March 18
March 18, 2022
New Fiction
The Heights by Louise Candlish – The Heights is a tall, slender apartment building among the warehouses of Tower Bridge in London, its roof terrace so discreet you wouldn’t know it existed if you weren’t standing at the window of the flat directly opposite. But you are. And that’s when you see a man up there – a man you’d recognize anywhere. He’s older now and his appearance has subtly changed, but it’s definitely him. Which makes no sense at all since you know he has been dead for over two years. You know this for a fact. Because you’re the one who killed him.
The Good Son by Jacquelyn Mitchard – What do you do when the person you love best becomes unrecognizable to you? For Thea, the answer is simple and agonizing: you keep loving him somehow. Stefan was just seventeen when he went to prison for the murder of his girlfriend, Belinda, a crime he has no memory of committing. Three years later, he’s released to a world that refuses to let him move on. Belinda’s mother, once Thea’s good friend, galvanizes the community to rally against him to protest in her daughter’s memory. Neighbors, employers, even some members of Thea’s own family turn away. Meanwhile Thea struggles to understand her son. At times Stefan is still the sweet boy he has always been; at others, he is a young man tormented by guilt and a need to atone. But as his passionate efforts to make amends meet escalating threats, Thea begins to suspect darker forces are at play. If there is so much she never about her own son, what other hidden secrets has she yet to uncover – especially the shocking truth about the night Belinda died?
The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley – Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less-than-ideal circumstances. Her half brother, Ben, didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only, when she shows up, to find a very nice apartment – could Ben really have afforded this? – he’s not there. The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in doubt. Everyone’s a neighbor. Everyone’s a suspect. And everyone knows something they’re not telling.
The Saint of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart - In the dense pine forests of North Carolina, turpentiners labor, hacking into tree trunks to draw out the sticky sap that gives the Tar Heel State its nickname, and hauling the resin to stills to be refined. Among them is Rae Lynn Cobb and her husband, Warren, who run a small turpentine farm together.
Though the work is hard and often dangerous, Rae Lynn, who spent her childhood in an orphanage, is thankful for it--and for her kind if careless husband. When Warren falls victim to his own negligence, Rae Lynn undertakes a desperate act of mercy. To keep herself from jail, she disguises herself as a man named "Ray" and heads to the only place she can think of that might offer anonymity--a turpentine camp in Georgia named Swallow Hill. Swallow Hill is no easy haven. The camp is isolated and squalid, and commissary owner Otis Riddle takes out his frustrations on his browbeaten wife, Cornelia. Although Rae Lynn works tirelessly, she becomes a target for Crow, the ever-watchful woods rider who checks each laborer's tally. Delwood Reese, who's come to Swallow Hill hoping for his own redemption, offers "Ray" a small measure of protection, and is determined to improve their conditions. As Rae Lynn forges a deeper friendship with both Del and Cornelia, she begins to envision a path out of the camp. But she will have to come to terms with her past, with all its pain and beauty, before she can open herself to a new life and seize the chance to begin again.