April & Spring Themed Audiobooks Available on the Libby App

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The Enchanted April is a book of literary fiction first published in 1922 in Great Britain. This light-hearted novel about unlikely female friendships and the power of a blissful escape was a best-seller in both England and the United States. The story centers on four very different ladies who reply to an advertisement in The Times for a stunning mediaeval castle that is available to rent for a month on the Italian Riviera. They travel to the serene Mediterranean coasts full of hope for a blissful retreat, seduced by the promise of “wisteria and sunlight.” 

England, 1925. After years shut away from the world, former detective Lord Edgington of Cranley Hall plans a grand ball to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday.
But when someone starts bumping off members of his scheming family, the old man enlists his teenage grandson to help find the killer, before one of them is next. The mismatched duo must pick the culprit from a gaggle of preening playboys, scatter-brained spinsters and irate inspectors in this Agatha-Christie-style whodunnit that will have you racing to spot the killer.

Katherine Walker enjoys an enviable life. Her husband is an accomplished doctor, her children are bright and successful, and she devotes herself to charity work that uplifts her Suburban Colorado community. Settling into a new year, her life couldn’t be better…Until April. For Katherine, April has always rained trouble—but this time may be even stormier than the fraught past she’s trying to overcome. The emotionally fragile woman isn’t ready to consider the overwhelming evidence that someone may be trying to take her husband—and her life.

Lucy and Connor planned for the perfect Outer Banks wedding—and that’s exactly what they got. Aside from typical rumblings of familial tensions, the late spring weather allowed for a beautiful day, the food was delicious, and everyone had a good time, until one of the guests goes missing. Before Lucy can look forward to the rest of her life in Nags Head and the work she does at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, she gets a phone call from her boss, Bertie James. Eddie, Bertie’s friend, never made it back home after the reception.

On the idyllic coast of San Sebastian, Spain, Dublin pathologist Quirke is struggling to relax, despite the beaches, cafés and the company of his disarmingly lovely wife. When he glimpses a familiar face in the twilight at Las Acadas bar, it’s hard at first to tell whether his imagination is just running away with him. Because this young woman can’t be April Latimer. She was murdered by her brother, years ago—the conclusion to an unspeakable scandal that shook one of Ireland’s foremost political dynasties.

Chrissie is eight and she has a secret: she has just killed a boy. The feeling made her belly fizz like soda pop. Her playmates are tearful and their mothers are terrified, keeping them locked indoors. But Chrissie rules the roost — she’s the best at wall-walking, she knows how to get free candy, and now she has a feeling of power that she never gets at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer. Twenty years later, adult Chrissie is living in hiding under a changed name. A single mother, all she wants is for her daughter to have the childhood she herself was denied. 

For much of the twentieth century, Vietnam played an outsized role on the global stage, charting the destinies of superpowers and reshaping the world’s politics. Now fifty years after the end of the Vietnam War comes The Colors of April, an anthology of fiction that finally speaks to the Vietnamese experience: voices of both those who left and those who stayed, what was gained and lost in the half century since, and for the generations that followed—what it means to be Vietnamese.

Vicar Max Tudor, reveling in his new-found personal happiness with Awena Owen, feels that life at the moment holds no greater challenge than writing his Easter sermon. With Awena away, he looks forward to a dinner that includes newcomers to the village like West End dramatist Thaddeus Bottle and his downtrodden wife Melinda. But when one of the dinner guests is found dead in the pre-dawn hours, Max knows a poisonous atmosphere has once again enveloped his perfect village of Nether Monkslip.

Based on real historical events: mysterious poisonings, in which victims died, often unaware they had been attacked. Albia is now 28 and an established female investigator. Her personal history and her British birth enable her to view Roman society and its traditions as a bemused outsider and also as a woman struggling for independence in a man’s world. The first novel takes place on the plebeian Aventine Hill, with its mix of monumental temples, muddy back lanes and horrible snack bars. We meet Albia’s personal circle – some familiar, some new.

New Nonfiction Available at the Library

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Discover the transformative power of your nightly routine in Do This Before Bed. Drawing from two decades of expertise as an energy healer and spiritual activator, Oliver Nino offers a treasure trove of practices to elevate every aspect of your life. The period right before you go to sleep is a fruitful time for co-creating with the universe and whatever we focus on before we go to bed sets the pace for how we experience our waking life. In this practical guide, you’ll learn how to harness the untapped potential of your mind, emotions, and energy before drifting off to sleep.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, six US presidential administrations of both parties pursued policies for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia that emboldened Russia, playing into its imperialist, centuries-long mythos of regional hegemony. The military aggression and full-scale invasion. It was all too foreseeable. In The Folly of Realism, leading national security expert and bestselling author Alexander Vindman argues that America’s mistakes in Eastern Europe result from policymakers’ fixation on immediate, short-term problem-solving and misplaced hopes and fears. 

The government is a vast, complex system that Americans pay for, rebel against, rely upon, dismiss, and celebrate. It’s also our shared resource for addressing the biggest problems of society. And it’s made up of people, mostly unrecognized and uncelebrated, doing work that can be deeply consequential and beneficial to everyone. Michael Lewis invited his favorite writers to find someone doing an interesting job for the government and write about them. The stories they found are unexpected, riveting, and inspiring.

Master the art of gardening with Martha Stewart’s in-depth guide that will teach you the knowledge and skills to cultivate a flourishing garden. From understanding soil composition to learning about different types of plants and gardening methods, you’ll discover the secrets to creating a stunning outdoor oasis. Whether you’re a green thumb or a gardening novice, this gorgeous book, filled with practical tips, stunning images, and detailed explanations, will arm you with the knowledge to help your garden thrive.

We hear stories all the time about the supernatural–miraculous healings, unexplained sightings, near-death experiences–but how do we know what is real? Are rumors of spiritual beings, healings, and prophetic dreams dangerous deceptions, or is there something important for us to explore? Join investigative journalist and former atheist Lee Strobel as he examines the evidence and considers how we should think about the unseen world–and the God who made and rules over it.

In medieval times, uncharted waters were marked on maps as Here Be Dragons to signify that no one knew what dangers might lie ahead. Melanie Shankle quips that the years spent raising our teenage daughters could be labeled the same due to the uncertainties before us. Filled with personal stories and written in the same whimsical and honest style Melanie is known for, Here Be Dragons will have you both laughing out loud and crying as you confront the challenges of raising your own strong, independent daughter while fighting dragons along the way.

In recent decades, advances in medicine have changed the way we think about our health. Chronic diseases like obesity, heart disease, and diabetes can be prevented or reversed. Cancer treatment has become targeted and personalized. Gene editing will allow us to eradicate many inherited disorders. But there is one class of conditions that continues to elude researchers and cause tremendous neurodegenerative disease. In The Ageless Brain, Dr. Bredesen will share the latest, cutting-edge science on neurodegeneration.

Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk. A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life.

A sly and chatty collection of the revered Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist’s most notorious celebrity profiles. Shining a white-hot spotlight on America’s famous, from Hollywood legends to Broadway stars to media moguls, Notorious is a captivating assortment of Maureen Dowd’s most compelling style features and profiles. Using her signature wit and incisive commentary as a scalpel, Dowd dissects influential cultural elites. Notorious is an intimate, gossipy romp through the culture of celebrity from a legend in American journalism.

New Fiction Novels

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Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. Isolated and afraid, Marguerite befriends her guardian’s servant and the two develop an intense attraction. But when their relationship is discovered, they are brutally punished and abandoned on a small island with no hope for rescue.

Birdie’s keeping it together; of course she is. So she’s a little hungover sometimes, and she has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, but she’s getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature. Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods.

With the apocalyptic threat of moonfall looming ever closer, Nyx and her allies must venture into the eternally sunblasted lands to search for an ancient weapon buried untold millennia ago. All the while, enemies close upon her flanks, and a greater danger lurks ahead. For beneath a desert turned to glass, hidden from the scorching heat, life thrives—both wondrous and monstrous. But a more fearsome menace lies even deeper, where an ancient army has been seeded to protect a secret from any who dare seek it out.

In July 1944, Arielle von Auspeck arrives at the glamorous Hotel Ritz in occupied Paris. Half French, half German, she is happy to be back in France, where her husband, Gregor, a retired colonel, will join her soon from Germany. Arielle and Gregor have thus far been able to hide their private opposition to Hitler. Then her world falls apart. She receives word that Gregor was part of Operation Valkyrie, a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in Poland, and has been shot as a traitor.

Haiwen is buying bananas at a 99 Ranch Market in Los Angeles when he looks up and sees Suchi, his Suchi, for the first time in sixty years. To recently widowed Haiwen it feels like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back. Homeseeking follows the separated lovers through six decades of tumultuous Chinese history, telling Haiwen’s story from the present to the past while tracing Suchi’s from her childhood to the present.

Amy has been dreading her evening working on Ward D, the hospital’s inpatient mental health unit. There are very specific reasons why she never wanted to do this required overnight rotation. Reasons nobody can ever find out. And as the hours tick by, Amy grows increasingly convinced something terrible is happening within these tightly secured walls. When patients and staff start to vanish without a trace, it becomes clear that everyone on the unit is in grave danger.

No one is more surprised than Hailey Gelman when she comes under suspicion for the murder of her soon-to-be ex-husband Jonah. Hailey—nicknamed Sunshine by her mother for her bright outlook and ever-present smile—is the peacemaker who has always tried to do what her family expects of her. Part gripping mystery, part compassionate family drama, We Would Never explores what people are capable of when they feel cornered, and how, in the absence of forgiveness, love and hate can intertwine and turn deadly.

In 1919, as civil and social unrest grips the country, there is a little corner of America, a place called Harlem where something special is stirring. Here, the New Negro is rising and Black pride is evident everywhere…in music, theatre, fashion and the arts. And there on stage in the center of this renaissance is Jessie Redmon Fauset, the new literary editor of the preeminent Negro magazine The Crisis. In the face of overwhelming sexism and racism, Jessie must balance her drive with her desires.

Newly minted child psychologist Mina has little experience. In a field where the first people called are experts, she’s been unable to get her feet wet. Instead she aimlessly spends her days stuck in the stifling heat wave sweeping across Britain and anxiously contemplates her upcoming marriage to careful, precise researcher Oscar. The only reprieve from her small, close world is attending the local bereavement group to mourn her brother’s death from years ago.

New Mysteries and Thrillers to Enjoy in April

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Lila Culhane’s life is in turmoil. As if coping with the murder of her husband isn’t enough, now the glamorous young widow has Frank’s even younger mistress to contend with. His pregnant mistress. Crystal. But Lila hasn’t got time for more heartache. With everyone grasping to profit from Frank’s death, including fighting for possession of her beloved ranch, she needs leverage for the battle. As it turns out, Crystal may be carrying just the edge Lila an heir. Crystal offers to let Lila adopt Frank’s baby—for a price.

After more than a year of laying low, Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie are called back into action. They have enjoyed their rest, but the lack of excitement is starting to a professional killer can only take so many watercolor classes and yoga sessions before she gets the itch to get back in the game. When they receive a call from Naomi Ndiaye, the head of the elite assassin organization known as the Museum, they are ready tackle the greatest challenge of their careers.

It takes a special family to turn a home into a nightmare. Since her husband’s unsolved murder three years ago, Iris Blodgett’s life has unraveled. Awash in grief and buried in debt, she can’t pay her mortgage—and now that she’s lost her job, she has no idea how she’ll provide for her unruly teenage daughter, Ellory. Facing eviction, Iris turns to her new beau, prominent architect Hugh Smoll, for a shoulder to cry on. But the seemingly perfect Hugh offers her something more in an invitation to move into his mother’s centuries-old mansion while he renovates the property.

FBI agent Ava James has made it her life mission to destroy the disturbing crime network that runs this world. After her best friend, Molly, was taken by traffickers, and her miraculous escape from their clutches. She dedicated her entire life to dismantling their evil wide-reaching web. Unfortunately, it seems there is no end to this enormous global enterprise. One that extends its claws from the nation’s capital to small villages. While Ava is wrapping up the Teagan Reese case, she receives surprising news. Lucia Martinez has gone missing from her home.

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

Poe Webb, host of a popular true crime podcast, invites people to anonymously confess crimes they’ve committed to her audience. She can’t guarantee the police won’t come after her “guests,” but her show grants simultaneous anonymity and instant fame—a potent combination that’s proven difficult to resist. After an episode recording, Poe usually erases both criminal and crime from her mind. But when a strange and oddly familiar man appears on her show, Poe is forced to take a second look.

Amanda Davis has it a beautiful home, a thriving career, and a charismatic husband who is the darling of television news. But when Paul kills someone in a disturbing accident, Amanda’s perfect world shatters. Pulled into a web of manipulation, deceit, and dark secrets, she becomes his unwilling accomplice, trapped in a twisted, dangerous existence that tests the limits of love and loyalty. As the weight of the secret bears down, Amanda begins to see a side of Paul she’s never known—cold, manipulative, and dangerously unpredictable.

Detective John Bowie is one misstep away from being fired from the Auclair Police Department in coastal Louisiana. Recently divorced and slightly heavy-handed with his liquor, Bowie does all that he can to cope with the actions taken (or not taken) during the investigation of Crissy Mellin, a teenage girl who disappeared more than three years prior. But now, Crisis Point, a long-running true crime television series, is soon to air an episode documenting the unsolved Mellin case.

It is June 21st, the longest day of the year, and new mother Camilla’s life is about to change forever. After months of maternity leave, she will drop her infant daughter off at daycare for the first time and return to her job as a literary agent. Finally. But, when she wakes, her husband Luke isn’t there, and in his place is a cryptic note.Then it starts. Breaking news: there’s a hostage situation developing in London. The police arrive and tell her Luke is involved. But he isn’t a hostage. Her husband—doting father, eternal optimist—is the gunman.

New Nonfiction Titles

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Trust is the oxygen of all human relationships. But it’s also what trips you up after you’ve been burned. Maybe a friend constantly lets you down. A leader or organization you respect turns out to be different than they portray themselves to be. A spouse cheats on you. A family member betrays you. You’re exhausted by other people’s choices and starting to question your own discernment. And you’re wondering, If God let this happen, can he even be trusted? How can you live well and step into the future when you keep stumbling over trust issues?

Hope is the first autobiography in history ever to be published by a Pope. Written over six years, this complete autobiography starts in the early years of the twentieth century, with Pope Francis’s Italian roots and his ancestors’ courageous migration to Latin America, continuing through his childhood, the enthusiasms and preoccupations of his youth, his vocation, adult life, and the whole of his papacy up to the present day. Hope includes a wealth of revelations, anecdotes, and illuminating thoughts.

Shari Franke’s childhood was a constant battle for survival. Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2.5 million subscribers. But a darker truth lurked beneath the surface—Ruby’s wholesome online persona masked a more tyrannical parenting style than anyone could have imagined.

Eliot Stein has traveled the globe in search of remarkable people who are preserving some of our rarest cultural rites. From shadowing Scandinavia’s last night watchman to meeting a 27th-generation West African griot to seeking out Cuba’s last official cigar factory “readers”, Stein uncovers an almost lost world. Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive is vivid look at the ten key people who are maintaining some of the world’s oldest and rarest cultural traditions.

In the fall of 1864, Gen. William T. Sherman led his army through Atlanta, Georgia, burning buildings of military significance—and ultimately most of the city—along the way. From Atlanta, they marched across the state to the most important city at the time: Savannah. In Somewhere Toward Freedom, historian Bennett Parten brilliantly reframes this seminal episode in Civil War history. He not only helps us understand how Sherman’s March impacted the war, but also reveals how it laid the foundation for the fledging efforts of Reconstruction. 

In 1987, sixteen-year-old Ione Skye landed the breakout role of Diane Court, the dream girl who inspires John Cusack’s iconic boombox serenade in the hit Cameron Crowe film, Say Anything. While Skye seemed perfectly typecast as an aloof valedictorian, she was anything but. Set against a backdrop of rock royalty compounds, supermodel cliques, and classic late-century films like River’s Edge, Gas Food Lodging, and Wayne’s World, Say Everything is a wild ride of Hollywood thrills as well as a lyrical reflection on ambition, intimacy, and a messy, sexy, unconventional life.

On May 14, 2017, Emmanuel Macron came to power in France. A year earlier, the 39-year-old was completely unknown to the public. A media blitzkrieg was waged to sell the French on the couple he formed with “Brigitte”, an attractive teacher he had seduced when he was 17 and she, 36. But the chronology didn’t add up, and the story was rewritten many times, until the admission that when he met “Brigitte”, Emmanuel Macron was…14. And “Brigitte’s” past remained inaccessible, as if she were someone other than who she claimed to be.

Food has always been an integral part of Stanley Tucci’s life: from stracciatella soup served in the shadow of the Pantheon, to marinara sauce cooked between scene rehearsals and costume fittings, to home-made pizza eaten with his children before bedtime. Now, in What I Ate in One Year Tucci records twelve months of eating—in restaurants, kitchens, film sets, press junkets, at home and abroad, with friends, with family, with strangers, and occasionally just by himself.

Over the fifty years that Lorne Michaels has been at the helm of Saturday Night Live, he has become a revered, inimitable, and bewildering presence in the entertainment world. Lorne will introduce you to him, in full, for the first time. With unprecedented access to Michaels and the entire SNL apparatus, Susan Morrison takes readers behind the curtain for the lively, up-and-down, definitive story of how Michaels created and maintained the institution that changed comedy forever.

New Novels to Enjoy this First Week of Spring

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London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second-class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France.

Cotton Malone is on the hunt for a forgotten 16th century Pledge of Christ — a sworn promise made by Pope Julius II that evidences a monetary debt owed by the Vatican, still valid after five centuries, now worth in the trillions of dollars.  But collecting that debt centers around what happened to the famed Medici of Florence — a family that history says died out, without heirs, centuries ago.  Two more things also hang in the balance.  Who will become the next prime minister of Italy, and who will be the next pope.  

A winter sunrise over the great plains of Russia is no cause for celebration. The temperature barely rises above zero, and the guards at Penal Colony IK22 are determined to take their misery out on the prisoners–chief among them, one Zoya Zakharova. Once a master spy for Russian foreign intelligence, then the partner and lover of the Gray Man, she has information the Kremlin wants, and they don’t care what they have to do to get it.

Evan Smoak is a highly trained former government assassin who has survived for years by keeping his circle to a few trusted confidants and a strict code he calls “The Ten Commandments.” But when Evan suddenly finds himself at odds with his oldest friend, all the rules he lives by shatter–and the consequences are murderous. Tommy Stojack might be Evan’s best friend in the world. He’s a gifted gunsmith who has created much of Evan’s own weapons and combat gear. But now, he has apparently crossed one of Evan’s hardest lines.

London, 1953. Louise is still adjusting to her postwar role as a housewife when she discovers a necklace in a box at a secondhand shop. The box is marked with the name of a department store in Paris, and she is certain she has seen the necklace before when she worked with the Red Cross in Nazi-occupied Europe —and that it holds the key to the mysterious death of her friend Franny during the war. Following the trail of clues to Paris, Louise seeks help from her former boss Ian, with whom she shares a romantic history. 

Joe King Oliver’s beloved Grandma B has found a tumor, and at her age, treatment is high-risk. She’s lived life fully and without regrets, and now has only a single, dying wish: to see her long-lost son. King has been estranged from his father, Chief Odin Oliver, since he was a young boy. He swore to never speak to the man again when he was taken away in handcuffs. But now, Grandma B’s pure ask has opened King’s heart, and through his hunt, he gains a deeper understanding of his father as a complicated, righteous man.

In many ways, the brothers Carl and Roy Opgard have succeeded in life. Or at least they’ve had as much success as is possible in a small town like Os where they’ve had to kill their way to the top. Carl manages the area’s swanky spa hotel, while Roy has made ambitious plans for an amusement park complete with a roller coaster. The only way is up for the two brothers. Unless the local sheriff can bring them down. The sheriff believes he has new evidence that will prove the brothers involvement in several past murders, but Carl and Roy Opgard are used to covering their tracks.

After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty. Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust. Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

The campaign of destruction that Axel Soledad and Dallas Cates wreaked on Nate Romanowski and Joe Pickett left both men in tatters, especially Nate, who lost almost everything. Wondering if the civilized life left him vulnerable to attack, Nate dropped off the grid with his falcons in tow to prepare for vengeance. When Joe gets a call from the governor asking for help finding his son-in-law, who has gone missing in the Sierra Madre mountain range, he enlists the help of a local, a rookie game warden named Susan Kany.

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One day, a cataclysmic event occurs: all of the white people in America walk into the nearest body of water. A year later, Charles Brunton is a Black man living in an entirely new world. Having served time in prison for a wrongful conviction, he’s now a professor of electric and solar power systems at Howard University when he receives a call from someone he wasn’t even sure existed: his daughter Sidney, a nineteen-year-old who watched her white mother and step-family drown themselves in the lake behind their house.

Inspired by the remarkable life of Dorothy Peto, the Metropolitan Police’s first female superintendent. In 1914, the idea of a female police officer is dismissed as absurd, but to a small group of determined women, not impossible. With men departing to fight for king and country, women have new opportunities at home. Dorothy Peto and her fellow suffragettes propose forming the Women’s Police Volunteers to assist police keep order. At first, the suggestion is derided, yet the force is stretched thin.

Edie Walker’s life is not going as planned. At thirty-five she feels stuck: in her career, in her love life, and in her tiny San Francisco studio apartment. It doesn’t help that her best friend, Peter Masterson, is basically the über successful male version of her—and she’s hopelessly, unrequitedly in love with him. But when Peter breaks up with his girlfriend of seven years, Edie thinks her life might finally be turning around. He’ll discover how toxic dating-app culture is and realize Edie has been right for him all along.

Rune Winters is on the run. Ever since the boy she loved, Gideon Sharpe, revealed who she was and delivered her into enemy hands, everyone wants her dead. If Rune hopes to survive, she must ally herself with the cruel and dangerous Cressida Roseblood, who’s planning to take back the Republic and reinstate a Reign of Witches—something Cressida needs Rune to accomplish. Apparently it wasn’t enough for Rune to deceive Gideon; she’s now betrayed him by allying herself with the witch who made his life a living hell.

When Theodora Scott met Connor—wealthy, charming, and a member of the powerful Dalton family—she fell in love in an instant. Six months later, he’s brought her to Idlewood, his family’s isolated winter retreat, to win over his skeptical relatives. Theo has tried to ignore the threatening messages on her phone, but she can’t ignore the footprints in the snow outside the cabin window or the strange sense of familiarity she has about this place. Then, in a disused cabin, Theo finds something impossible: a photo of herself as a child. A photo taken at Idlewood.

Hana Babic is a quiet, middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who wants nothing more than to be left alone. But when a detective arrives with the news that her best friend has been murdered, Hana knows that something evil has come for her, a dark remnant of the past she and her friend had shared. Now, someone is hunting Hana, and her friend has paid the price, leaving her eight-year-old grandson in Hana’s care. To protect the child without revealing her secret, Hana must again become the Night Mora—and hope she can find the killer before the past comes for them, too.

All Hamish Macbeth ever really wants is a quiet life in the peaceful surroundings of his home in the Highland village of Lochdubh. Unfortunately for him, the time he would normally find most relaxing, after the tourists have gone and before the winter sets in, turns out to be far from peaceful. The new love in his life, Claire, is keen for them to take a holiday and Hamish is mulling over the idea when his newly-assigned constable arrives, presenting Hamish with both a surprise and a secret. 

No one’s more surprised than Leigh when a prestigious MFA program in North Carolina accepts her. A former sorority girl, Leigh’s the first to admit she knows more about the lyrics of Taylor Swift than T.S. Eliot. Bad enough that her tattooed, New Yorker tote bag-carrying classmates have read all the right authors and been published in the country’s leading literary journals, Leigh’s insecurities become all too real when Will, that same high school crush-turned-nemesis, shows up at orientation as a first-year in the program, too. 

When a painting vanishes from a maritime museum and a dead body is found nearby, the newly established Lockwood Antique Hunter’s Agency, Freya Lockwood and her Aunt Carole, are called to investigate. Following a lead that takes them aboard a glamorous antiques cruise sailing toward the Red Sea in Jordan, they quickly discover that the ships art gallery is filled with stolen antiquities. In chasing a murderer with a stolen painting, they may have found something more sinister than they could’ve imagined…

New Fiction Titles to Enjoy in March

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Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy, Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common. Until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes.

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall and her love life is . . . complicated. So when her real dad—a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago—suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach about love, and what it actually means to be family.

On their Martha’s Vineyard estate, the Carter family prepares to celebrate. But when the billionaire patriarch dies right before his seventieth birthday, the media is quick to question the future of the multi-industry conglomerate that makes the Carters living legends. His daughter, Kennedy, is questioning her father’s past. As a twisted history emerges, the fault lines in the family grow. Torn between morality and the promise of maintaining wealth, Kennedy must decide what’s most important—the Carter legacy or exposing the shocking truth of how it was built.

In the peaceful town of Belper, Derbyshire, Gemma, the owner of the Bookworm bookshop and café, and her trusted assistant Mavis are exhibiting books at the town’s annual fair. But the tranquillity of the town is shattered when the body of a local man is found in the church. A man is arrested amidst the chaos, and the evidence against him is compelling but Gemma and Mavis don’t buy it and set out to clear his name and uncover the truth. As they delve deeper, they uncover startling secrets hidden behind the town’s picturesque facade.

His passport read Giovanni Rossi. Responding to an urgent summons from an old compatriot, he landed in New York and eased into the waiting car. And died within minutes…Lieutenant Eve Dallas finds the Rossi case frustrating. She’s got an elderly victim who’d just arrived from Rome; a widow who knows nothing about why he’d left; an as-yet unidentifiable weapon; and zero results on facial recognition. But when she finds a connection to the Urban Wars of the 2020s, she thinks Summerset may know something from his stint as a medic in Europe back then.

Margot and Mama have lived by the forest ever since Margot can remember. When Margot is not at school they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door. Mama loves the strays. Then she picks apart their bodies and toasts them off with some vegetable oil. But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make her own bid for freedom.

For fifty years Abe and Jane have been coming to Central Park, as starry-eyed young lovers, as frustrated and exhausted parents, as artists watching their careers take flight. They came alone when they needed to get away from each other, and together when they had something important to discuss. The Park has been their witness for half a century of love. Until now. Told in various points of view, even in conversation with Central Park itself, these voices weave in and out to paint a portrait as complicated and essential as love itself.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit. But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Emily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries. A renowned dryadologist, she has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project studying the inner workings of a faerie realm-as its queen. Along with her former academic rival-now fiancé-the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell’s long-lost kingdom.

New Nonfiction Available at the Library and on the Libby App

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Changing how we work can feel overwhelming. Like trying to budge an enormous boulder. We’re stifled by the gravity of the way we’ve always done things. And we spend so much time fighting fires—and fighting colleagues—that we lack the energy to shift direction. But with the right strategy, we can move the boulder. In Reset, Heath explores a framework for getting unstuck and making the changes that matter. The secret is to find “leverage points”: places where a little bit of effort can yield a disproportionate return.

Discover the best recipes and the step-by-step techniques every home cook needs to treat the coffee klatsch, fill the cookie jar, bake up golden breads and master holiday-worthy pies … all with recipes approved by the pros at the Taste of Home Test Kitchen. Whip up sumptuous layer cakes, insanely decadent brownies, bakery-level Danish and cute cake pops almost too special to eat. They’re all at your fingertips with Bakeshop Classics.


Why is Miami…Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial harmony? In this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns for the first time in twenty-five years to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious phenomena.

When modern medicine issues recommendations based on good scientific studies, it shines. Conversely, when modern medicine is interpreted through the harsh lens of opinion and edict, it can mold dogmas and popular beliefs that harm patients and stunt research for decades. In Blind Spots, the renowned Dr. Marty Makary explores how some of the biggest public health recommendations of modern medicine have been quietly reversed, some without the public knowing. 

When we imagine the origins of Christmas, we picture halcyon images of mangers, glowing fireplaces, and snow-blanketed winter hills. But the holiday is celebrated during the darkest time of year in the Northern Hemisphere—a season so dark it has given rise to the most outlandish traditions imaginable. In The Dead of Winter, Oxford-trained historian Sarah Clegg delves deep into the folkloric roots of Christmas in Europe, comparing their often-horrific past to the way they continue to haunt and entertain us now in the 21st century.

How do you raise kids who are confident, capable, and caring? The first ingredient is a secure and close relationship—key to helping them self-regulate and thrive later in life. When children feel seen, heard, and supported, all other parenting tips and tricks start to work. Groundbreaking author Eli Harwood makes attachment theory (the science that explores the innate human need to bond with other humans) accessible and actionable in how it can help our children learn and grow into compassionate, warm adults.

No bond is more sacred than that between a mother and child. And no one is more sympathetic than a mother whose child faces a life-threatening illness. But what if the mother is the cause of the illness? What if the sympathy is the point? Munchausen by proxy (MBP) has fascinated and horrified both professionals and the general public since this disturbing form of child abuse was first identified. But even as the public has been captivated by these tales of abuse and deception, there remains widespread misinformation and confusion about MBP. 

Brooke Shields has spent a lifetime in the public eye. Growing up as a child actor and model, her every feature was scrutinized, her every decision judged. Today Brooke faces a different kind of that of being a ‘woman of a certain age’. And yet, for Brooke, the passage of time has brought freedom. At fifty-nine, she feels more comfortable in her skin, more empowered and confident than she did decades ago in those famous Calvin Kleins. Now, in Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old, she’s changing the narrative about women and ageing.

We all feel it—the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they’re us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, “With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade.”

New DVDs to Check Out at the Library

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At 11:30pm on October 11th, 1975, a ferocious troupe of young comedians and writers changed television forever. Find out what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live (1975). Saturday Night is a 2024 American biographical comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman, about the night of the 1975 premiere of NBC’s Saturday Night, later known as Saturday Night Live.

While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonists come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe. Alien: Romulus is a 2024 science fiction horror film directed by Fede Álvarez and written by Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues. Produced by Scott Free Productions and Brandywine Productions, it is part of the Alien franchise, set between the events of Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986).

A struggling young dancer finds herself drawn in by dark forces when a peculiar, well-connected older couple promise her a shot at fame. Apartment 7A is a 2024 American psychological horror film directed by Natalie Erika James from a screenplay she co-wrote with Christian White and Skylar James. It serves as a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby (1968). 

Beetlejuice is back! After an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid, discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened. With trouble brewing in both realms, it’s only a matter of time until someone says Beetlejuice’s name three times and the mischievous demon returns to unleash his very own brand of mayhem.

Isaiah Wright has some growing up to do. A year out of high school with no plans for his future, Isaiah is challenged by his single mom and a successful businessman to start charting a better course for his life. Through the prayers of his mother and biblical discipleship from his new mentor, Isaiah begins to discover God’s purpose for his life is so much more than he could hope for or imagine.

Here is a 2024 American drama film produced and directed by Robert Zemeckis, who co-wrote the screenplay with Eric Roth, based on the 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire. Echoing the source material, the film is told in a nonlinear fashion: the story covers the events of a single plot of land and its inhabitants, spanning from the distant past to the 21st century.

Leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies gather for the annual G7 summit to draft a provisional statement regarding a global crisis. They soon become spectacles of incompetence, contending with increasingly surreal obstacles as night falls in the misty woods and they realize they are suddenly alone.

A dream holiday turns into a living nightmare when an American couple and their daughter spend the weekend at a British family’s idyllic country estate. A family is invited to spend a whole weekend in a lonely home in the countryside, but as the weekend progresses, they realize that a dark side lies within the family who invited them.

Based on George R.R. Martin’s “Fire & Blood” and set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, the prequel series House of the Dragon tells the epic story of House Targaryen during the reign of King Viserys I Targaryen and the high drama that ensue when he installs his first-born child, Princess Rhaenyra, a dragonrider of pure Valyrian blood – as the first woman to be named heir to the Iron Throne. ​ ​Season 2 will follow up on what’s already taken place.