March 12, 2021
New Fiction
The Chanel Sisters by Judithe Little – Antoinette and Gabrielle “Coco Chanel” know they’re destined for something better. Abandoned by their family at a young age, they’ve grown up under the guidance of nuns preparing them for simple lives as the wives of tradesmen or shopkeepers. At night, their secret stash of romantic novels and magazine cutouts beneath the floorboards are all they have to keep their dreams of the future alive. The walls of the convent can’t shield them forever, and when they’re finally of age, the Chanel sisters set out together with a fierce determination to prove themselves worthy to a society that has never accepted them. Their journey propels them out of poverty and to the stylish cafes of Moulins, the dazzling performance halls of Vichy – and to a small hat shop on the rue Cambon in Paris, where a boutique business takes hold and expands to the glamorous French resort towns. But when World War I breaks out, their lives are irrevocably changed, and the sisters must gather the courage to fashion their own places in the world, even if apart from each other.
The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis – Eight year old orphan Beth Harmon is quiet, sullen, and by all appearances unremarkable. That is until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses grown sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of sixteen, she’s competing for the U.S. Open championship. But as Beth hones her skills on the professional circuit, the stakes get higher, her isolation grows more frightening, and the thought of escape becomes all the more tempting.
Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce –It is 1950. London is still reeling from World War II, and Margery Benson, a school teacher and spinster, is trying to get through life, surviving on scraps. One day, she reaches her breaking point, abandoning her job and small existence to set out on an expedition to the other side of the world in search of her childhood obsession: an insect that may or may not exist – the golden beetle of New Caledonia. When she advertises for an assistant to accompany her, the woman she ends up with is the last person she had in mind. Fun-loving Enid Pretty in her tight fitting pink suit and pompom sandals seems to attract trouble wherever she goes. But together these two British women find themselves drawn into a cross ocean adventure that exceeds all expectations and delivers something neither of them expected to find: the transformative power of friendship.
Twenty by James Grippando – “Active shooter on campus” It is the message every parent of a school age child fears. Jack Swyteck is at his office when he receives the emergency text from Riverside Day School. Both his daughter, Righley, and his wife, FBI agent Andie Henning, are in danger. Andie is in the school’s rec center when she hears the fire alarms, then loud popping noises and screams coming from the hallway. A trained law enforcement officer, Andie knows she’s supposed to stay locked down inside the room. But Righley is in her kindergarten classroom and Andie must get her to safety. The tragedy prompts mass hysteria – and dangerous speculation. The police haven’t identified the shooter, but they find a handgun on the school grounds registered to a parent, a Muslim man named Amir Khoury. News of the gun and its owner leaks and quickly goes viral. Within minutes, al-Qaeda claims responsibility. Andie is shocked – Amir is married to her friend Molly, a woman whose bloodline goes back to the American Revolution. When Xavier, Amir and Molly’s eldest child and an eighteen year old senior at Riverside, confesses to the crime, the Khoury family has no illusions of proving Xavier innocent, only the hope of sparing him from the death penalty. Desperate, Molly leverages her friendship with Jack’s wife and asks him to step in. A seasoned defense attorney with a passion for seeing justice done, he’s taken on plenty of complicated cases. Xavier’s, however, is not one he’s inclined to take – until an old friend who lost his daughter in the shooting convinces him that he must. With the public calling for blood and prosecutors confident their case is airtight. Jack must unearth the Khourys’ family secrets in order to expose the shocking truth and save his client from certain death. But he may not be able to save everyone – including himself.