Gwendy's Button Box
by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar
In Stephanie’s haunting recommendation, there are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Rock: Route 117, Pleasant Road, and the Suicide Stairs. Every day in the summer of 1974, twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson has taken the stairs, which are held by strong iron bolts and zig-zag up the precarious cliffside. Then one day when Gwendy gets to the top of Castle View and a stranger calls to her. There on a bench in the shade sits a man in black jeans, a black coat, and a white shirt unbuttoned at the top. On his head is a small, neat black hat. The time will come when Gwendy has nightmares about that hat…
The Shop on Royal Street by Karen White
In Pam’s recommendation, Nola Trenholm is looking to begin anew in New Orleans, and what better way to start her future than with her first house? But the historic fixer-upper she buys comes with even more work than she anticipated when the house’s previous occupants don’t seem to be ready to depart. Although she can’t communicate with ghosts like her stepmother can, luckily Nola knows someone in New Orleans who is able to–even if he’s the last person on earth she wants anything to do with ever again. Beau Ryan comes with his own dark past and he’s connected to the unsolved murder of a woman who once lived in the old Creole cottage Nola is determined to make her own…whether the resident restless spirits agree or not.
The Other Einstein
by Marie Benedict
Cynthia’s recommendation offers us a window into a brilliant, fascinating woman whose light was lost in Einstein’s enormous shadow. It is the story of Einstein’s wife, a brilliant physicist in her own right, whose contribution to the special theory of relativity is hotly debated and may have been inspired by her own profound and very personal insight. Mitza Maric has always been a little different from other girls. And then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage.
The Midnight Library
by Matt Haig
Emily’s recommendation tells the story of a library, between life and death, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices. Nora Seed finds herself faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
The Duke and I
by Julia Quinn
Nalani’s recommendation follows the rakish Duke of Hastings, who will stop at nothing to hold the marriage-mongers and matchmakers of his town at bay, even if it means pretending to be engaged to the lovely Daphne Bridgerton. The plan works like a charm–at first. But amid the glittering, gossipy, cut-throat world of London’s elite, there is only one certainty: love ignores every rule.
Not a Happy Family
By Shari Lapena
In Kris’s recommendation, everyone is keeping secrets–especially the dead. Brecken Hill in upstate New York is an expensive place to live. You have to be rich to have a house there. And they don’t come much richer than Fred and Sheila Merton. But even all their money can’t protect them when a killer comes to call. The Mertons are brutally murdered the night after an Easter dinner with their three adult kids. Who, of course, are devastated. Or are they? They each stand to inherit millions. Did one of them snap after that dreadful evening? Or was it someone else that night who crept in with the worst of intentions? It must be. After all, if one of your siblings was a psychopath, you’d know. Wouldn’t you?
