Author: Gruen, Sara
Call #: FIC Gruen, S 2015
Summary: In her stunning new novel, Gruen returns to the kind of storytelling she excelled at in Water for Elephants: a historical timeframe in an unusual setting with a moving love story. Think Scottish Downton Abbey.
After embarrassing themselves at the social event of the year in high society Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve of 1942, Maddie and Ellis Hyde are cut off financially by Ellis’s father, a former army Colonel who is already embarrassed by his son’s inability to serve in WWII due to his being colorblind. To Maddie’s horror, Ellis decides that the only way to regain his father’s favor is to succeed in a venture his father attempted and very publicly failed at: he will hunt the famous Loch Ness monster and when he finds it he will restore his father’s name and return to his father’s good graces (and pocketbook). Joined by their friend Hank, a wealthy socialite, the three make their way to Scotland in the midst of war. Each day the two men go off to hunt the monster, while another monster, Hitler, is devastating Europe. And Maddie, now alone in a foreign country, must begin to figure out who she is and what she wants. The novel tells of Maddie’s social awakening: to the harsh realities of life, to the beauties of nature, to a connection with forces larger than herself, to female friendship, and finally, to love.--summary from Goodreads.com
Staff Member's Thoughts on This Book: This book shares the abusive/misguided husband theme with the author's Water for Elephants but this is a combination of historical fiction, romance, and ghost story.. Maddie, husband Ellis and friend Hank travel to WWII Scotland to photograph the Loch Ness Monster. Gives an intimate portrait of wartime life. (Medora, Adult and Teen Department)
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Author: Powell, Margaret
Call #: BIO Powell, M, 2012
Summary: This work is a kitchen-maid's through-the-key hole memoir of life in the great houses of England. At fifteen, she arrived at the servants' entrance to begin her life as a kitchen maid in 1920s England. The lowest of the low, her world was one of stoves to be blacked, vegetables to be scrubbed, mistresses to be appeased, and even bootlaces to be ironed. Work started at 5:30 am and went on until after dark. In this memoir, the author tells her tales of service with wit, warmth, and a sharp eye. From the gentleman with a penchant for stroking housemaids' curlers, to raucous tea dances with errand boys, to the heartbreaking story of Agnes the pregnant under-parlourmaid, fired for being seduced by her mistress's nephew, this book evokes the long vanished world of masters and servants portrayed in Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs. This is the remarkable true story of an indomitable woman, who, though her position was lowly, never stopped aiming high. --summary from Goodreads.com
Staff Member's Thoughts on This Book: This is a highly readable memoir about life as a domestic servant for the British upper classes between WWI and WWII. Since the author worked exclusively as a kitchen maid, her experience is solely behind the scenes. (Meredith, Russiaville Branch)
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Author: Diggle, Andy
Call #: YA GN Green Arrow 100.1 2008
Summary: Oliver Queen has been a faithful member of the Justice League of America and defended Star City with his trusty bow and an arsenal of deadly arrows for yearsnow thrill to the definitive tale of how he became Green Arrow! Queen is a frivolous playboy with little care for anyone or anythingapparently even himself. But when he's double-crossed and marooned on a jungle island, he finds that he does care about something: justice! This amazing tale is written and illustrated by the award-winning team behind THE LOSERS. --summary from Goodreads.com
Staff Member's Thoughts on This Book: Every hero has a story, and this is the back story of how Oliver Queen become the Green Arrow. (Meredith, Russiaville Branch)
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Author: Gaiman, Neil
Call #: FIC Gaiman, N 2015
Summary: In this new anthology, Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath. Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction--stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013--as well "Black Dog," a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection. --summary from Goodreads.com
Staff Member's Thoughts on This Book: This is a wildly diverse collection of stories by the always excellent Neil Gaiman. It features a "Dr Who" and a Sherlock Holmes story. (Meredith, Russiaville Branch)
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Author: Larson, Erik
Call #: 943.086 Larson, 2011
Summary: The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.
A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition.
Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming--yet wholly sinister--Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror. --summary from Goodreads.com
Staff Member's Thoughts on This Book: What events took place before America joined WWII? Find out as Larson makes history come alive. When President Roosevelt, sent Dodd, America’s ambassador to Germany, neither knew what an important role Dodd would play in this time of history. Dodd had to meet with Hitler! Find out how that went! I learned so much about Hitler and I am convinced the world was trying to ignore him and his actions!
Chilling and disturbing as to how relevant the history of the prewar time is to today. We are our history.
Take time to read the footnotes! (Mary, Genealogy and Local History Department)
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Author: Scottoline, Lisa
Call #: FIC Scottoline, L 2012
Summary: Jill Farrow is a typical suburban mom who has finally gotten her and her daughter's lives back on track after a divorce. She is about to remarry, her job as a pediatrician fulfills her---though it is stressful---and her daughter, Megan, is a happily over-scheduled thirteen-year-old juggling homework and the swim team.
But Jill’s life is turned upside down when her ex-stepdaughter, Abby, shows up on her doorstep late one night and delivers shocking news: Jill’s ex-husband is dead. Abby insists that he was murdered and pleads with Jill to help find his killer. Jill reluctantly agrees to make a few inquiries and discovers that things don’t add up. As she digs deeper, her actions threaten to rip apart her new family, destroy their hard-earned happiness, and even endanger her own life. Yet Jill can’t turn her back on a child she loves and once called her own.--summary from Goodreads.com
Staff Member's Thoughts on This Book: This is a story about a mother, a murdered ex-husband, and the struggle of balancing career, solving a murder, and defining her role as a mother with her ex-step-children. Designated as a fiction story, this is definitely a mystery as well. I listened to the audio book and was reasonably entertained! (Susan, South Branch)
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Author: Doerr, Anthony
Call #: FIC Doerr, A 2014
Summary: From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall. In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure. Doerr's gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work.-- Provided by publisher
Staff Member's Thoughts on This Book: A good book, but a little slow in the beginning. This book has definite appeal to those who like their books to be literary; well written and appealing, but a little deeper in symbolism than most books. Well worth the read, but be prepared to devote some time to this novel. (Melissa, South Branch)
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Author: Forman, Gayle
Call #: YA FIC Forman, G 2009
Summary: A critically acclaimed novel that will change the way you look at life, love, and family.
In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make. Heartwrenchingly beautiful, Mia's story will stay with you for a long, long time.--summary from Goodreads.com
Staff Member's Thoughts on This Book: If I Stay is an emotional roller coaster and a real tearjerker. One minute you are smiling and laughing, loving the main character, Mia and her family, and the next you are crying because of all she has lost. On a snowy day in Oregon, Mia and her family go on a drive that ends in heartache. She finds herself thrown out of her body as a result of an horrific car accident and left with the choice to live with a loss that will change her life forever or to die.
This book made me both laugh and cry. It gave be a better appreciation for a good tearjerker. As I read the book it made me think about my family and what is important to me, and how I would feel if I were in Mia’s position. While I won’t go out of my way to find tearjerkers from now on, I must say I was really impressed with this book.
A must read for those who like tearjerkers! (Melissa, South Branch)
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Author: McNeal, Laura Lane
Call #: FIC McNeal, L 2014
Summary: When Ibby Bell’s father dies unexpectedly in the summer of 1964, her mother unceremoniously deposits Ibby with her eccentric grandmother Fannie and throws in her father’s urn for good measure. Fannie’s New Orleans house is like no place Ibby has ever been — and Fannie, who has a tendency to end up in the local asylum — is like no one she has ever met. Fortunately, Fannie’s black cook, Queenie, and her smart-mouthed daughter, Dollbaby, take it upon themselves to initiate Ibby into the ways of the South, both its grand traditions and its darkest secret.
For Fannie’s own family history is fraught with tragedy, hidden behind the closed rooms in her ornate Uptown mansion. It will take Ibby’s arrival to begin to unlock the mysteries there. And it will take Queenie and Dollbaby’s hard-won wisdom to show Ibby that family can sometimes be found in the least expected places.--summary from Goodreads.com
Staff Member's Thoughts on This Book: Wonderful characterization and sense of place. McNeal is a great storyteller. A good summer read. (Marsha, Adult and Teen Department)
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