Something Wicked This Way Comes

In the 1970s backwater of Coden, Alabama, a teenage orphan called Annie mysteriously arrives and quickly drives a wedge in an apparently perfect family.  Full of creepy supernatural elements and family secrets reminiscent of The Turn of the Screw and The Amityville Horror, The Darkling by R. B. Chesterton (aka Carolyn Haines) is a quick and easy read, which is sometimes exactly what you want on a sunny, beautiful afternoon.  HM

A Life Well-Lived

A Simple Life is a spare and gorgeously filmed movie that explores the end of life and who we consider to be our "family" when it really comes down to it. Maid Ah Tao has served a single household for four generations, culminating with the last bachelor son, Roger.  After suffering a stroke, Ah Tao decides to retire to an assisted-living facility where she comes to terms with her own mortality and where she and Roger begin to realize that their bond goes much deeper than as merely servant and employer.  HM

Secrets That Can't Stay Buried

I am a sucker for cold case mysteries, and this 2007 book from Harlan Coben did not disappoint.  The title The Woods refers to a forested summer camp where four teens were viciously murdered twenty years before, but two of the bodies were never found.  When one of those bodies finally shows up two decades later, the brother of the other missing victim is thrown into a twisted tale of deceit and family secrets.  HM

Things kept hidden.

In 1957 Jane was eleven years old and her father disappeared. When his skull rolled out of the gravel pit three years later with a bullet hole in it, rumors went around he had been killed by his mistress's husband. Now, years later Jane plays a weekly scrabble game with the mistress, Ada. Her daughter has a powerful attraction to one of Ada's sons. While this sounds like a soap opera, Game of Secrets is rather a beautifully written novel about the intertwined relationships in a small town. At once a love story and a mystery, it is moving and surprising. Highly recommended! M.L.

Worth a Second Look

I've heard a lot of people say that they started to read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but never made it through to the end. If there is one book that is worth a second try, it's Betty Smith's classic coming-of-age tale. Set in the early part of the 20th century, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn follows the trials and triumphs of young Francie Nolan as she navigates a bittersweet childhood in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Francie's story is punctuated with the comings and goings of a variety of strong secondary characters, who serve to move the narrative in unexpected and sometimes heart-wrenching directions. This is definitely a book where the characters stick with you long after you've finished the last page. HM

Is Blood Thicker Than Water?

Twenty-two years ago, Detective Frank Mackey was just a teenager with big dreams who planned to elope with his girlfriend, Rosie Daly. Their tickets were bought, their bags packed, and their lives in the Dublin slums were set to change forever. Unfortunately, while Frank waited anxiously under a streetlight on the night of their supposed escape, Rosie decided to stand him up and head to London alone. At least that's what he had always assumed. Then Rosie's battered and moldy suitcase is discovered behind a fireplace in a derelict house in Faithful Place and Detective Mackey is called back by his estranged, dysfunctional family to find out what actually happened to Rosie Daly two decades ago. Faithful Place is the third book in Tana French's loosely connected Dublin Murder Squad series and can be read independently of the previous titles, In the Woods and The Likeness.

For more international crime thrillers, check out our current display and reading list next time you're in the library. HM

Forgotten History

Kim Edwards, author of The Memory Keeper's Daughter, has created a compelling story about how ancestors' actions can have unforeseen long-lasting effects. In The Lake of Dreams, Lucy returns home after years abroad to tend to her mother and make tough decisions about her future. She discovers, locked away in a trunk, a beautiful hand-woven cloth with women's suffrage pamphlets. She's intrigued by the story behind the items, and her research reveals some painful truths about her own family which some would rather be left unearthed.

Life in the Wake

Ayelet Waldman writes a story of two Maine families and the journey their lives take over four summers. Jane and Iris are matriarchs whose perspectives could not be more different. A sudden unexpected incident tries the resolve of these women and their loved ones as they struggle to find comfort. Waldman tells the story distinctly and sensitively in Red Hook Road.

Charming Southern Novel

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, by Beth Hoffman came highly recommended to me and I recommend it to you. It is a wonderful and entertaining novel about a sad little girl who lived with and took care of her mentally ill mother but was eventually scooped up by her great aunt Tootie and taken to Savannah, GA, to live in a wonderful restored historic house. There are all the eccentric Southern characters you could want to find, pulling stunts that will make you smile, including a cook, Oleta, who assumes the role of CeeCee's first friend and caregiver. I was sorry to finish this book after being totally involved with the characters, the story and the setting.