December 10, 2021
New Fiction
The Christmas Promise by Richard Paul Evans – On the night of her high school graduation, Richelle Bach’s father gives her and her identical twin sister, Michelle, matching opal necklaces. “These opals look identical,” he tells them, “but the fire inside each is completely unique – just like the two of you.” Indeed, the two sisters couldn’t be more different, and their paths diverge as they embark on adulthood. Years pass, until – at their father’s behest – they both come home for Christmas. What happens then forever damages their relationship and Richelle vows never to see or speak to her sister again. In their father’s last days, he asks Richelle to forgive Michelle, a deathbed promise she never fulfills as her twin is killed in an accident. Now, painfully alone and broken, caring for the sickest of children in a hospital PICU, Richelle has one last dream: to be an author. The plot of her book, The Prodigal Daughter, is a story based on her sister’s life. It’s not until she meets Justin Ek, a man who harbors his own loss, that a secret promise is revealed, and Richelle learns that the story she’s writing is not about her sister but about herself.
Down the Hatch by M.C. Beaton – Private detective Agatha Raisin – having recently taken up power walking – is striding along a path in Mircester Park when she hears a cry for help. She finds an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Swinburn, in the middle of the green – with the body of an old man lying at their feet. The deceased was known as “the Admiral,” a gardener notorious for his heavy drinking. Chief Inspector Wilkes writes his death off as an accident caused by the consumption of weed killer stored in a rum bottle. Agatha is not convinced that anyone would mistake weed killer for rum, and her suspicions deepen when she receives an anonymous tip that the Admiral’s death was no accident. Local gossip points to the Swinburns as the killers, spurred by a feud at the club where they and the Admiral were members. Distraught at this accusation, they turn to Agatha to clear their name, and she takes the case – despite Inspector Wilke’s warnings to stay away. Agatha encounters one suspicious character after another, becoming further enmeshed in the Admiral’s own dark and shady past. And when she’s run off the road, narrowly escaping with her life it becomes clear that someone will stop at nothing to prevent Agatha from solving the case.
All The Quiet Places by Brian Thomas Isaac – It’s 1956, and six year old Eddie Toma lives with his mother, Grace, and his little brother, Lewis, on the far edge of the Okanagan Indian Reserve in the British Columbia Southern Interior. Eddie’s mother is determined to have him learn the ways of the white world by sending him to school in the small community of Falkland, while she challenges the Indian Agent and writes futile letters to Ottawa to protest the sparse resources in their community. His father returns to the family after years away only to bring chaos and instability. Old friends Isabel and Ray join them in an overcrowded house. Through the turbulent, unpredictable years of his childhood and adolescence, it is only when he is in his grandmother’s company that Eddie finds solace and true companionship.
New Non-Fiction
Going There by Katie Couric – For more than 40 years, Katie Couric has been an iconic presence in the media world. In her brutally honest, hilarious, heartbreaking memoir, she reveals what was going on behind the scenes of her tumultuous personal and professional life – a story she’s never shared, until now. Couric was inspired by her journalist father to pursue the career he loved but couldn’t afford to stay in. Balancing her vivacious personality with her intellectual curiosity and desire to be taken seriously, she faced a host of challenges – an eating disorder, sexism, the perils of celebrity – on her way to becoming one of the most prominent journalists of her time. But her greatest challenge was rebuilding her life with two young daughters after her husband, Jay Monahan, died of colon cancer at just 42. Following her 15 years as co-anchor of the TODAY show, Couric became the first female solo anchor of an evening newscast. She writes in unsparing detail about the culture at CBS – a world rife with old-school misogyny. In the wake of the MeToo movement, Couric shares her clear-eyed reckoning with gender inequality and predatory behavior in the workplace. And she grapples with the downfall of Matt Lauer – a colleague she had trusted and respected after a wildly successful, decade-long professional partnership.