March 8, 2024
New Fiction
Sisters of Belfast by Melanie Maure – Orphaned during the Second World War, Aelish and Isabel McGuire – known as the twins of Belfast – are given over to the austere care of the Sisters of Bethlehem. Though they are very close, the girls are propelled in opposite directions as they grow up. Rebellious Isabel turns her back on the church and Ireland, traveling to Newfoundland, where she pursues a perilous, yet independent, passionate life. Devout Aelish chooses to remain in Northern Ireland and takes the veil, burying painful truths beneath years of silence. For decades the two are out of touch, but when Aelish is unexpectedly summoned to Newfoundland, she and her estranged sister begin to bridge the chasm between them. Slowly, painfully, the McGuire twins begin reconstructing their understanding of themselves as women and as family – with what they know of love, hope, and, above all, forgiveness.
The Guest by B.A. Paris – Iris and Gabriel have just arrived home from a make-or-break holiday. But a shock awaits them. One of their closest friends, Laure, is in their house. The atmosphere quickly becomes tense as she oversteps again and again: sleeping in their bed, wearing Iris’s clothes, even rearranging the furniture. Laure has walked out on her husband – and their good friend – Pierre, over his confession of an affair and a secret child. Iris and Gabriel want to be supportive of their friends, but as Laure’s mood becomes increasingly unpredictable, her presence takes its toll. Iris and Gabriel’s only respite comes in the form of a couple new to town. But with them comes their gardener, who has a checkered past. Soon, secrets from all their pasts will unravel, some more dangerous than they could have known.
A Step Past Darkness by Vera Kurian – In the idyllic suburban town of Wesley Falls, the summer of 1995 kicks off with a party in the local abandoned mine. There, six high school students witness a horrifying crime that changes the course of their lives. When they realize that they can’t rust anyone but each other, they begin to investigate what happened on their own. As tensions in town escalate to a breaking point, the six make a vow of silence, bury all their evidence and promise to never contact each other again. Their plan works – almost. Twenty years later, they are called back to Wesley Falls after one of them has been murdered. They are the only ones who can uncover why, but to end things, they have to return to the mine one last time.
The Prey by Yrsa Sigurdardottir – A box of photo albums is found in the attic of a house in Hofn, a small fishing village on the south coast of Iceland. The new owners return it to the man who sold them the house, along with a muddied child’s shoe with a name written on the sole: Salvor. The man is baffled; they never knew anyone called that. Shortly after the phone rings – it’s the nursing home where his mother, an Alzheimer's patient, lives. She’s suffered a heart attack and the doctors don’t expect her to live much long. The nurse asks him to let his sister, Salvor, know as well. Their mother has been asking for her. Johanna is a member of a search and rescue team in Hofn and she’s searching for two couples from Reykjavik. Their phones’ last location has been pinpointed as the road leading up into the highlands. It’s far from clear why these people would have made such a risky trip in the middle of the harsh winter, and they soon find the first dead body. More troubling, Johanna senses her team is being tracked out in the snow. Hjorvar works at the Stokksnes Radra Station in the highlands. He is alone when the phone connected to the gate rings. It’s the first time it’s done that since he began working there five months ago. He picks up the phone but can hear only interference and what sounds like a child’s voice asking for her mother. How are these events connected? And what may be searching for its prey out on the ice?