New Fiction Roundup, June 2019

No matter what kind of summer reader you are – romance, mystery, fantasy, historical fiction, general fiction – something is coming out in June for you to savor.

6/4: Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin – In this contemporary take on Pride and Prejudice set in Toronto’s Muslim community, poet and teacher Ayesha is holding out for true love over an arranged marriage when smart, judgmental Khalid comes into her orbit.

6/4: City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert – 89-year-old Vivian reflects back on the years she spent living with her Aunt Peg in Manhattan, working at the Lily Playhouse theatre and living the single life, as well as the personal mistake she made that led to a professional scandal and changed the course of her life. A Peak Pick!

Library Reads for June 2019

Ten books coming in June that librarians across the US are loving.

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
Relationships are hard, whether with a spouse, a best friend, a new love interest, or ourselves. Evvie navigates all of these after a life-changing series of events. An engaging novel that explores relationship nuances without being too dark or too cutesy. For fans of Jenny Colgan, Cecilia Ahern, and Sophie Kinsella.  ~ Maribeth Fisher, Scotch Plains Public Library, Scotch Plains, NJ 

The Year’s Best Crime Writing: The 2019 Edgar Awards

Pulitzers, Bookers, Nobels – bah! For crime fiction fans it’s all about the Edgars. Last night the winners in several categories of crime and thriller books were announced at the Mystery Writers of America’s annual Edgar Awards ceremony: here’s a full list of these titles in our catalog, including non-fiction, books for children and teens, and the Mary Higgins Clark Awards for less violent novels with strong heroines.

As for the felonious Best In Show, we give you the nominees for the category of Best Novel:

New fiction roundup, April 2019

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming, and the books actually coming out this April. In the fiction realm, you have several options for revisiting high school and its lasting impacts; stories of immigrants trying to forge their lives in the United States; and much more. Happy Reading!

Bus Reads for March

Commuting to Seattle by bus five days a week gives me a lot of reading time.

Here’s what I read on the bus in March:

If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio. On the day that Oliver is released from prison, Detective Colborne, who worked the case and is now retired, has come to ask a question. Oliver agrees to answer, but in his own way. He takes him back 10 years to when he and his classmates at Dellecher Classical Conservatory were working their way through Shakespeare. In their fourth year, the tragedy that was so popular in Shakespeare finally takes its toll. I was a little worried that the Shakespeare would overwhelm me, but the author did an amazing job of making the story accessible for everyone – both those enthralled by the stage and those who prefer to sit in the shadows. I also loved all the characters; they felt so real and flawed.