Staff Picks
LibraryReads for March 2020
- Sarah C.
- Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Collection
Each month, LibraryReads lists the top upcoming titles recommended by librarians across the country. All these books will be published in March 2020, so stay ahead of the curve and get on the holds list now!
Undercover Bromance
Published in 2020
"Braden Mack has read so many romance novels that he's confident he's an expert on romance and women. He is wrong. When Liv Papandreas landed a job working at the restaurant of celebrity chef Royce Preston one year ago, she knew she'd have to endure his infamous anger and abusive outbursts for the sake of her career. But when she overhears the man sexually harassing a young hostess at the restaurant, she confronts him and tells the young woman she'll escort her to human resources. To her dismay, the womanrefuses to make a complaint--and the next thing Liv knows, she's out of a job. She vows that Royce Preston has not heard the last of her. But to take on the powerful chef, she knows she's going to need help. Unfortunately, the only person she can think of is Braden Mack. Mack has never met a woman he couldn't woo... except Liv. When she texts him out of the blue one day and asks to meet him for a drink that night, he thinks he might finally be getting a chance to put some of the famous Mack moves on her.Instead, she fills him in on her problem and asks for help. With the aid of the Bromance Book Club (who are inspired by the romantic suspense novel they're currently reading), they set out to take down the chef. And Liv is determined to keep the sparks between her and Mack to a minimum lest she get burned"-- Provided by publisher.
The Red Lotus
A Novel
Published in 2020
"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant comes a twisting story of love and deceit: an American man vanishes from a rural road in Vietnam and his girlfriend, an ER doctor trained in deductive reasoning, follows a path that leadsher home to the very hospital where they first met. Alexis and Austen met on a Saturday night. Not in a bar, but instead in the emergency room where Alexis sutured a bullet wound in Austen's arm. Six months later, on the brink of falling in love, they travel to Vietnam on a bicycling tour so that Austen can show her his passion for cycling and so that he can pay his respects to the place where his father and uncle fought in the war. But as Alexis sips white wine and waits at the hotel for Austen to return from his solo ride, two men emerge from the tall grass and Austen vanishes into thin air. The only clues he leaves behind are two bright yellow energy gels dropped in the dirt road. As Alexis grapples with this bewildering loss, navigating the FBI, Austen's prickly family, and her colleagues at the hospital, Alexis uncovers a series of strange lies that force her to wonder: Where did Austen go? Why did he really bring her to Vietnam? And how much danger has he left her in? Set amid the adrenaline-fueledworld of the emergency room, The Red Lotus is a fascinating story of those who dedicate their lives to saving people, and those who instead peddle death to the highest bidder."-- Provided by publisher.
A Good Neighborhood
Published in 2020
"A gripping contemporary novel that examines the American dream through the lens of two families living side by side in an idyllic neighborhood, and the one summer that changes their lives irrevocably"-- Provided by publisher.
The Return
Published in 2020
"An edgy and haunting debut novel about a group of friends who reunite after one of them has returned from a mysterious two-year disappearance. Julie is missing, and the missing don't often return. But Elise knows Julie better than anyone, and she feels in her bones that her best friend is out there, and that one day she'll come back. She's right. Two years to the day that Julie went missing, she reappears with no memory of where she's been or what happened to her. Along with Molly and Mae, their two close friends from college, the women decide to reunite at the eccentric, remote Red Honey Inn. But the second Elise sees Julie, she knows something is wrong--she's emaciated, with sallow skin, chipped teeth and odd appetites. In so many ways, Julie seems tobe the friend they all loved and lost. But in others, she seems to be a stranger. When bad weather traps them inside the hotel, tensions flare. Elise begins to hear scratching within the walls, to see the slither of shadows cast by nothing. And as the weekend unfurls, it becomes impossible to deny that the Julie who vanished two years ago is not the same Julie who came back. But then who--or what--is she?"-- Provided by publisher.
The Glass Hotel
A Novel
Published in 2020
"From the award-winning author of Station Eleven, a captivating novel of money, beauty, white-collar crime, ghosts, and moral compromise in which a woman disappears from a container ship off the coast of Mauritania and a massive Ponzi scheme implodes in New York, dragging countless fortunes with it"-- Provided by publisher.
A Murderous Relation
Published in 2020
"Veronica Speedwell navigates a dark world of scandal and murder in this new adventure from New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award nominated author Deanna Raybourn. Veronica Speedwell and her natural historian colleague Stoker are asked by Lady Wellingtonia Beauclerk to help with a potential scandal so explosive it threatens to rock the monarchy. Prince Albert Victor is a regular visitor to the most exclusive private club in London, known as the Club de l'Etoile, and the proprietess, Madame Aurore, has received an expensive gift that can be traced back to the prince. Lady Wellie would like Veronica and Stoker to retrieve the jewel from the club before scandal can break. Worse yet, London is gripped by hysteria in the autumn of 1888, terrorized by what would become the most notorious and elusive serial killer in history, Jack the Ripper--and Lady Wellie suspects the prince may be responsible. Veronica and Stoker reluctantly agree to go undercover at Madame Aurore's high class brothel, where another body soon turns up. Many secrets are swirling around Veronica and the royal family--and it's up to Veronica and Stoker to find the truth, before it's too late for all of them"-- Provided by publisher.
My Dark Vanessa
A Novel
Published in 2020
"2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher. 2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager--and who professed to worship only her--may be far different from what she has always believed? Alternating between Vanessa's present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself."--Amazon.
In Five Years
A Novel
Published in 2020
"A striking, powerful, and moving love story following an ambitious lawyer who experiences an astonishing vision that could change her life forever"-- Provided by publisher.
The Two Lives of Lydia Bird
A Novel
Published in 2020
"Lydia and Freddie. Freddie and Lydia. They'd been together for more than a decade, and Lydia thought their love was indestructible. But she was wrong. On her twenty-eighth birthday, Freddie died in a car accident. So now it's just Lydia, and all she wants to do is hide indoors and sob until her eyes fall out. But Lydia knows that Freddie would want her to try to live fully, happily, even without him. So, enlisting the help of his best friend, Jonas, and her sister, Elle, she takes her first tentative steps into the world, open to life--and perhaps even love--again. But then something inexplicable happens that gives her another chance at her old life with Freddie. A life where none of the tragic events of the past few months have happened. Lydia is pulled again and again across the doorway of her past, living two lives, impossibly, at once. But there's an emotional toll to returning to a world where Freddie, alive, still owns her heart. Because there's someone in her new life, her real life, who wants her to stay. Written with Josie Silver's trademark warmth and wit, The Two Lives of Lydia Bird is a powerful and thrilling love story about the what-ifs that arise at life's crossroads, and what happens when one woman is given a miraculous chance to answer them"-- Provided by publisher.
Eight Perfect Murders
A Novel
Published in 2020
From the hugely talented author of Before She Knew Him comes a chilling tale of psychological suspense and an homage to the thriller genre tailor-made for fans: the story of a bookseller who finds himself at the center of an FBI investigation because a very clever killer has started using his list of fiction's most ingenious murders.-- Amazon.
Darling Rose Gold
Published in 2020
"In her compulsive, sharply-drawn debut, Stephanie Wrobel peels back the layers of the most complicated of mother-daughter relationships. For the first eighteen years of her life, Rose Gold Watts believed she was seriously ill. She was allergic to everything, used a wheelchair and practically lived at the hospital. Neighbors did all they could, holding fundraisers and offering shoulders to cry on, but no matter how many doctors, tests, or surgeries, no one could figure out what was wrong with Rose Gold. Turns out her mom, Patty Watts, was just a really good liar. After serving five years in prison, Patty gets out with nowhere to go and begs her daughter to take her in. The entire community is shocked when Rose Gold says yes. Patty insists all she wants isto reconcile their differences. She says she's forgiven Rose Gold for turning her in and testifying against her. But Rose Gold knows her mother. Patty Watts always settles a score. Unfortunately for Patty, Rose Gold is no longer her weak little darling... And she's waited such a long time for her mother to come home"-- Provided by publisher.