Reading - Dark Places

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

 

 

 

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.

Reading - The Chocolate Jewel Case

The Chocolate Jewel Case by Joanna Carl

 

 

 

 

 

Lee and Joe are newlyweds, in her rare free time, Lee works on TenHuis Chocolade's newest offerings, chocolate jewels.

 

When the houseguests from hell arrive : Lee's boy-crazy stepsister, a salesgirl from the shop, an aunt resuperating from her last divorce, a bird-watching night owl, and an unemployed ex-con.  That's seven people with one bathroom - before the arrival of the man claiming to be Joe's father, who has been presumed dead for thirty years.

 

But soon the town of Warner Pier has its very own jewel heist, and then a body is found in the lake. Lee can't help but wonder if the crimes are related. Maybe if she digs up some dirt, she'll hit the mother lode.

Reading - Blue Skies

Blue Skies by Robyn Carr

 

 

 

Nikki Burgess survived a terrible marriage and a worse divorce. She's just about given up hope of ever finding happiness. But when her ex-husband suddenly dies, she gets custody of her kids again—and a chance to start over.

Dixie McPherson, on the other hand, has had way too much love. She has eleven tennis bracelets, dozens of trinkets, piles of sexy lingerie and a tarnished reputation when all she ever wanted was true love, a partner and a family.

Carlisle Bartlett is loyal, kindhearted and the funniest guy slinging drinks in the back of an airplane. But he has an ugly little secret. The only kind of love he's used to comes with bruises.

When Nikki, Dixie and Carlisle are offered the chance to join a new airline in Las Vegas, they don't hesitate. With nothing to lose and everything to gain, these three friends are going in search of their own blue skies.

Reading - Secrets She Left Behind

Secrets She Left Behind by Diane Chamberlain

 

 

 

One afternoon, single mother Sara Weston says that she's going to the store—and never returns. In her absence, she leaves her teenage son alone with his damaged past and a legacy of secrets.

Keith Weston nearly lost his life in an act of arson. He survived—but with devastating physical and emotional scars. Without his mother, he has no one to help him heal, no money, nothing to live for but the medications that numb his pain. Isolated and angry, his hatred has one tight focus: his half sister, Maggie Lockwood.

Nineteen-year-old Maggie Lockwood spent a year in prison for the acts that led up to the fire. Now she's back home. But her release cannot free her from the burden of guilt she carries. She grew up with Keith Weston, played with him as a child…and recently learned they share the same father.

Now the person Keith despises most is the closest thing he has to family—until Sara returns. If Sara returns….

Reading - Black Beauty

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

 

A Junior Fiction

 

 

 

 

When his beloved owners are forced to sell him, Black Beauty leaves his life as a young, care-free colt behind him and embarks on a working life of misery.  Curelly treated by his new masters.

 

.... we call them dumb aminals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.

Reading - The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

 

A Junior Fiction

 

 

 

When newly orphaned Mary Lennor arrives from India, everyone at Misselthwaite Manor thinks her a most disagreeable child.  Then one day she finds a garden that has mysteriously been kept locked and hidden for ten years and, with the help of Dickon and her spoilt, invalid cousin Colin, brings the secret garden back to life.

Reading - Al Capone Does My Shirts

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko

 

A Junior Fiction



 

 

 

 

Today I moved to a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water.

 

I'm not the only kid who lives here. There's my sister, Natalie, except she doesn't count. And there are twenty-three other kids who live on the island because their dads work as guards or cook's or doctors or electricians for the prison, like my dad does. Plus, there are a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two, though I doubt it.

 

The convicts we have are the kind other prisons don't want. I never knew prisons could be picky, but I guess they can. You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst.

 

Unless you're me. I came here because my mother said I had to.

Reading - The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

 

 

 

On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the slice. To her horror, she finds that her cheerful mother tastes of despair. Soon, she’s privy to the secret knowledge that most families keep hidden: her father’s detachment, her mother’s transgression, her brother’s increasing retreat from the world. But there are some family secrets that even her cursed taste buds can’t discern.

Reading - Why Is Brian So Fat?

Why Is Brian So Fat? by Gary Solomon

 

A Junior Fiction

 

 

 

A poignant story of Brian, a twelve-year-old boy who eats instead of feeling to avoid the reality of living with his dysfunctional family.