Staff Picks - March 2019

By Lisa Scottoline
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian

When her daughter Anna is murdered and her new husband Noah is accused of the crime, Maggie searches for the truth, where she uncovers something darker than she could have ever imagined.

By Joshilyn Jackson
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

Leia discovers she is pregnant with a biracial child but before she can tell her conventional Southern family, her grandmother slips into dementia and Leia discovers that the elderly woman has been hiding a secret linked to the Civil War.

By Rafi Kohan
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian

An exploration of the modern American sports stadium traces the stories of iconic stadiums and fields as well as the rowdy customs that have become related traditions, from scalper turf wars and tailgate parties to fighter-jet flyovers and death-defying halftime shows.

By Jo Nesbø
Series Detective Harry Hole series
Recommended By Meghan F., Children's Services Librarian

Follows Harry Hole's efforts to solve the murder of a television celebrity whose demise is linked to a string of serial killings.

By Meghan MacLean Weir
Recommended By Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian

The seventeen-year-old daughter of an evangelical preacher, star of the family's hit reality show, has a secret pregnancy that threatens to blow their entire world apart.

By David Sedaris
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

A latest collection of personal essays by the best-selling author of Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls and Me Talk Pretty One Day shares even more revealing and intimate memories from his upbringing and family life.

By Sally Hepworth
Recommended By Lisa V., Library Clerk

When Isabelle, a single woman, rents the house next door to Essie and the two forge a friendship, Essie's friends have questions about the woman who moved to the neighborhood for a secret purpose.

By Michelle Markowitz
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

Based on the column of the same name that appeared in The Toast, Hey Ladies! is a laugh-out-loud read that follows a fictitious group of eight 20-and-30-something female friends for one year of holidays, summer house rentals, dates, brunches, breakups, and, of course, the planning of a disastrous wedding. This instantly relatable story is told entirely through emails, texts, DMs, and every other form of communication known to man. The women in the book are stand-ins for annoying friends that we all have. There's Nicole, who's always broke and tries to pay for things in Forever21 gift cards. There's Katie, the self-important budding journalist, who thinks a retweet and a byline are the same thing. And there's Jen, the DIY suburban bride-to-be. With a perfectly pitched sardonic tone, Hey Ladies! will have you cringing and laughing as you recognize your own friends, and even yourself.

By Isabel Allende
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian

A minor traffic accident becomes a catalyst for an unexpected bond among a human rights scholar in Brooklyn, his Chilean tenant, and an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, who explore the difficulties of immigrants and refugees.

By Andie Mitchell
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian

The young food blogger behind CanYouStayForDinner.com shares her inspirational weight-loss story, describing how in just over a year she lost more than half her size and established a healthier self-image and relationship with food.

By Christina Lauren
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Macy Sorensen has decided to settle for marriage to an older man until she bumps into Elliot Petropoulos—her first and most intense love, who eventually broke her heart—sending her reeling into reminiscence and doubt.

By Graham Swift
Recommended By Donna Burger, Readers' Services Librarian

Decades after sharing a final tryst with a longtime secret lover on the eve of his marriage, Jane Fairchild reflects on her life since that day in 1924 and reveals her journey of self-discovery against a backdrop of twentieth-century history.

By Graham Greene
Recommended By Nathalie Levin, Children's Services Librarian

This novel is a study of New World hope and innocence set in an Old World of violence. The scene is Saigon in the violent years when the French were desperately trying to hold their footing in the Far East. The principal characters are a skeptical British journalist, his attractive Vietnamese mistress, and an eager young American sent out by Washington on a mysterious mission.

By Jodi Picoult
Recommended By Betty Petreshock, Reference Librarian

When a deranged gunman forces his way into the Center, a women's reproductive health services clinic, and takes hostages, the police hostage negotiator discovers his daughter is inside the clinic.

By Caz Frear
Recommended By Ed Goldberg, Head of Reference

A London policewoman from a troubled family is forced to investigate dark secrets in her estranged father's past to solve the murder of a young housewife and the disappearance of a teenage girl years earlier.

By Chevy Stevens
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

Returning home after serving time for the wrongful conviction of her sister's murder, Toni struggles to reacclimate and avoid parole violations while her boyfriend, who was also wrongly convicted, resolves to clear their names.

By Tommy Orange
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian, Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

A novel that grapples with the complex history and identity of Native Americans follows twelve characters, each of whom has private reasons for traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow.

By Charlaine Harris
Series Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampires Novels
Recommended By Megan Kass, Systems Manager

A collection of every short story featuring Sookie Stackhouse, the telepathic waitress heroine of the "Southern Vampire" novels, includes "Fairy Dust," "One Word Answer," and "Dracula Night."

By Robert Kirkman
Series The Walking Dead
Recommended By Meghan F., Children's Services Librarian

In the world of the zombie apocalypse, war is on the horizon as Rick's treaty with Negan and the Saviors is pushed to the limit.