Like many of you, I love crime fiction. Last week I got to go to mystery nirvana -- I attended Bouchercon, THE annual conference for mystery authors and fans. I discovered new authors, learned about trends in crime fiction, and picked up trivia about some of the most popular writers. Nothing too juicy, of course,…
Detective Steven Paul is barely keeping it together. His marriage has crumbled, his superiors are questioning his fitness for duty, and his childhood nightmare – a grim prison, a horrific stench, and a cryptic symbol – continues to haunt him, both asleep and awake. So when scandal-chasing blogger Emily Lindsey is found catatonic and covered…
Thirteen-year-old Jojo lives with his grandparents, mother, and three-year-old sister Kayla in a small town in southern Mississippi. His drug-addicted mother, Leonie, is frequently absent, and when she is around, struggles to give her children the care and affection they need. Jojo’s grandparents, Mam and Pop, are really raising the two children. When their father,…
“Long before we discovered that he had fathered two children by two different women, one in Drimoleague and one in Clonakilty, Father James Monroe stood on the altar of the Church of our Lady, Star of the Sea...and denounced my mother as a whore.” Even before he was born, and his pregnant, unwed mother was…
It's time for another episode of Meet the Bookies, where we introduce our library’s Bookies who can give you great book, movie and music recommendations. This week we are chatting with Jo Hansen, the editor and mastermind behind the extremely popular Favorite Fiction & Non-Fiction booklets we publish every year. Some of Jo’s recommendations from the episode:…
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies,’’ said Jojen. “The man who never reads lives only one.’’ --George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons, and the epigraph in Books for Living by Will Schwalbe Ann Hood I happily suffer from bibliophilia, which the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines as “a great or excessive love of…
Assuming you did not spend the summer under a rock, you probably heard that the Wonder Woman movie did quite well at the box office. (And by “quite well,” I mean, “was biggest-grossing movie ever helmed by a solo female director,” according to Forbes.) You’d be forgiven, then, for thinking Leigh Bardugo’s WONDER WOMAN: WARBRINGER…
Gabrielle Zevin Most of us probably remember Monica Lewinsky, and if you’re like me, you probably cringe just reading the name. Nothing good came of that scandal. But how many of us thought about it from Monica’s point of view? Young Jane Young allows us to do that – not with Monica, of course, but…
Whether the new year starts in September or January is a matter of some debate. As far as I'm concerned, a fresh start is always a good thing, regardless of what the calendar says. So in the spirit of the spirit of clean slates and lofty goals, I asked several of the librarians at CMPLD…
Taylor Brown harnesses the ancient Altamaha River in Georgia to weave together three dynamic stories in his second novel, The River of Kings. Brown introduces French artist Jacques Le Moyne, the real-life first European artist in North America, who traveled in the 1500s with French explorers in search of gold and other riches. Le Moyne’s…
