warm, funny, and unexpected revelations eventually bind this group into a family. Light reading and yet a story with deep meaning that show us how connected we all may be and how we need each other and are better together."
"Jen is waiting for 18 yr. old son to come home one night. As she sees him walking up the steps, he turns toward an older man across the street, runs toward him and stabs him.
As the parents and son spend the night at the police station, Jen begins to scan her memory for any indication of where she went wrong. This cannot be the one she knows and loves! Over the next period of time, Jen periodically wakes up and lives through a day in their past, always returning again to present day though things begin to change in their present day.
This is a crazy suspense/time travel story! Well done and worth reading if you like quirky suspense."
"A young woman is planning her marriage to the perfect man. Her best friend plans a bachelorette weekend on a remote Greek island and invites a few other women – some of whom are meeting for the first time.
All kinds of twists and turns. Secrets are revealed. Connections between the women pop up as the conversations and drinking go on. Almost no one is quite as they seem and then the groom shows up and crashes the party. All of this ends in a death.
Suspenseful! Unusual! Fun reading!"
"This is a chilling story!
Heather has traveled to Australia with her husband of only a few months for a vacation/honeymoon/medical conference. Her uneasy truce with her teenage step-children simmers along. Then an unplanned ferry trip to a tiny island leads them into a horror story which strips away all their facades until their true characters are revealed.
This story might cause you to ask yourself how well you know and can depend the people around you. A worthy successor to The Chain. Well done! "
"A seventeen year old black teen is killed by a middle aged white man. The teen is dead; the shooter has been identified and yet has not been arrested claiming this was a justified shooting. The teen’s mother, Janice, does not want her son to become another victim used by the public to address racial injustice. She wants her son to be recognized as the outstanding young man that he was – the private school senior, never in trouble, heading to the University of PA in the fall.
This is the story of both their families. It is a story of how the preconceived ideas of violence and race inform much of how we evaluate crime.
I am glad I read this. I did not know that “stand your ground” is a legal defense in many states including PA. it should be repealed."
"A family of four is driving home through Chester County, PA when two men try to hijack their car. Someone dies; not only the local police but also the FBI become involved and the family is moved immediately to a safe house under protective custody. None of this makes sense to the father. His family is distraught, confused and totally alone and no one can explain why. The father rebels, sneaks out of the house and goes on the hunt for the criminals. What an interesting twist for a crime story! Can he be more successful than the experts? Can he survive? Are the authorities telling him the entire truth? Filled with interesting twists and familiar places this is a fast, fun read."