Staff Picks
LibraryReads for December 2023
- Sarah C.
- Saturday, November 18, 2023
Collection
Each month, LibraryReads lists the top upcoming titles recommended by librarians across the country. All these books will be published in December 2023, so stay ahead of the curve and get on the holds list now!
The Curse of Penryth Hall
Published in 2023
"An atmospheric gothic mystery that beautifully brings the ancient Cornish countryside to life, Armstrong introduces heroine Ruby Vaughn in her Minotaur Books & Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning debut, The Curse of Penryth Hall. After the Great War, American heiress Ruby Vaughn made a life for herself running a rare bookstore alongside her octogenarian employer and house mate in Exeter. She's always avoided dwelling on the past, even before the war, but it always has a way of finding her. When Ruby is forced to deliver a box of books to a folk healer living deep in the Cornish countryside, she is brought back to the one place she swore she'd never return. A more sensible soul would have delivered the package and left without rehashing old wounds. But no one has ever accused Ruby of being sensible. Thus begins her visit to Penryth Hall. A foreboding fortress, Penryth Hall is home to Ruby's once dearest friend, Tamsyn, and her husband, Sir Edward Chenowyth. It's an unsettling place, and after a more unsettling evening, Ruby is eager to depart. But her plans change when Penryth's bells ring for the first time in thirty years. Edward is dead; he met a gruesome end in the orchard, and with his death brings whispers of a returned curse. It also brings Ruan Kivell, the person whose books brought her to Cornwall, the one the locals call a Pellar, the man they believe can break the curse. Ruby doesn't believe in curses--or Pellars--but this is Cornwall and to these villagers the curse is anything but lore, and they believe it will soon claim its next victim: Tamsyn. To protect her friend, Ruby must work alongside the Pellar to find out what really happened in the orchard that night"-- Provided by publisher.
Perfect Little Lives
Published in 2023
With her past set on haunting her, Simone, whose father was convicted of murdering her mother ten years ago, finds a chance encounter with her childhood next-door neighbor revealing a shocking secret that could prove her father's innocence or destroy her carefully rebuilt life.
The Couple in the Photo
Published in 2023
"Lucy and her husband, Adam, have been best friends with another couple, Cora and Scott, for years. The four are practically family at this point--they vacation together, co-own a beach cottage, and their young children are inseparable. So Lucy is devastated when, while looking at a colleague's photos of a trip to the Maldives, she spots a picture of Scott, apparently on a luxurious holiday with another woman. Lucy is determined to protect her best friend from her husband's seeming infidelity, but when she learns that the woman in the photo has gone missing, she can't help but fear that Scott was involved. As she searches for answers, she uncovers secrets about her friends and her own husband that could destroy the wonderful lives they have built...and she suspects that everybody around her knows much more about the missing woman than they are letting on. Is Lucy actually the one most in the dark? If so, what are the consequences of discovering the truth?"-- Provided by publisher.
The Gentleman's Gambit
Published in 2023
"Bookish suffragist Catriona Campbell is busy: An ailing estate, academic writer's block, and a tense time for England's women's rights campaign--the last thing she needs is to be stuck playing host to her father's distractingly attractive young colleague. Deeply introverted Catriona lives for her work at Oxford and her fight for women's suffrage. She dreams of romance, too, but since all her attempts at love have ended badly, she now keeps her desires firmly locked inside her head--until she climbs out of a Scottish loch after a good swim and finds herself rather exposed to her new colleague. Elias Khoury has wheedled his way into Professor Campbell's circle under false pretenses: He did not come to Oxford to classify ancient artefacts; he is determined to take them back to his homeland in the Middle East. Winning Catriona's favor could be the key to his success. Unfortunately, seducing the coolly intense lady scholar quickly becomes a mission in itself and his well-laid plans are in danger of derailing.... Forced into close proximity in Oxford's hallowed halls, two very different people have to face the fact that they might just be a perfect match. Soon, a risky new game begins that asks Catriona one more time to put her heart and wildest dreams at stake"-- Provided by publisher.
The Other Mothers
A Novel
Published in 2023
"Searching for a story to launch her career and new friends to help her navigate motherhood, Tash, welcomed into a circle of sleek, sophisticated mothers, discovers the kind of life she's always dreamed of until two recent murders make her wonder why she's been so quickly accepted into their exclusive world"-- Provided by publisher.
The Fake Mate
Published in 2023
"Mackenzie Carter has had some very bad dates lately. Model train experts, mansplainers, guys weirdly obsessed with her tail-she hasn't had a successful date in months. Only a year out of residency, her grandmother's obsession with Mackenzie finding the perfect mate to settle down with threatens to drive Mackenzie barking mad. Out of options, it feels like a small thing to tell her grandmother that she's met someone. That is, until she blurts out the name of the first man she sees and the last man she would ever date: Noah Taylor, the big bad wolf of Denver General. Noah Taylor, interventional cardiologist and all around grump, has spent his entire life hiding what he is. With outdated stigmas surrounding unmated alphas that have people wondering if they still howl at the moon, Noah has been careful to keep his designation under wraps. It's worked for years, until an anonymous tip has everything coming to light. Noah is left with two options: come clean to the board and risk his career--or find himself a mate. The chatty, overly friendly ER doctor asking him to be her fake boyfriend on the same day he's called to meet the board has to be kismet, right? Mackenzie will keep her grandmother off her back, and Nate will get a chance to prove he can continue to work without a real mate--a mutually beneficial business transaction, they both rationalize. But when the fake-mate act turns into a very real friends-with-benefits arrangement, lines start to blur, and they quickly realize love is a whole different kind of animal"-- Provided by publisher.
Airplane Mode
An Irreverent History of Travel
Published in 2023
"The color of one's skin and passport have long dictated the conditions of travel. For Shahnaz Habib, travel and travel writing have always been complicated pleasures. Habib threads the history of travel with her personal story as a child on family vacations in India, an adult curious about the world, and an immigrant for whom roundtrips are an annual fact of life. Tracing the power dynamics that underlie tourism, this ... debut parses who gets to travel, and who gets to write about the experience. Threaded through the book are ... analyses of obvious and not-so-obvious travel artifacts: passports, carousels, bougainvilleas, guidebooks, trains, the idea of wanderlust itself. Together, they tell a subversive history of travel as a Euro-American mode of consumerism--but as any traveler knows, travel is more than that"-- Provided by publisher.
On the Plus Side
A Novel
Published in 2023
"Everly Winters is perfectly happy to navigate life like a good neutral paint color: appreciated but unnoticed. That's why she's still a receptionist instead of exploring a career in art, why she lurks but never posts on the forums for her favorite makeover show, On the Plus Side, and why she's crushing so hard on her forever-unattainable co-worker. When no one notices you, they can't reject you or insist you're too much. This plan is working perfectly until someone secretly nominates Everly for the nextseason of On the Plus Side. Overwhelmed by the show's extremely extroverted hosts and how much time she'll have to spend on screen, she finds comfort in a surprising friendship with the grumpy but kind cameraman, Logan. Soon Everly realizes that he's someone she doesn't mind being noticed by. In fact, she might even like it. But when their growing connection is caught on camera, it sends the show's ratings into a frenzy. Learning to embrace all of herself on national TV is hard enough; can Everly risk heartbreak with the whole world watching?"-- Provided by publisher.
The Engagement Party
A Novel
Published in 2023
Emily Hunt went missing from her affluent liberal arts school on graduation weekend. Her body was found floating in a river, and a quiet loner who most people on campus really didn’t know died by suicide. A tenuous link—one text—bound the two dead students together and was enough for law enforcement to close the case. But they got it wrong and now someone is determined to set it right. Twelve years later, college friends gather to celebrate an engagement over a long overdue getaway on a swanky private island in Maine—with only one way in and one way out. Sierra Prescott, invited as a guest and unconnected to past events, is the only person who soon senses not all is what it seems. The tension in the air is ignited when they find a dead man in the trunk of a car with a note: time to tell the truth. And things only get worse. As a torrential storm strands them together, the group’s buried stories begin to surface and secrets are bartered. To survive this deadly party, they’ll need to stop a killer before they become prey. --Amazon
The Frozen River
A Novel
Published in 2023
"A gripping historical mystery based on the real-life diary entries of Martha Ballard, an 18th-century midwife who found herself at the center of a murder trial"-- Provided by publisher.
The Vacation
A Novel
Published in 2023
On the shores of Venice Beach, eight strangers, staying in a rundown backpackers hostel, are all running from something-and have secrets they're more than willing to kill for.
Rebecca, Not Becky
A Novel
Published in 2023
Struggling to adjust to the upper-crust white suburb of Rolling Hills, Virginia, De'Andrea Whitman is challenged by her therapist to make a white girlfriend and finds one in Rebecca Myland as they are brought together to fight back against the community's rising racial sentiments.
Familia
Published in 2024
A fact-checker for a popular magazine, Gabby DiMarco, takes a DNA test and discovers she has a sister in Puerto Rico who has been desperately trying to find her for 25 years, despite her parents saying it is impossible.
This Spells Love
A Novel
Published in 2023
"When Gemma Wilde gets dumped by her very practical long-term boyfriend, she reacts the way any twenty-eight-year-old would: by getting drunk with her sister, kooky aunt, and best friend, Dax, and performing a love cleanse to forget all about him. Sure, it sounds a little crazy, but nothing else has worked, so why not try it? They follow the spell, complete with an absolutely platonic kiss from Dax to seal the deal, and Gemma falls asleep in a margarita haze, thinking nothing of it. But when she wakes up, she realizes that this silly spell has worked. Not only has she never met her ex, but her life looks completely different. And Dax has no idea who she is either. To return home, Gemma must convince Dax to become best friends with her before the next full moon. That's a month away. But as finds herself falling for him, Gemma begins to wonder whether she even wants to go back to the way things were"-- Provided by publisher.
Raiders of the Lost Heart
Published in 2023
"Rival archaeologists must team up on a secret Aztec expedition, or it could leave their careers-and hearts-in ruins. Archaeologist Dr. Socorro "Corrie" Mejía has a bone to pick. Literally. It's been Corrie's life goal to lead an expedition deep into the Mexican jungle in search of the long-lost remains of her ancestor, Chimalli, an ancient warrior of the Aztec empire. But when she is invited to join an all-expenses-paid dig to do just that, Corrie is sure it's too good to be true...and she's right. As the world-renowned expert on Chimalli, by rights Corrie should be leading the expedition, not sharing the glory with her disgustingly handsome nemesis. But Dr. Ford Matthews has been finding new ways to best her since they were in grad school. Ford certainly isn't thrilled either-with everything going on in his life right now, the last thing he needs is a reminder of their rocky past. But as the dig begins, it becomes clear they'll need to work together when they realize a thief is lurking around their campsite, forcing the pair to keep their discoveries-and lingering attraction-under wraps. With money-hungry artifact smugglers, the Mexican authorities, and the lies between them closing in, there's only one way this all ends-explosively"-- Provided by publisher.
Technically Yours
Published in 2023
"Pearl Harris has learned the hard way to be careful in work and in love. When she is appointed acting director of OurCode, a nonprofit aimed at inspiring high schoolers to code, she has a chance to make lasting change for the organization, but a scandal has put their reputation at risk. Further complicating matters, Pearl didn't expect the one man she hasn't stopped thinking about in seven years to be the newest member of her board of directors. Cord Matthews fell for Pearl when they met in an elevator seven years ago. She's just his type: smart, capable, and makes him laugh, but when she broke his heart, he decided love wasn't for him. After five years with no contact, their connection is immediate despite the many roadblocks in their way and Cord must consider breaking his ban on serious relationships. But going public with a romance between them might derail Pearl's career and the progress she's made at OurCode. Pearl and Cord both are hesitant to trust their feelings and take a risk as they grow closer, but it becomes impossible to keep ignoring the electricity between them. Cord is a skilled programmer, but a workplace romance might spell disaster for both of them, and love isn't easily debugged"-- Provided by publisher.