February 19, 2021
Library Corner
New Fiction
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah – Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage was a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruins, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows. By 1934, the world has changed: Millions are out of work, and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive. In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa like so many of her neighbours must make an agonizing choice: Fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.
Pretty Little Wife by Darby Kane – Lila Ridgefield lives in an idyllic college town, but not everything is what it seems. Lila isn’t what she seems. A student vanished months ago. Now Lila’s husband, Aaron, is also missing. At first these cases are treated as horrible coincidences, until it’s discovered that the student is really the third of three unexplained disappearances over the last few years. The police are desperate to find the connection, if there even is one. Little do they know they might be stumbling over only part of the truth. With the small town in an uproar, everyone is worried about the whereabouts of the beloved high school teacher. Everyone except his wife. Lila is more confused – because she was the last person to see her husband’s body and it’s gone…
The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox – Taryn Cornick believes that the past – her sister’s violent death and her own ill-conceived revenge - is behind her and she can get on with her life. She has written a successful book about the things that threaten libraries: insects, damp, light, fire, carelessness, and uncaring…but not all of the attention it brings is good. A policeman, Jacob Berger, questions her about a cold case. Then there are questions about a fire in the library at her grandparents’ house and an ancient scroll box known as the Firestarter, as well as threatening phone calls and a mysterious illness. Finally a shadowy young man named Shift appears, forcing Taryn and Jacob toward a reckoning felt in more than one world.
The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles - Paris, 1939. Young, ambitious, and tempestuous, Odile Souchet has it all: a handsome police officer beau, a new best friend, a twin brother whom she adores, and a dream job at the American Library in Paris, working alongside the Library’s legendary Directress, Dorothy Reeder. When World War II breaks out, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear. After the Nazi army marches into the City of Light and declares a war on words, Odile and fellow librarians join the Resistance with the best weapons they have: books. Again and again, they risk their lives to help their Jewish readers – but, by the war’s end, Odile tastes the bitter sting of unspeakable betrayal. Montana, 1983. Odile’s solitary existence in gossipy small town Montana is unexpectedly interrupted by her neighbour Lily, a lonely teenager craving adventure. Odile helps her navigate the troubled waters of adolescence by always recommending the right book at the right time, never suspecting that Lily will be the one to help her reckon with her own terrible secret.