LibraryReads for September 2023

"Salma Khatun is hopeful about Blenheim, the suburban development into which she, her husband, and their son have just moved. The Bangladeshi family needs a fresh start, and Blenheim feels like just the place. Soon after they move in, Salma spots her white neighbor, Tom Hutton, ripping out the anti-racist banner her son put in the front garden. Avoiding confrontation, Salma takes the banner inside and puts it in her window. But the next morning, she wakes up to find her window smeared with paint. When shedoes speak to Tom, battle lines are drawn between the two families. As racial and social tensions escalate and the stakes rise, it's clear that a reckoning is coming... And someone is going to get hurt"-- Provided by publisher.

"Newly single and unemployed Kerry Tolliver needs a second chance. When she moves back home to her family's Christmas tree farm in North Carolina, she is guilt tripped into helping her brother, Murphy, sell trees in New York City. She begrudgingly agrees,but she isn't happy about sharing a trailer with her brother in the East Village for two months. Plus, it's been years, since before her parents' divorce, that she's been to the city to sell Christmas trees. Then, Kerry meets Patrick, the annoying Mercedes owner who parked in her spot for the first two days. Patrick is recently divorced, a father to a six year old son, and lives in the neighborhood. Can Kerry's first impressions about the recently divorced, single father, and--dare she say, handsome--neighbor be wrong? Surrounded by warm childhood memories, sparkling possibility, and the magic of Christmas in the City, will Kerry finally get the second chance she needs to find herself... and maybe even find love?"-- Provided by publisher.

"A disgraced soccer executive reluctantly enlists the help of a retired soccer star in coaching a children's team"-- Provided by publisher.

"In her teenage years, lovelorn Jessica Gold cast a spell that went disastrously wrong, and brought her all the wrong kind of attention--as well as a lifetime ban from the World Council of Witches. So no one is more surprised than Jess when, fifteen years later, tall, handsome WCW member Derrick Winters shows up in her quaint little village of West Harbor and claims that Jess is the Chosen One. Not chosen by West Harbor's snobby elite to style them for the town's tricentennial ball--though Jess owns the chicest clothing boutique in town. And not chosen finally to be on the WCW, either--not that Jess would have said yes, anyway, since she's done with any organization that tries to dictate what makes a "true" witch. No, Jess has been chosen to help save West Harbor itself... But just when Jess is beginning to think that she and Derrick might have a certain magic of their own--and not of the supernatural variety--Jess learns he may not be who she thought he was. And suddenly Jess finds herself having to make another kind of choice: trust Derrick and work with him to combat the sinister force battling to bring down West Harbor, or use her gift as she always has: to keep herself, and her heart, safe"-- Provided by publisher.

"Major Rufus d'Aumesty has unexpectedly become the Earl of Oxney, master of a remote Norman manor on the edge of the infamous Romney Marsh. There he's beset on all sides, his position contested both by his greedy uncle and by Luke Doomsday, son of a notorious smuggling clan. The earl and the smuggler should be natural enemies, but cocksure, enragingly competent Luke is a trained secretary and expert schemer-exactly the sort of man Rufus needs by his side. Before long, Luke becomes an unexpected ally...andthe lover Rufus had never hoped to find. But Luke came to Stone Manor with an ulterior motive, one he's desperate to keep hidden even from the lord he can't resist. As the lies accumulate and family secrets threaten to destroy everything they hold dear,master and man find themselves forced to decide whose side they're really on...and what they're willing to do for love"-- Provided by publisher.

Escaping from a colonial settlement in the wilderness, a servant girl, with nothing but her wits, a few possessions and some faith, is tested beyond the limits of her imagination, forcing her to question her belief of everything her own civilization taught her.

"A cynical twentysomething must confront her cultish family in this fiery, irreverent novel from the national bestselling author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle. Vesper Wright is in hell. The night she gets fired from her unglamorous restaurant job, she comes home to find an envelope waiting on her doorstep. There's no return address, but she knows exactly who it's from-her estranged family. Inside the envelope is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper's cousin and childhood best friend, Rosemary, the oneperson she regrets losing touch with. She's getting married at the family home. A home that, according to the rules of her strictly religious family, Vesper shouldn't be allowed to return to. But Vesper has always been an exception to the rule, and something inside her is telling her she has to attend the wedding, even if it means suffering through a weekend in the staunchly religious community she defected from. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and foreverice queen. When Vesper's homecoming exhumes a horrifying family secret, she's forced to reckon with her family's fanatical beliefs and her own unexpected identity. This haunting novel explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to define our own separate identities"-- Provided by publisher.

"Two hotel receptionists--and archrivals--find a collection of old wedding rings and compete to return them to their owners, discovering their own love story along the way. It's the busiest season of the year, and Forest Manor Hotel is quite literally falling apart. So when Izzy and Lucas are given the same shift on the hotel's front desk, they have no choice but to put their differences aside and see it through. The hotel won't stay afloat beyond Christmas without some sort of miracle. But when Izzy returns a guest's lost wedding ring, the reward convinces management that this might be the way to fix everything. With four rings still sitting in the lost and found, the race is on for Izzy and Lucas to save their beloved hotel--and their jobs. As their bitter rivalry turns into something much more complicated, Izzy and Lucas begin to wonder if there's more at stake here than the hotel's future. Can the two of them make it through the season with their hearts intact?"-- Provided by publisher.

"A thrilling psychological horror debut about a woman who is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes haunted, no matter the cost... You can survive anything. That's what Margaret tells herself when the walls of her house start to drip blood every September. She's learned how to live with it...and the other terrifying apparitions that have made the sprawling Victorian house she and her husband bought four years ago turn from a dream home into a living nightmare. But she can outlast all of it. Hal felt differently, though. Her husband couldn't take the hauntings anymore, and he left. But now he's not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine arrives, intent on looking for her missing father, convinced something grim has happened to him. With every desperate attempt Katherine makes at finding Hal, the hauntings at the September House grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep"-- Provided by publisher.

When a dangerous package goes missing on Boxing Day, the Thursday Murder Club, when one of their own is murdered, take on their most deadly opponents yet.

"Remy Wadia left India for the United States long ago, carrying his resentment of his mother with him. He has now returned to Bombay to adopt a baby--and to see his elderly mother for the first time in several years. Discovering that she is in the hospital, has stopped talking, and seems to have given up on life, he is struck with guilt for not realizing just how sick she has become. His unexpected appearance and assiduous attention revives her and enables her to return to her home. But when Remy finds anold photograph from his adoring late father, shocking long-held family secrets surface"-- Provided by publisher.

"A sapphic rivals to lovers rom com for fans of Ted Lasso and A League of Their Own, where two soccer teammates are at odds before falling in love as their team gears up for the World Cup. Grace Henderson has been a star of the US Women's National Team for ten years, even though she's only 26. But when she's sidelined with an injury, a bold new upstart, Phoebe Matthews, takes her spot. 22-year-old Phoebe is everything Grace isn't-a gregarious jokester who plays with a joy that Grace lost somewhere along the way. The last thing Grace expects is to become teammates with benefits with this class clown she sees as her rival. Phoebe Matthews is too focused on her first season as a professional soccer player to think about seducing her longtime idol. But when Grace ends up making the first move, they can't keep their hands off of each other. As the World Cup approaches and Grace works her way back from injury, a miscommunication leaves the women with hilariously different perspectives on their relationship. Butthey're on the same page on the field, realizing they can play together instead of vying for the same position. With every tackle the tension between them grows, and both players soon have to decide what's more important-being together or making the roster. The perfect blend of funny and steamy, Meryl Wilsner's Cleat Cute is about being brave enough to win on and off the field"-- Provided by publisher.

"about a Chinese American chef who, lured to a decadent, enigmatic colony of the superrich in a near future in which food is disappearing, discovers the meaning of pleasure and the ethics of who gets to enjoy it, altering her life and, indirectly, the world"-- Provided by publisher.