April 29, 2022
New Fiction
Nobody But Us by Laure Van Rensburg – Steven Harding is a handsome, well-respected professor. Ellie Masterson is a wide-eyed grad student. Together, they are driving south from New York for their first vacation: three days in an isolated cabin, far from the city. Ahead of them, the promise of long, dark nights – and the chance to get to know each other better, away from prying eyes. It should be a perfect romantic getaway for two. But when a snowstorm strands them in the house, each realizes the other harbors a dangerous secret – and soon it becomes clear one of them won’t escape the weekend alive.
The Mayfair Bookshop by Eliza Knight – 1938: She was one of the six sparkling Mitford sisters, known for her stinging quips, stylish dress, and bright green eyes. But Nancy Mitford’s seemingly dazzling life was really one of turmoil: with a perpetually unfaithful and broke husband, two Nazi- sympathizer sisters, and her hopes of motherhood dashed forever. Nancy finds respite by taking a job at the Heywood hill bookshop in Mayfair, hoping to make ends meet, and discovers a new life. Present Day: When book curator Lucy St. Clair lands a gig working at Heywood Hill, she can’t get on the plane fast enough. Not only can she start the healing process from the loss of her mother, but it’s a dream come true to set foot in the legendary store. Doubly exciting: she brings with her a first edition of Nancy’s work, one that has a somewhat mysterious inscription from the author. Soon she discovers her life and Nancy’s are intertwined, and it all comes back to the little London bookshop – a place that changes the lives of two women from different eras in the most surprising ways.
Mrs. England by Stacey Halls – West Yorkshire, 1904. A Young Norland nanny named Ruby May is assigned to a remote estate to care for the children of a wealthy couple from a powerful mill dynasty. Ruby hopes it will be the fresh start she needs. Yet when she arrives at Hardcastle House, she finds the staff is hostile to her, and the lady of the house, Mrs. Lillian England, cold and withdrawn. The only person who seems solicitous is the gentleman of the house, Charles England, but in an uncomfortable way. It doesn’t take long for Ruby to sense all is not as it seems, that the house holds a dark secret. But there’s no such thing as the perfect family – Ruby herself should know. And she would be the last person to pry; after all, she is holding a dark secret of her own.
New Non-Fiction
22 Murders: Investigating the massacres, cover-up and obstacles to justice in Nova Scotia by Paul Palango – As news broke of a killer rampaging across the tiny community of Portapique, Nova Scotia, late on April 18, 2020, details were oddly hard to come by. Who was the killer? Why was he not apprehended? What were police doing? How many were dead? And why was the gunman still on the loose the next morning and killing again? The RCMP was largely silent then, and continued to obscure the actions of denturist Gabriel Wortman after an officer shot and killed him at a gas station during a chance encounter. Though retired as an investigative journalist and author, Paul Palango spent much of his career reporting on Canada’s troubled national police force. Watching the RCMP stumble through the Portapique massacre, only a few hours from his Nova Scotia home, Palango knew the story behind the headlines was more complicated and damning than anyone was willing to admit. With the COVID-19 lockdown sealing off the Maritimes, no journalist in the province knew the RCMP better than Palango did. Within a month, he was back in print and on the radio, peeling away the layers of this murderous episode as only he could, and unearthing the collision of failure and malfeasance that cost a quiet community 22 innocent lives.