New Adult Books
Abyss
Quintana, Pilar, 1972- author
2023
"With extraordinary perception and sensitivity, a young girl reflects on her parents troubled marriage and tries to construct her reality by predicting, guessing, or interpreting what is not said, and what is half said. With a background of the small female universe comprised of well-to-do women for whom it is impossible to break from the customs and mold of a previous time, Pilar Quintana has constructed an intimate novel, with a narrative voice dazzling in its naivety"-- Provided by publisher.
Before the storm
Shipman, James D., author.
2023
In 1948 Berlin, Sara Sturm, a German woman working for the U.S. Department of Public Affairs, is dispatched to investigate a store vandalized with swastikas and helps two Jewish Holocaust survivors track down a Nazi nuclear scientist whose knowledge may determine the course of countless wars to come.
The crane husband
Barnhill, Kelly Regan, author.
2023
"Award-winning author Kelly Barnhill brings her singular talents to The Crane Husband, a raw, powerful story of love, sacrifice, and family. "Mothers fly away like migrating birds. This is why farmers have daughters." A fifteen-year-old teenager is the backbone of her small Midwestern family, budgeting the household finances and raising her younger brother while her mother, a talented artist, weaves beautiful tapestries. For six years, it's been just the three of them -- her mother has brought home guests at times, but none have ever stayed. Yet when her mother brings home a six-foot tall crane with a menacing air, the girl is powerless to prevent her mom letting the intruder into her heart, and her children's lives. Utterly enchanted and numb to his sharp edges, her mother abandons the world around her to weave the masterpiece the crane demands. In this stunning contemporary retelling of "The Crane Wife" by the Newbery Award-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon, one fiercely pragmatic teen forced to grow up faster than was fair will do whatever it takes to protect her family -- and change the story"-- Provided by publisher.
Hayley Aldridge is still here : a novel
Sloan, Elissa R., author.
2020
Hayley Aldridge is just a girl from small-town Texas when she's pushed into show business by her mother. At seven, in 1991, she lands on a popular TV talent show. Her success leads her parents to view Hayley less as a daughter and more as a meal ticket, providing Porsches for her father and expensive Hermes handbags for her mother. In the present day, Hayley recounts her experiences to her twin daughters, Jessica and Jane, 17, detailing years of financial abuse and control by her parents, film directors who hit on her while she was underage, flirtations with drugs and alcohol, an unhealthy body image, a good friend's death, and her parents' decision to put her into conservatorship in 2007 so they can control her money. As Hayley tells her story, her daughters help make it go viral with a #HelpHayley campaign. Sloan does a great job portraying Hayley's grasping, opportunistic parents, and the twisty plot never lets up.
Horse : a novel
Brooks, Geraldine, author
2022
Kentucky, 1850. Jarrett, an enslaved groom, and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. As the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name painting the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack. New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a 19th equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance. Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly drawn to one another through their shared interest in the horse - one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.
I will find you : a thriller
Coben, Harlan, 1962- author
2023
An innocent father serving life for the murder of his own son receives evidence that his child may still be alive, and must break out of prison to find out the truth.
Last dance on the starlight pier
Bird, Sarah, author
2022
"July 3. 1932. Shivering and in shock, Evie Grace Devlin watches the Starlite Palace burn into the sea and wonders how she became a person who would cause a man to kill himself. She'd come to Galveston to escape a dark past in vaudeville and become a good person, a nurse. When that dream is cruelly thwarted, Evie is swept into the alien world of dance marathons. All that she has been denied--a family, a purpose, even love--waits for her there in the place she dreads most: the spotlight."-- Provided by publisher.
The little wartime library
Thompson, Kate, 1974- author.
2023
London, 1944: Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While war ravages the city above her, Clara has risked everything she holds dear to turn the Bethnal Green tube station into the country's only underground library. Down here, a secret community thrives with thousands of bunk beds, a nursery, a café, and a theater-offering shelter, solace, and escape from the bombs that fall upon their city. Along with her glamorous best friend and assistant Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground. But as the war drags on, the women's determination to remain strong in the face of adversity is tested to the limits when it may come at the price of keeping those closest to them alive.
Maame
George, Jessica, 1994- author
2023
It's fair to say that Maddie's life in London is far from rewarding. When her mum returns from her latest trip to Ghana, Maddie leaps at the chance to get out of the family home and finally start living. A self-acknowledged late bloomer, she's ready to experience some important "firsts:" find a flat, say yes to after-work drinks, pushes for more recognition in her career, and throws herself into the bewildering world of internet dating. But it's not long before tragedy strikes, forcing Maddie to face the true nature of her unconventional family, and the perils - and rewards - of putting her heart on the line.
The movement miracle : the Essentrics stretch program to increase strength, improve mobility and become pain free
Esmonde-White, Miranda, author
2023
Miranda Esmonde-White created a program that stretches and strengthens all the muscles in the body in a balanced way, enhances the full range of motion of every joint, and unglues stuck connective tissue. Twelve models, ranging in age, demonstrate 100 sequences of gentle movements that can be combined to meet the needs of everyone. The revolution Esmonde-White offers is only twenty-five minutes a day of gentle movement that will radically change and strengthen your body, relieve you of pain, replenish your energy and keep you young, no matter your age.
Phaedra : a novel
Shepperson, Laura, author
2023
Phaedra has been cast to the side all her life: daughter of an adulteress, sister of a monster, and now unwilling bride to the much-older, power-hungry Theseus. Then, supposedly pious Hippolytus assaults her. In the face of injustice, Phaedra refuses to remain quiet any longer. When Phaedra publicly accuses Hippolytus of rape, she sparks an overdue reckoning. The men of Athens gather to determine the truth. The women know truth is a slippery thing in the hands of men. There are two sides to every story, and theirs has gone unheard. Until now.
Playhouse
Bausch, Richard, 1945- author.
2023
From the prize-winning fiction writer Richard Bausch comes a sharp, affecting, masterly new novel about a close-knit theatre community in Memphis and one turbulent, transformative production of 'King Lear'. Bausch is a master of the novel as well as the story... Effortlessly engaging - Sven Birkerts, The New York Times.
The porcelain moon : a novel of France, the Great War, and forbidden love
Chang, Janie, author
2023
France, 1918. In the final days of the First World War, Pauline Deng runs away to evade a marriage being arranged for her. Camille Roussel is planning her escape from an abusive marriage. Camille offers Pauline a room in her house, and the two women become friends. But before long, Pauline uncovers a perilous secret that Camille has been hiding from her. As their dangerous situation escalates, the two women are forced to make a terrible decision that will bind them together for the rest of their lives.
Queen of thieves : a novel
Marsh, Beezy, author.
2021
In 1946, as London struggles to rebuild after the devastation of the Blitz, Alice Diamond, leader of a gang of women jewel thieves, takes on a teenager named Nell and guides her in their underworld existence even as Nell plots to carve out her own path to power and riches.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow : a novel
Zevin, Gabrielle, author
2022
On a bitter cold day, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. Spanning over thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, this is the story of the perfect worlds Sam and Sadie build, the imperfect world they live in, and of everything that comes after success: Money. Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy.
