Staff Recommendations
Daryl M.
Pages
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Stone Blind
by Haynes, Natalie
March 13, 2023
Call Number:
"I only see them for an instant. Then they're gone. But it's enough. Enough to know that the hero isn't the one who's kind or brave or loyal. Sometimes -- not always, but sometimes -- he is monstrous. And the monster? Who is she? She is what happens when someone cannot be saved. This particular monster is assaulted, abused and vilified. And yet, as the story is always told, She is the one you should fear. She is the monster.We'll see about that." In Stone Blind, Natalie Haynes retells the story of Medusa, one of the three Gorgon sisters from Greek mythology, who could turn... Read Full Review
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How to Take Over the World: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain
by North, Ryan
January 30, 2023
Call Number: 500 N866
In How to Take Over the World, Ryan North, an award winning comics and science writer and computer scientist, provides a primer for those considering supervillainy as a career. He provides step by step instructions, beginning with where to build a secret lair (no matter what you see in movies, television, or comics, do NOT build a lair in an active volcano – North explains why!), potentially villainous schemes to pursue, along with explorations of the existing, or soon to exist, science, including physics, mathematics, biology, history, genetics, along with political science and... Read Full Review
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Paperback Jack
by Estleman, Loren D.
January 3, 2023
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The year is 1946. WWII has ended and Jacob Heppleman is one of the many veterans returning home from the European conflict. For Jacob, home is New York City. Before the war, he wrote detective, western, and war stories for the pulp magazines. He even published a novel that was released just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States’ entry into the war.Desperate to re-start his writing career, Jacob steals a typewriter from a local pawnshop and begins to write again. He finds that he is simply unable to write the fictionalized version of war after having experienced the real... Read Full Review
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Gallant
by Schwab, Victoria
December 27, 2022
Call Number: YA
Olivia Prior has lived at Merilance since she was two years old. While Merilance calls itself a school, the truth is that it is closer to an asylum, a prison. It is a place where girls and young women who are not wanted are sent when they have nowhere else to go. They are supposed to be cared for, but they are not. They are supposed to be educated, but they are not. The children in residence at Merilance are supposed to be prepared for life after they leave the school, but they are not. As terrible as Merilance is, the outside world is worse, and the girls that leave, fleeing Merilance for a... Read Full Review
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Neom
by Tidhar, Lavie
December 20, 2022
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A sprawling metropolis on the edge of the Red Sea that is simultaneously a playground of the wealthy and a struggle for the poor. A woman working multiple jobs to survive because she isn’t rich in a place that isn’t kind to someone without money. A young boy, alone in the world. His only possession may be his ticket off-world and to a better, different life. It could also be the end of everything. A robot, centuries old, in search of a connection to a dangerous past, who enters a shop and asks to buy a single rose. In Neom, award winning author... Read Full Review
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Wrong Place, Wrong Time
by McAllister, Gillian
December 12, 2022
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It is a given that, in most mystery novels, someone dies. The death occurs either before, or shortly after, the novel begins. The bulk of the narrative will explore how or why someone died. In her new novel, Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Gillian McAllister finds a new way to approach the classic mystery: Can you stop a murder after it has occurred?Late in the evening on October 29th, Jen is waiting up for her seventeen-year-old son, Todd, to come home. He is late (possibly, it is the evening of the time change, and at the moment Todd is technically late, midnight, he is granted an... Read Full Review
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The Picture Bride
by Yi, Kŭm-i
November 16, 2022
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The year is 1917 and a seventeen-year-old girl named Willow, who lives with her widowed mother and two younger brothers in a small, rural village in southeastern Korea, is asked by a traveling matchmaker if she wants to get married. The older woman shows Willow a photo of a young man and tells her he lives in Powa, a place the Americans call Hawai’i. She goes on to say that in Powa, you can “sweep up money with a dustpan”, that “clothes and shoes grow on trees, you only have to put them on”, and that “every season is late springtime.” More important to Willow than any of this, is the claim... Read Full Review
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Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan
by Michalski, Liz
November 8, 2022
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We all know the story of Peter Pan, the boy who refuses to grow up. J.M. Barrie wrote and published a play and two books about Peter and his adventures in the early 20th century, recounting how Peter visited the Darling children: Wendy, John, and Michael, and spirited them away to Neverland by teaching them how to fly. But what if there is more to the story than we were told? What if Peter Pan is real? What if the ideas for the story didn’t originate with Barrie, but he merely wrote down what Wendy told him after returning from her adventure? And what if Barrie’s version, sanitized and... Read Full Review
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Only a Monster
by Len, Vanessa
October 31, 2022
Call Number: YA
Joan believes herself to be a typical teenager. She spends her summers in London visiting her maternal grandmother, while her father visits his family in Malaysia. During this visit, she has been volunteering at Holland House, a historic home and museum in Kensington. Holland House is where she met Nick, the quiet and shy volunteer whom she really likes. It’s going to be a marvelous summer.And then, over the course of a single day, Joan’s world is turned upside down. An unexpected occurrence mysteriously robs Joan of an entire afternoon and her grandmother is forced to tell Joan the family... Read Full Review
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Acts of Violet
by Montimore, Margarita
October 24, 2022
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In early 2020, Margarita Montimore published her debut novel, Oona Out of Order. It followed a woman who awakes every January 1st at a different point in her life. She lives in that year, and in that body, until December 31st, only to awaken the following morning beginning a different year at a different age. The novel is inventive, thoughtful, and a page turner! Now Montimore is back with her new novel, Acts of Violet, and it may be better than her debut.During the 1990s, Violet Volk becomes one of the best known, and controversial, stage magicians in the world. She makes a... Read Full Review
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The Monster of Elendhaven
by Giesbrecht, Jennifer
October 17, 2022
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A young man washes up in a harbor with no knowledge of who he is or where he came from. He doesn’t even have a name. He is tall, with dark hair and pale skin. He also possesses a strong sense of survival, driving him to do whatever is necessary to make his way on the dark and dangerous streets of Elendhaven.Florian Leickenbloom is the antithesis of this mysterious young man. He knows his name and that he is the last surviving member of one of Elendhaven’s founding families. He is small and slight of stature with blonde hair. Florian lost his entire family, along with a majority of the city’s... Read Full Review
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Hawk Mountain
by Habib, Conner
October 12, 2022
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In the late afternoon, Todd sits on the beach watching 6-year-old Anthony, his son, play in the surf. A man approaches Todd, and, after a minute, he recognizes him. It is Jack, who bullied Todd relentlessly during their senior year in high school. In spite of their shared history, Jack seems pleased at seeing Todd. He claims that their meeting is a coincidence and goes on to tell Todd that he has just left his wife, is determined to create a new life for himself, and asks if he can spend the night at Todd’s home.Jack’s stay with Todd and Anthony extends beyond the first night. Jack continues... Read Full Review