After a couple more warm and humid days here in South Jersey, it looks like Fall weather will finally be with us, which means it will perfect for cuddling up with a great book! And there are a lot of excellent choices arriving at the library today, including new titles by Kate Morton, Haruki Murakami, Tana French, John Sandford, Markus Zusak, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Therese Anne Fowler, Ellie Kemper, and many more! With books ranging from literary fiction, to suspense, to memoir, to a novelization of a smash-hit Broadway musical, there is bound to be something for every reader, no matter the age!
FICTION
The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton
My real name, no one remembers.
The truth about that summer, no one else knows.
In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor on the banks of the Upper Thames. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins.
Over one hundred and fifty years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s sketchbook containing the drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.
Why does Birchwood Manor feel so familiar to Elodie? And who is the beautiful woman in the photograph? Will she ever give up her secrets?
Told by multiple voices across time, The Clockmaker’s Daughter is a story of murder, mystery, and thievery, of art, love and loss. And flowing through its pages like a river, is the voice of a woman who stands outside time, whose name has been forgotten by history, but who has watched it all unfold: Birdie Bell, the clockmaker’s daughter.
Description from Goodreads.
“At the novel’s emotional core … is the intersection of lives across decades, united, as the ethereal narrator suggests, by a shared experience of ‘loss that ties them together.’ In addition to love—not only romantic love but also love between parents and siblings—and loss, the stories, brilliantly told by Morton, offer musings on art, betrayal, and the ways in which real lives and real places can evolve over time into the stuff of legends.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“…a lush, riveting tale that you won’t soon forget.” – BookBub
“She delivers a satisfying, emotional ending that remarkably synthesizes most characters and facets of the story.” – The Washington Post
Available Formats:
November Road by Lou Berney
Frank Guidry’s luck has finally run out.
A loyal street lieutenant to New Orleans’ mob boss Carlos Marcello, Guidry has learned that everybody is expendable. But now it’s his turn—he knows too much about the crime of the century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Within hours of JFK’s murder, everyone with ties to Marcello is turning up dead, and Guidry suspects he’s next: he was in Dallas on an errand for the boss less than two weeks before the president was shot. With few good options, Guidry hits the road to Las Vegas, to see an old associate—a dangerous man who hates Marcello enough to help Guidry vanish.
Guidry knows that the first rule of running is “don’t stop,” but when he sees a beautiful housewife on the side of the road with a broken-down car, two little daughters and a dog in the back seat, he sees the perfect disguise to cover his tracks from the hit men on his tail. Posing as an insurance man, Guidry offers to help Charlotte reach her destination, California. If she accompanies him to Vegas, he can help her get a new car.
For her, it’s more than a car— it’s an escape. She’s on the run too, from a stifling existence in small-town Oklahoma and a kindly husband who’s a hopeless drunk.
It’s an American story: two strangers meet to share the open road west, a dream, a hope—and find each other on the way.
Charlotte sees that he’s strong and kind; Guidry discovers that she’s smart and funny. He learns that’s she determined to give herself and her kids a new life; she can’t know that he’s desperate to leave his old one behind.
Another rule—fugitives shouldn’t fall in love, especially with each other. A road isn’t just a road, it’s a trail, and Guidry’s ruthless and relentless hunters are closing in on him. But now Guidry doesn’t want to just survive, he wants to really live, maybe for the first time.
Everyone’s expendable, or they should be, but now Guidry just can’t throw away the woman he’s come to love.
And it might get them both killed.
Description from Goodreads.
“Berney’s gentle, descriptive writing brilliantly reflects these times of both disillusionment and hope… Perfectly captures these few weeks at the end of 1963—all that was lost and all that lay tantalizingly and inevitably just beyond the horizon.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Berney’s follow-up to The Long and Faraway Gone explores relationships between two complicated and realized characters. With depth and genre crossover appeal, this literary crime thriller will please fans of Dennis Lehane or George Pelecanos and also satisfy a wider audience.” – Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“Berney creates nail-biting suspense by placing Marcello’s top hit man on Guidry’s trail, the book’s power derives from Charlotte, who finds hidden strength as she confronts unexpected challenges. This is much more than just another conspiracy thriller.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
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MYSTERY & SUSPENSE
The Witch Elm by Tana French
Toby is a happy-go-lucky charmer who’s dodged a scrape at work and is celebrating with friends when the night takes a turn that will change his life: he surprises two burglars who beat him and leave him for dead. Struggling to recover from his injuries, beginning to understand that he might never be the same man again, he takes refuge at his family’s ancestral home to care for his dying uncle Hugo. Then a skull is found in the trunk of an elm tree in the garden – and as detectives close in, Toby is forced to face the possibility that his past may not be what he has always believed.
The Witch Elm asks what we become, and what we’re capable of, when we no longer know who we are.
Description from Goodreads.
“Head-spinning. . . French has spun an engrossing meditation on memory, identity, and family. A master of psychological complexity, she toys with the minds of her characters and readers both.” – Vogue
“Tana French is at the cutting edge of crime fiction, and The Witch Elm pushes its boundaries further.” – The New Republic
“French’s slow-burning, character-driven examination of male privilege is timely, sharp, and meticulously crafted. Recommended for her legions of fans, as well as any readers of literary crime fiction.” – Library Journal
Available Formats:
Print Book | Audiobook | Playaway | eBook | eAudiobook
Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller
From the attic of Lyntons, a dilapidated English country mansion, Frances Jellico sees them—Cara first: dark and beautiful, then Peter: striking and serious. The couple is spending the summer of 1969 in the rooms below hers while Frances is researching the architecture in the surrounding gardens. But she’s distracted. Beneath a floorboard in her bathroom, she finds a peephole that gives her access to her neighbors’ private lives.
To Frances’ surprise, Cara and Peter are keen to get to know her. It is the first occasion she has had anybody to call a friend, and before long they are spending every day together: eating lavish dinners, drinking bottle after bottle of wine, and smoking cigarettes until the ash piles up on the crumbling furniture. Frances is dazzled.
But as the hot summer rolls lazily on, it becomes clear that not everything is right between Cara and Peter. The stories that Cara tells don’t quite add up, and as Frances becomes increasingly entangled in the lives of the glamorous, hedonistic couple, the boundaries between truth and lies, right and wrong, begin to blur. Amid the decadence, a small crime brings on a bigger one: a crime so terrible that it will brand their lives forever.
Description from Goodreads.
“In the vein of Shirley Jackson’s bone-chilling The Haunting of Hill House, Fuller’s disturbing novel will entrap readers in its twisty narrative, leaving them to reckon with what is real and what is unreal. An intoxicating, unsettling masterpiece.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Fuller is a master of the quietly eerie; she’s excellent at creating an aura of pervasive dread―and sustaining it till the very last page.” – NYLON
“Cannily releasing clues on the way to an explosive finale, Fuller moves fluidly between the time of the story and a period 20 years later . . . The lush setting and remarkable characters make for an immersive mystery.” – Publishers Weekly
Available Formats:
Holy Ghost by John Sandford
Pinion, Minnesota: a metropolis of all of seven hundred souls for which the word “moribund” might have been invented. Nothing ever happened there and nothing ever would—until the mayor of sorts (campaign slogan: “I’ll Do What I Can”) and a buddy come up with a scheme to put Pinion on the map. They’d heard of a place where a floating image of the Virgin Mary had turned the whole town into a shrine, attracting thousands of pilgrims. And all those pilgrims needed food, shelter, all kinds of crazy things, right? They’d all get rich! What could go wrong?
When the dead body shows up, they find out, and that’s only the beginning of their troubles—and Virgil Flowers’—as they are all about to discover all too soon.
Description from Goodreads.
“Holy smoke, Holy Ghost is a hot one! . . . The dialogue is sometimes biting and always witty, and the entire book is at once wicked and sublime.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Wickedly enjoyable . . . Sandford’s trademark sly humor shines throughout.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“[A]nother rip-roaring thriller from John Sandford, who continues to masterfully develop Virgil Flowers.” – The Real Book Spy
Available Formats:
Print Book | Audiobook | Playaway | eBook
Mycroft and Sherlock by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & Anna Waterhouse
Now a force to be reckoned with in the War Office, the young Mycroft Holmes is growing his network of contacts and influence, although not always in a manner that pleases his closest friend, Cyrus Douglas. A Trinidadian of African descent, Douglas has opened a home for orphaned children, while still running his successful import business.
When a ship carrying a cargo in which Douglas was heavily invested runs aground on the Dorset coast, Mycroft convinces his brother Sherlock to offer his services at the orphanage while Douglas travels to see what can be salvaged. Sherlock finds himself surprisingly at home among the street urchins, but is alarmed to discover that two boys show signs of drug addiction. Meanwhile Douglas also finds evidence of opium use on two dead sailors, and it becomes clear to Mycroft that the vile trade is on the ascent once again.
Travelling to China on the trail of the drug business, Mycroft and Douglas discover that there are many in high places willing to make a profit from the misery of others. Their opponents are powerful, and the cost of stemming the deadly tide of opium is likely to be high…
Description from Goodreads.
“Mycroft and Sherlock has a well laid out plot with many twists and turns that will keep the reader guessing. And for Sherlock Holmes fans, it is a perfect edition to sit next to Conan Doyle on the library shelf.” – New York Journal of Books
“Fans of Conan Doyle will appreciate the period accuracy, but a much wider audience will enjoy the intelligent treatment of race and social standing as part of a well-plotted, intriguing mystery.” – Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“In a sequel that takes place two years following the events detailed in the authors’ outstanding Mycroft Holmes (2015), Abdul-Jabbar and Waterhouse again nail the historical ambience, the dialogue, and the plotting, effectively paying tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle but also adding large dollops of humor and romance. This is a wonderful mystery in what one hopes will be a long-running series.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
HISTORICAL FICTION
Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
In Killing Commendatore, a thirty-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious thirteen-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna, a pit in the woods behind the artist’s home, and an underworld haunted by Double Metaphors. A tour de force of love and loneliness, war and art—as well as a loving homage to The Great Gatsby—Killing Commendatore is a stunning work of imagination from one of our greatest writers.
Description from Amazon.
“Some novelists hold a mirror up to the world and some, like Haruki Murakami, use the mirror as a portal to a universe hidden beyond it. . . . He builds his self-contained world deliberately and faithfully, developing intrigue and suspense and even taking care to give each chapter a cliffhanger ending as in an old-fashioned serialized novel. . . . When you’re under Mr. Murakami’s trance you’re likely to keep flipping the pages.” – The Wall Street Journal
“No ordinary trip; get ready for a wild ride.” – Entertainment Weekly
“Eccentric and intriguing, Killing Commendatore is the product of a singular imagination. . . . Murakami is a wiz at melding the mundane with the surreal. . . . He has a way of imbuing the supernatural with uncommon urgency. His placid narrative voice belies the utter strangeness of his plot. . . . The worldview of Murakami’s novels is consistent, and it’s invigorating. In this book and many that came before it, he urges us to embrace the unusual, accept the unpredictable.” – San Francisco Chronicle
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A Well-Behaved Woman by Therese Anne Fowler
In 1883, the New York Times prints a lengthy rave of Alva Vanderbilt’s Fifth Ave. costume ball–a coup for the former Alva Smith, who not long before was destitute, her family’s good name useless on its own. Marrying into the newly rich but socially scorned Vanderbilt clan, a union contrived by Alva’s best friend and now-Duchess of Manchester, saved the Smiths–and elevated the Vanderbilts.
From outside, Alva seems to have it all and want more. She does have a knack for getting all she tries for: the costume ball–no mere amusement–wrests acceptance from doyenne Caroline Astor. Denied a box at the Academy of Music, Alva founds The Met. No obstacle puts her off for long.
But how much of ambition arises from insecurity? From despair? From refusal to play insipid games by absurd rules? –There are, however, consequences to breaking those rules. One must tread carefully.
And what of her maddening sister-in-law, Alice? Her husband William, who’s hiding a terrible betrayal? The not-entirely-unwelcome attentions of his friend Oliver Belmont, who is everything William is not? What of her own best friend, whose troubles cast a wide net?
Alva will build mansions, push boundaries, test friendships, and marry her daughter to England’s most eligible duke or die trying. She means to do right by all, but good behavior will only get a woman so far. What is the price of going further? What might be the rewards? There’s only one way to know for certain…
Description from Goodreads.
“Genius….Though the novel’s lavish sweep and gorgeous details evoke a vanished world, Fowler’s exploration of the way powerful women are simultaneously devalued and rewarded resonates powerfully.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“A striking portrait of a woman ahead of her time and a true feminist icon.” – Popsugar
“With you-are-there immediacy fueled by assured attention to biographical detail and deft weaving of labyrinthine intrigue, Fowler creates a thoroughly credible imagining of the challenges and emotional turmoil facing this fiercely independent woman.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
NONFICTION
My Squirrel Days by Ellie Kemper
Comedian and star of “The Office” and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” Ellie Kemper delivers a hilarious and uplifting collection of essays about one pale woman’s journey from Midwestern naïf to Hollywood semi-celebrity to outrageously reasonable New Yorker.
There comes a time in every sitcom actress’s life when she is faced with the prospect of writing a book. When Ellie Kemper’s number was up, she was ready. Contagiously cheerful, predictably wholesome, and mostly inspiring except for one essay about her husband’s feet, My Squirrel Days is a funny, free-wheeling tour of Ellie’s life—from growing up in suburban St. Louis with a vivid imagination and a crush on David Letterman to moving to Los Angeles and accidentally falling on Doris Kearns Goodwin.
But those are not the only famous names dropped in this synopsis. Ellie will also share stories of inadvertently insulting Ricky Gervais at the Emmy Awards, telling Tina Fey that she has “great hair—really strong and thick,” and offering a maxi pad to Steve Carell. She will take you back to her childhood as a nature lover determined to commune with squirrels, to her college career as a benchwarming field hockey player with no assigned position, and to her young professional days writing radio commercials for McDonald’s but never getting paid. Ellie will guide you along her journey through adulthood, from unorganized bride to impatient wife to anxious mother who—as recently observed by a sassy hairstylist—“dresses like a mom.” Well, sassy hairstylist, Ellie Kemper is a mom. And she has been dressing like it since she was four.
Ellie has written for GQ, Esquire, The New York Times, McSweeney’s, and The Onion. Her voice is the perfect antidote to the chaos of modern life. In short, she will tell you nothing you need to know about making it in show business, and everything you need to know about discreetly changing a diaper at a Cibo Express.
Description from Goodreads.
“Uproarious … Kemper proves that good comedy starts with good writing … an entertaining celebrity memoir.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Kemper is a joy to follow … She’s always poking fun at herself, but bravely open enough to let us all in on the joke.” – TheAVClub.com
“Recalling stories from different points in her life, from her childhood to moving to Los Angeles, her charm and warmth are on full display. Be prepared to fall even more in love with Kemper.” – PopSugar
Available Formats:
The League: How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire by John Eisenberg
The epic tale of the five owners who shepherded the NFL through its tumultuous early decades and built the most popular sport in America.
The National Football League is a towering, distinctly American colossus spewing out $13 billion in annual revenue. Yet its current dominance has obscured how professional football got its start.
In The League, John Eisenberg reveals that Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell took an immense risk by investing in the professional game. At that time the sport barely registered on the national scene, where college football, baseball, boxing, and horseracing dominated. The five owners succeeded only because at critical junctures in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s each sacrificed the short-term success of his team for the longer-term good of the League.
At once a history of a sport and a remarkable story of business ingenuity, The League is an essential read for any fan of our true national pastime.
Description from Goodreads.
“A rich history of the rise of the National Football League from its virtual obscurity at its genesis in the 1920s to its position as an economic and cultural powerhouse today. …An engaging and informative cultural history, on and off the gridiron.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Drawing on extensive research and personal interviews with descendants of the principle figures, Eisenberg puts a nearly century-old story into contemporary context. Football fans of all teams will appreciate this fascinating history.” – Publishers Weekly
Available Formats:
Presidents of War: The Epic Story, from 1807 to Modern Times by Michael R. Beschloss
From a preeminent presidential historian comes a groundbreaking and often surprising narrative of America’s wartime chief executives.
It sometimes seems, in retrospect, as if America has been almost continuously at war. Ten years in the research and writing, Presidents of War is a fresh, magisterial, intimate look at a procession of American leaders as they took the nation into conflict and mobilized their country for victory. It brings us into the room as they make the most difficult decisions that face any President, at times sending hundreds of thousands of American men and women to their deaths.
From James Madison and the War of 1812 to recent times, we see them struggling with Congress, the courts, the press, their own advisors and antiwar protesters; seeking comfort from their spouses, families and friends; and dropping to their knees in prayer. We come to understand how these Presidents were able to withstand the pressures of war—both physically and emotionally—or were broken by them.
Beschloss’s interviews with surviving participants in the drama and his discoveries in original letters, diaries, once-classified national security documents, and other sources help him to tell this story in a way it has not been told before. Presidents of War combines the sense of being there with the overarching context of two centuries of American history. This important book shows how far we have traveled from the time of our Founders, who tried to constrain presidential power, to our modern day, when a single leader has the potential to launch nuclear weapons that can destroy much of the human race.
Description from Goodreads.
“This spirited account, reminiscent of The Oxford History of the United States, will captivate history buffs and interest scholars of the institutional presidency and the Constitution.” – Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“Exceptional storytelling. . . . Beschloss sweeps across more than 160 years, delving into presidential decision-making in eight wars from the early 19th century to Vietnam. Along the way, he paints rich portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and other larger-than-life leaders whose choices determined the fates of millions and redirected the flow of history.” – The Boston Globe
“Sparkle and bite. . . . Valuable and engrossing study of how our chief executives have discharged the most significant of all their duties. . . . Excellent. . . . A fluent narrative that covers two centuries of national conflict.” – The Wall Street Journal
Available Formats:
YOUNG ADULT
Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel by Val Emmich
Dear Evan Hansen,
Today’s going to be an amazing day and here’s why…
When a letter that was never meant to be seen by anyone draws high school senior Evan Hansen into a family’s grief over the loss of their son, he is given the chance of a lifetime: to belong. He just has to stick to a lie he never meant to tell, that the notoriously troubled Connor Murphy was his secret best friend.
Suddenly, Evan isn’t invisible anymore–even to the girl of his dreams. And Connor Murphy’s parents, with their beautiful home on the other side of town, have taken him in like he was their own, desperate to know more about their enigmatic son from his closest friend. As Evan gets pulled deeper into their swirl of anger, regret, and confusion, he knows that what he’s doing can’t be right, but if he’s helping people, how wrong can it be?
No longer tangled in his once-incapacitating anxiety, this new Evan has a purpose. And a website. He’s confident. He’s a viral phenomenon. Every day is amazing. Until everything is in danger of unraveling and he comes face to face with his greatest obstacle: himself.
A simple lie leads to complicated truths in this big-hearted coming-of-age story of grief, authenticity and the struggle to belong in an age of instant connectivity and profound isolation.
Description from Goodreads.
“Yep, the hit musical will make you cry just as much in book form.” – Entertainment Weekly
“[A] particularly authentic first-person narration about family dynamics, the importance of kindness, and the horrors of not fitting in at high school…. A must-read.” – Publishers Weekly
“An unpredictable and endearing take on some classic themes.” – School Library Journal
Available Formats:
Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak
The breathtaking story of five brothers who bring each other up in a world run by their own rules. As the Dunbar boys love and fight and learn to reckon with the adult world, they discover the moving secret behind their father’s disappearance.
At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge—for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle.
The question is, how far is Clay willing to go? And how much can he overcome?
Description from Goodreads.
“With heft and historical scope, Zusak creates a sensitively rendered tale of loss, grief, and guilt’s manifestations.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Zusak pushes the parameters of the YA in this gorgeously written novel.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“This is a tale of love, art and redemption; rowdy and joyous, with flashes of wit and insight, and ultimately moving.” – The Times
Available Formats:
CHILDREN’S
Just Add Glitter by Angela Diterlizzi; illustrated by Samantha Cotterill
Has the rainy day got you down?
Not feeling fancy in your gown?
Just add glitter!
It all starts with a mysterious mail delivery, a little girl with a big imagination, and a sprinkling of twinkling glitter. Before long there’s glitter here, glitter there—glitter, glitter EVERYWHERE! But just when she’s about to add more glitter, the little girl realizes maybe there is such a thing as too much bling when you and your best pal start to get lost in it…
From beloved author Angela DiTerlizzi and illustrator Samantha Cotterill comes a silly and sweet story that celebrates imagination, creativity, and knowing when enough is enough—or is it?!
Description from Goodreads.
“Cotterill embeds actual glitter into her hand-drawn and cut-paper pictures, and the dazzle of it all, combined with the exuberance of the protagonist and her cat sidekick, will sweep many readers up into joyful glittermania.” – Publishers Weekly
“Young artists will delight in the creative joy the protagonist displays but will appreciate that even sparkly glitter must be restrained sometimes. …A great rainy-day read-aloud complete with built-in craft ideas.” – Kirkus Reviews
Available Formats:
Zola’s Elephant by Randall de Sève; illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski
When Zola moves into the neighborhood, her new next-door neighbor is too shy to go over and introduce herself. Plus, Zola already has a friend to play with—an elephant!
Description from Goodreads.
“Vivid pages abound with the gem-like layered mixed-media paintings in the signature style of this two-time Caldecott Honor Book illustrator. Whimsical and surreal details, both real and make-believe, celebrate the joy of pretending with a new friend.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Jewel-box artwork by Caldecott Honor artist Zagarenski recalls the exquisite detail of Persian miniatures.” – Publishers Weekly
“The text’s dive into social paralysis gives this depth beyond the usual new-friends story.” – The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books