current book picks

BOOK #1
GENRE: THRILLER

Beautiful Ugly
Alice Feeney

Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life. Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared.

A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible – a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.

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BOOK #2
GENRE: ROMANCE / SUSPENSE

All the Missing Pieces
Catherine Cowles

Ridley Sawyer knows what it’s like to miss someone, to feel like a piece of her vanished—because it happened to her the night her twin sister disappeared.

Now, Ridley channels that loss into hope, traveling the country covering cold cases for her true crime podcast. She might not have found justice for her sister but that doesn’t stop her from finding it for others.

Until Sheriff Colter Brooks gets in her way.

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BOOK #3
GENRE: HORROR

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
Grady Hendrix

This is the tragic, heart-wrenching, epic, bleak, angsty story of Wayward Girls who decide to try witchcraft as a means to save themselves from a life where they have no choice, where everything is taken from them without being asked, and where they're only shunned, outcasted, and humiliated for the choices they've made without getting any support from their loved ones. They carry not only a child but a years-long traumatic burden throughout their lifetimes.

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BOOK #4
GENRE: ROMANCE

Into the Woods
Jenny Holiday

Teddy Knight’s band has just broken up in spectacular fashion after his longtime bandmate and—he’d thought—closest friend decides to go solo. So when he’s offered a last-minute gig to fill in as an artist-in-residence at a summer arts camp—which comes with a lake cabin and lots of free time to work on a revenge album—he takes it. No matter that he knows nothing about nature, dislikes kids, and is generally a grump.

Gretchen Miller is having a mid-life crisis. Luckily, her summer job as the dance teacher at Wild Arts summer camp will allow her to drop out of society for a while. Having sworn off dating, she decides she’ll go into the woods and become a crone. She might skip the “luring innocent children to their death” part of cronedom, but she’s all for the “curse men” aspect.

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BOOK #5
GENRE: FANTASY / MYSTERY

A Sea of Unspoken Things
Adrienne Young

The only thing James and Johnny Golden have ever had is each other. For as long as she can remember, James’s deep connection with her twin brother, Johnny, has gone beyond intuition—she can feel what he feels. So, when Johnny is killed in a tragic accident, James knows before her phone even rings that her brother is gone and that she’s alone—truly alone—for the first time in her life. 

When James arrives in the rural town of Hawthorne, California to settle her brother’s affairs, she’s forced to rehash the ominous past she and Johnny shared and finally face Micah, the only person who knows about it. He’s also the only man she’s ever loved. 

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BOOK #6
GENRE: ROMANCE / SPORTS

The Favorites
Layne Fargo

She might not have a famous name, funding, or her family’s support, but Katarina Shaw has always known that she was destined to become an Olympic skater. When she meets Heath Rocha, a lonely kid stuck in the foster care system, their instant connection makes them a formidable duo on the ice. Clinging to skating—and each other—to escape their turbulent lives, Kat and Heath go from childhood sweethearts to champion ice dancers, captivating the world with their scorching chemistry, rebellious style, and rollercoaster relationship. Until a shocking incident at the Olympic Games brings their partnership to a sudden end.

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BOOK #7
GENRE: FANTASY / ROMANCE

Immortal
Sue Lynn Tan

Upon her grandfather’s death, Liyen ascends a precarious throne, vowing to end her kingdom’s obligation to the immortals. When she is summoned to the Immortal Realm, she seizes the opportunity to learn their secrets and to form a tenuous alliance to safeguard her people, all with the one she should fear and mistrust the most: the ruthless God of War. As they are drawn together, a treacherous attraction ignites between them—one she has to resist, to not endanger all she is fighting for.

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BOOK #8
GENRE: HISTORICAL FICTION

Homeseeking
Karissa Chen

Haiwen and Suchi are teenage sweethearts in 1940s Shanghai. Their childhood friendship has blossomed into young love, and they believe they are soulmates. But when Haiwen secretly decides to enlist in the army to keep his brother from the draft, their shared future is shattered. Their paths take them far from each other, with the exception of one pivotal chance encounter on the Hong Kong ferry in 1966.

Sixty years later, Haiwen, now in his late seventies, is bagging bananas at a 99 Ranch in Los Angeles when he lifts his head and sees Suchi. As they rekindle their friendship, it feels like they might have a second chance to live the life they were supposed to have together. But the weight of the past lives with them at every moment, and only time will tell if they are able to forge something new.

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BOOK #9
GENRE: NON-FICTION / TRUE CRIME

Say Nothing
Patrick Radden Keefe

In December 1972, Jean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.

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BOOK #10
GENRE: NON-FICTION / MEMOIR

Taste: My Life Through Food
Stanley Tucci

Before Stanley Tucci became a household name withThe Devil Wears Prada, The Hunger Games,and the perfect Negroni, he grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the table. He shared the magic of those meals with us inThe Tucci CookbookandThe Tucci Table, and now he takes us beyond the recipes and into the stories behind them.

Taste is a reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about growing up in Westchester, New York, preparing for and filming the foodie filmsBig NightandJulie & Julia, falling in love over dinner, and teaming up with his wife to create conversation-starting meals for their children. Each morsel of this gastronomic journey through good times and bad, five-star meals and burnt dishes, is as heartfelt and delicious as the last.

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BOOK #11
GENRE: NON-FICTION / SELF-HELP

Dopamine Nation
Anna Lembke

This book is about pleasure. It's also about pain. Most important, it's about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We're living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting... The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we've all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.

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BOOK #12
GENRE: THRILLER

JANUARY SURPRISE BOOK
MYSTERY AUTHOR

  • Fight against self
  • Therapy gone wrong
  • Hollywood setting
  • Feminist thriller
  • Debut novel

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