Recommended Reads

The Life Impossible

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook, and no plan. Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past. Publisher description

Somewhere Beyond the Sea

In the sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea, Arthur Parnassus, headmaster of a strange orphanage, and the other inhabitants of Marsyas Island must fight to save the dangerous and magical children of the orphanage or risk the entire island falling apart.

Be Ready When the Luck Happens : A Memoir

"Ina Garten, the author of thirteen best-selling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and the cultural icon whose face has launched a thousand memes, shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table."-- Provided by publisher.

This Cursed House

"In this Southern gothic horror debut, a young Black woman abandons her life in 1960s Chicago for a position with a mysterious family in New Orleans, only to discover the dark truth: They're under a curse, and they think she can break it. In the fall of 1962, twenty-seven-year-old Jemma Barker is desperate to escape her life in Chicago-and the spirits she has always been able to see. When she receives an unexpected job offer from the Duchon family in New Orleans, she accepts, thinking it is her chance to start over. But Jemma discovers that the Duchon family isn't what it seems. Light enough to pass as white, the Black family members look down on brown-skinned Jemma. Their tenuous hold on reality extends to all the members of their eccentric clan, from haughty grandmother Honorine to beautiful yet inscrutable cousin Fosette. And soon the shocking truth comes out: The Duchons are under a curse. And they think Jemma has the power to break it. As Jemma wrestles with the gift she's run from all her life, she unravels deeper and more disturbing secrets about the mysterious Duchons. Secrets that stretch back over a century. Secrets that bind her to their fate if she fails"-- Provided by publisher.

Beanie the Bansheenie

"Banshees are well known to most of us as supernatural Irish harbingers of doom. But not many know that they grow on the prickly gorse bush inside little pods, and that the sole job of a baby banshee, or "bansheenie," is to bond with a human and know all there is to know about that person, including when they're destined to breathe their last breath. One bansheenie named Beanie, however, is no ordinary herald of death. When she sees her person, a little girl named Rose, she decides to change both their fates-and instead of delivering bad news, protect Rose and her family. And when her banshee's howl won't work, she must draw power and strength from the ancient secrets and hidden networks of the natural world to create a new sound, a new way of being in the world, that will change everything. Melding Eoin Colfer's welcoming voice and Steve McCarthy's striking Celtic imagery, Beanie the Bansheenie is a gloriously immersive, detailed, and emotional storytelling experience"-- Provided by publisher.

Women's Hotel

The Beidermeier might be several rungs lower on the ladder than the real-life Barbizon, but its residents manage to occupy one another nonetheless. There’s Katherine, the first-floor manager, lightly cynical and more than lightly suggestible. There’s Lucianne, a workshy party girl caught between the love of comfort and an instinctive bridling at convention, Kitty the sponger, Ruth the failed hairdresser, and Pauline the typesetter. And there’s Stephen, the daytime elevator operator and part-time Cooper Union student. The residents give up breakfast, juggle competing jobs at rival presses, abandon their children, get laid off from the telephone company, attempt to retrain as stenographers, all with the shared awareness that their days as an institution are numbered, and they’d better make the most of it while it lasts.

The Book Swap

Still grieving the death of her best friend, Erin knows she needs to start living - but has no idea how. Then she loses her favorite book, heavily annotated and containing her friend's final words to her. When James finds Erin's note-filled book in his local community library, it sparks a life-changing conversation. He writes his own message back, and soon they are locked in an anonymous book exchange, with no idea who the other person in the margins might be. But Erin and James have a shared history that neither of them realise. How will Erin react when she discovers the other writer isn't a stranger at all - but the person she once swore she'd never forgive?

The Bletchley Riddle

Follows siblings Jakob Novis and his quirky younger sister Lizzie as they find themselves at Bletchley Park, the home of WWII codebreakers working to decrypt the Nazi's Enigma cipher, where the two struggle to unravel a mystery surrounding their mother's disappearance against the backdrop of the Battle of Britain and Hitler's feared invasion.

City in Ruins : A Novel

"Sometimes you have to become what you hate to protect what you love. Danny Ryan is rich. Beyond his wildest dreams rich. Finally, Danny has it all: a beautiful house, a child he adores, a woman he might even fall in love with. Life is good. But then Danny reaches too far. When he tries to buy an old hotel on a prime piece of real estate with plans to build his dream resort, he triggers a war against Las Vegas power brokers, a powerful FBI agent bent on revenge and a rival casino owner with dark connections of his own.

The Puzzle Box

It is the Year of the Wood Dragon, and the ingenious Mike Brink has been invited to Tokyo, Japan, to open the legendary Dragon Box. The box was constructed during one of Japan's most tumultuous periods, when the samurai class was disbanded and the shogun lost power. In this moment of crisis, Emperor Meiji locked a priceless Imperial secret in the Dragon Box. Only two people knew how to open the box--Meiji and the box's sadistic constructor--and both died without telling a soul what was inside or how to open it...Every puzzle master who has attempted to open it has died in the process. -- Publisher's description.

Counted With the Stars

Sold into slavery by her father and forsaken by the man she was supposed to marry, young Egyptian Kiya must serve a mistress who takes pleasure in her humiliation. When terrifying plagues strike Egypt, Kiya is in the middle of it all. To save her older brother and escape the bonds of slavery, Kiya flees with the Hebrews during the Great Exodus. She finds herself utterly dependent on a fearsome God she's only just beginning to learn about, and in love with a man who despises her people. With everything she's ever known swept away, will Kiya turn back toward Egypt or surrender her life and her future to Yahweh?

Book and Dagger : How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

The untold story of the academics who became OSS spies, invented modern spycraft, and helped turn the tide of the war At the start of WWII, the U.S. found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to today's CIA, was quickly formed--and, in an effort to fill its ranks with experts, the OSS turned to academia for recruits. Suddenly, literature professors, librarians, and historians were training to perform undercover operations and investigative work--and these surprising spies would go on to profoundly shape both the course of the war and our cultural institutions with their efforts.

Becoming Earth : How Our Planet Came to Life

"The notion of a living world is one of humanity's oldest beliefs. Though scorned by scientists in the sixties and seventies, the facts supporting this concept have now become tenets of modern Earth system science, a relatively young field that studies the living and nonliving components of the planet as an integrated whole. Life did not evolve passively in response to its environment, as scientists have long assumed. Instead, it evolved with Earth, shaping its climate and terrain at every scale, one part in a great orchestra, in which non-living elements-the air, rocks, and water-are the instruments that life, in its multitudes, has emerged to play. We see how microorganisms participate in many geological processes, producing new minerals and converting rock from one state to another; some scientists think they played a crucial role in forming the continents."-- Provided by publisher.

Shut Up, This Is Serious

Two Latina teens growing up in East Oakland discover that the world is brimming with messy complexities.

Inkworld : The Color of Revenge

"Five years after the events of 'Inkdeath', Meggie, Mo, and the people of Ombra lead peaceful lives, their fires warmed by the flames of Dustfinger--the Fire-Dancer. But when Dustfinger spots Orpheus's glass man within the gates of Ombra, a familiar restlessness begins to haunt him once more. And for good reason . . . The past five years have been a different story for Orpheus, who has spent his days living a meager and deprived existence, fueled only by his thirst for revenge against Dustfinger and all those who betrayed him. Now, Orpheus has found an unexpected way to seek vengeance against his greatest adversary. He has corrupted an artist to create bewitched portraits that will see the heroes fade to gray. When Dustfinger's deepest fears come true, he'll have to figure out whether the words still obey Orpheus. Or if he should be afraid of the pictures this time -- Provided by publisher.

Auburn Public Library

Recommended Reads

The Life Impossible

Somewhere Beyond the Sea

Be Ready When the Luck Happens : A Memoir

This Cursed House

Beanie the Bansheenie

Women's Hotel

The Book Swap

The Bletchley Riddle

City in Ruins : A Novel

The Puzzle Box

Counted With the Stars

Book and Dagger : How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

Becoming Earth : How Our Planet Came to Life

Shut Up, This Is Serious

Inkworld : The Color of Revenge