New Year. New Books. Exciting new adventures for everyone! Check out our latest!
FICTION
Upside Down by Danielle Steel ~ Oscar-winning actress Ardith Law is a Hollywood icon. Radiant at sixty-two, she is the epitome of glamour and a highly respected artist. But her success has come at a price: She has a strained relationship with her daughter, Morgan, who at thirty-eight still blames Ardith for putting her career before being a mother. Morgan is a successful plastic surgeon in New York City—and the distance from Ardith’s Bel Air mansion is not lost on either of them.
Ardith became a single mother when Morgan was seven, after her unfaithful husband died in a helicopter accident. In recent years, she has found amiable companionship with fellow actor Bill West. But Ardith’s comfortable world is turned upside down when she hires a temporary personal assistant, Josh Gray, while Bill is away filming in London. Josh’s rough-around-the-edges persona is the opposite of what Ardith is used to, but an unexpected tragedy brings them closer, stirring up conflicting feelings in her for this younger man.
The Final Curtain by Keigo Higashino ~ A confounding murder in Tokyo is connected to the mystery of the disappearance and death of Detective Kaga’s own mother. A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, only to die alone in an apartment far away, leaving her estranged son with many unanswered questions. Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. Strangled to death, left in the bare apartment rented under a false name by a man who has disappeared without a trace. Oshitani lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo – and neither her family nor friends have any idea why she would have gone there. Hers is the second strangulation death in that approximate area of Tokyo – the other was a homeless man, killed and his body burned in a tent by the river. As the police search through Oshitani’s past for any clue that might shed some light, one of the detectives reaches out to Detective Kaga for advice. As the case unfolds, an unexpected connective emerges between the murder (or murders) now and the long-ago case of Detective Kaga’s missing mother.
A Haunting at Linley by Michelle Cox ~ Clive and Henrietta return to England to find Castle Linley in financial ruin. When Clive’s cousin, Wallace, invites an estate agent in to assess the home’s value, the agent is later found poisoned, throwing all of the Castle’s guests into suspicion. Clive and Henrietta are soon drawn into an investigation, which is slowed by an incompetent local inspector and several unexplained phenomena–the cause of which many, especially the frail Lady Linley, believe to be the workings of the ghost of a hanged maid. Meanwhile, Gunther and Elsie have begun life on a farm in Omaha. Circumstances are difficult, but they are content–until Oldrich Exely appears, proposing an option Elsie finds difficult to ignore. Melody Merriweather, still masquerading as a nun to aid Elsie’s escape, likewise finds it difficult to ignore a letter with tragic news from home, while Julia is caught by surprise by a very different sort of letter from Glenn Forbes. Back in England, Clive is called away to London on suspicious business, leaving Henrietta to carry on with the investigation alone. When she is mysteriously locked in the study one night, however, things take on a more deadly, supernatural feel, leaving her to fear that Lady Linley’s ‘ghost’ might just be real after all…
NON-FICTION
Old House Handbook: a Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Roger Hunt ~ This fully revised and updated book is the authoritative guide on how to look after your old house – whether it is a timber-framed medieval cottage, an eighteenth-century town house or a Victorian or Edwardian terrace.
The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta ~ For millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom–a land set apart, a nation uniquely blessed, a people in special covenant with God. This love of country, however, has given way to right-wing nationalist fervor, a reckless blood-and-soil idolatry that trivializes the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Alberta retraces the arc of the modern evangelical movement, placing political and cultural inflection points in the context of church teachings and traditions, explaining how Donald Trump’s presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated historical trends that long pointed toward disaster. Reporting from half-empty sanctuaries and standing-room-only convention halls across the country, the author documents a growing fracture inside American Christianity and journeys with readers through this strange new environment in which loving your enemies is “woke” and owning the libs is the answer to WWJD.
How Do I Do That in Photoshop? The Quickest Ways to Do the Things You Want to Do, Right Now! by Scott Kelby ~ Offers a guide to Adobe Photoshop intended to allow users to find and use the features they are interested in quickly.
YOUNG ADULT
Bladestay by Jackie Johnson ~ When a violent, decades-long feud between two powerful men comes to a head in the small settlement of Bladestay, Colorado, cunning resident Theo Creed must use her wits to stay alive. Disguising herself as a young boy, seventeen-year-old Theo bluffs her way into the inner circle of August Gaines, the magnetic leader of the ruthless gang that has descended on her town. But the deeper Theo gets into the con, the more she starts to question her loyalties. Complicating her subterfuge is a mysterious outlaw whose small moments of kindness contradict the blood he has on his hands, making Theo wonder who, exactly, is conning who. To save her town, Theo must parse façade from reality and choose between the barefaced malevolence she’s infiltrated and an evil she didn’t know lurked at home.
