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Wednesday, March 13, 2024

It's Not Easy Being Green: Pinch Proof Reads

 



Leprechaun season is upon us! 

Take precautions to avoid getting pinched and hide behind some green.  




"It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardized by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks, and illicit intrigue."--. Provided by publisher.



"Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair's father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a woman's highest virtue was her obedience. In an effort to keep Babylon outside the gate, he forbade almost everything. In place of pants, the women in her family were made to wear long skirts and dresses to cover their arms and legs, head wraps to cover their hair, no make-up, no jewelry, no opinions, no friends. Safiya's mother, while loyal to her father, nonetheless gave Safiya and her siblings the gift of books, including poetry, to which Safiya latched on for dear life. And as Safiya watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under housework and the rigidity of her father's beliefs, she increasingly used her education as a sharp tool with which to find her voice and break free. Inevitably, with her rebellion comes clashes with her father, whose rage and paranoia explodes in increasing violence. As Safiya's voice grows, lyrically and poetically, a collision course is set between them. How to Say Babylon is Sinclair's reckoning with the culture that initially nourished but ultimately sought to silence her; it is her reckoning with patriarchy and tradition, and the legacy of colonialism in Jamaica. Rich in lyricism and language only a poet could evoke, How to Say Babylon is both a universal story of a woman finding her own power and a unique glimpse into a rarefied world we may know how to name, Rastafari, but one we know little about"--. Provided by publisher.



  • Investigator Vera Stanhope searches for a young man's killer and uncovers a small town's secrets.
    On a hot summer on the Northumberland coast, Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son murdered. Luke has been strangled, laid out in a bath of water and covered with wild flowers. The stylized murder scene has Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team baffled ... and intrigued. Meanwhile, the killer prepares for another watery grave ...


In 1956, Ava Lark rents a house with her twelve-year-old son, Lewis, in a desirable Boston suburb. Ava is beautiful, divorced, Jewish, and a working mom. She finds her neighbors less than welcoming. Lewis yearns for his absent father, befriending the only other fatherless kids: Jimmy and Rose. One afternoon, Jimmy goes missing. The neighborhood{u2014}in the throes of Cold War paranoia{u2014}seizes the opportunity to further ostracize Ava and her son. Years later, when Lewis and Rose reunite to untangle the final pieces of the tragic puzzle, they must decide: Should you tell the truth even if it hurts those you love, or should some secrets remain buried?



How do you kill something that was never born…

Thad Beaumont would like to say he is innocent.

He’d like to say he has nothing to do with the series of monstrous murders that keep coming closer to his home.

He’d like to say he has nothing to do with the twisted imagination that produced his bestselling novels.

He’d like to say he has nothing to do with the voice on the phone uttering its obscene threats and demanding total surrender.

But how can Thad disown the ultimate embodiment of evil that goes by the name he gave it—and signs its crimes with Thad’s bloody fingerprints?




"American grad student Lucy Silver arrives in England hoping to solve a longstanding literary mystery, write her dissertation, and finish her graduate studies in a blaze of academic glory. But as Lucy starts to piece together the correspondence between her late grandmother and Elizabeth Blackspear, the famous poet and garden writer who’s the subject of Lucy’s dissertation, she discovers puzzling coded references in the letters—and when an elderly English aristocrat with a secret connection to Elizabeth offers Lucy access to a neglected walled garden on his estate, the mystery deepens."--. Amazon.com.



"When Katie Brenner is fired from her dream job in advertising in London, she's desperate to get away from her mad boss Demeter, and her crush, Alex, who she thought shared her feelings of adoration but didn't. Seeking refuge, she goes home to her father's farm in Somerset to help make her stepmother's dream of turning their land into a glamping retreat come true. Applying her savvy marketing smarts, Katie masterminds a glamorous upscale resort. But when Demeter shows up unnannounced, with Alex not far behind, Katie is forced to rethink her revenge fantasies and her assumptions about family, love, and office politics and realize how much she may have misjudged everyone--and everything--around her"-- Provided by publisher.



Rowan is visiting her aunt - Winne the hedge witch - in the Welsh countryside, to get back to nature and hone her skills, as well as taking a break from her annoying sisters and enjoying some peace and quiet. However, Rowan soon comes to realise that hedges are a serious business and this isn't quite the opportunity to rest and escape she thought it might be. Not only that, but mysterious events around the town are causing panic in the secret magical community and cowans - non-magical folk - are starting to take notice. Can Rowan hone her hedge craft, try to make some friends and solve the riddle of the mysterious goings-on, or is magic about to be revealed to the world ... or at least Wales?



S.T., a domesticated crow, is a bird of simple pleasures: hanging out with his owner Big Jim, trading insults with Seattle's wild crows (those idiots), and enjoying the finest food humankind has to offer: Cheetos ®.Then Big Jim's eyeball falls out of his head, and S.T. starts to feel like something isn't quite right. His most tried-and-true remedies--from beak-delivered beer to the slobbering affection of Big Jim's loyal but dim-witted dog, Dennis--fail to cure Big Jim's debilitating malady. S.T. is left with no choice but to abandon his old life and venture out into a wild and frightening new world with his trusty steed Dennis, where he discovers that the neighbors are devouring each other and the local wildlife is abuzz with rumors of dangerous new predators roaming Seattle. Humanity's extinction has seemingly arrived, and the only one determined to save it is a foul-mouthed crow whose knowledge of the world around him comes from his TV-watching education.




Liz Kendall wouldn't hurt a fly. Even when times get tough, she's devoted to bringing up her two kids in a loving home.

But there's another side to Liz -- one that's dark and malicious. She will do anything to get her way, no matter how extreme.

And when this other side of her takes control, the consequences are devastating.

Love her or hate her: there are two sides to every story. . .


*Book descriptions featured are provided by the publishers*



Monday, March 4, 2024

What's New In March


Not only does March bring us the promise of Spring, (eventually, maybe, sometime, hopefully), but there are also a lot of new books ready to be released. Some familiar authors with new fiction include Danielle Steel's "Never Too Late", Tana French's "The Hunter", Lisa Unger's "The New Couple in 5B" and James Patterson and Nancy Ellen with The #1 Lawyer.  March's debut authors include Amy Tintera with  "Listen for the Lie"  and award-winning translator, Jennifer Croft with "The Extinction of Irena Rey"  I'm looking forward to Margaret Whippler's "A Good Bad Boy: Luke Perry and How a Generation Grew Up."  The young teen that lives inside of me who constantly went back and forth over who was more crush-worthy, Dylan or Brandon, on 90210 is anticipating tears, lots of tears. 

                                                   

A Good Bad Boy: Luke Perry and How a Generation Grew Up

By Margaret Wappler

An artful and contemplative tribute to the late actor famed for his role as Dylan McKay in Beverly Hills, 90210.

Best known for playing loner rebel Dylan McKay in Beverly Hills 90210, Luke Perry was fifty-two years old when he died of a stroke in 2019. There have been other deaths of 90’s stars, but this one hit different. Gen X was reminded of their own inescapable mortality, and robbed of an exciting career resurgence for one of their most cherished icons—with recent roles in the hit series Riverdale and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time In Hollywood bringing him renewed attention and acclaim. Only upon his death, as stories poured out online about his authenticity and kindness, did it become clear how little was known about the exceedingly humble actor and how deeply he impacted popular culture.

In A Good Bad Boy, Margaret Wappler attempts to understand who Perry was and why he was unique among his Hollywood peers. To do so, she uses an inventive hybrid narrative. She speaks with dozens who knew Perry personally and professionally. They share insightful anecdotes: how he kept connected to his Ohio upbringing; nearly blew his 90210 audition; tried to shed his heartthrob image by joining the HBO prison drama Oz; and in the last year of his life, sought to set up two of his newly divorced friends. (After his death, the pair bonded in their grief and eventually married.) Amid these original interviews and exhaustive archival research, Wappler weaves poignant vignettes of memoir in which she serves as an avatar to show how Perry shaped a generation’s views on masculinity, privilege and the ideal of “cool.”

Timed to the fifth anniversary of Perry’s death, A Good Bad Boy is a profound and entertaining examination of what it means to be an artist and an adult.


Happily Never After
by Lynn Painter

Their name? The objectors.
Their job? To break off weddings as hired.
Their dilemma? They might just be in love with each other.

When Sophie Steinbeck finds out just before her nuptials that her fiancé has cheated yet again, she desperately wants to call it off. But because her future father-in-law is her dad’s cutthroat boss, she doesn’t want to be the one to do it. Her savior comes in the form of a professional objector, whose purpose is to show up at weddings and proclaim the words no couple (usually) wants to hear at their ceremony: “I object!”

During anti-wedding festivities that night, Sophie learns more about Max the Objector’s job. It makes perfect sense to her: he saves people from wasting their lives, from hurting each other. He’s a modern-day hero. And Sophie wants in.

The two love cynics start working together, going from wedding to wedding, and Sophie’s having more fun than she’s had in ages. She looks forward to every nerve-racking ceremony saving the lovesick souls of the betrothed masses. As Sophie and Max spend more time together, however, they realize that their physical chemistry is off the charts, leading them to dabble in a little hookup session or two—but it’s totally fine, because they definitely do not have feelings for each other. Love doesn’t exist, after all.

And then everything changes. A groom-to-be hires Sophie to object, but his fiancée is the woman who broke Max’s heart. As Max wrestles with whether he can be a party to his ex’s getting hurt, Sophie grapples with the sudden realization that she may have fallen hard for her partner in crime.



How To Solve Your Own Murder
by Kristen Perrin

Named most anticipated by: Goodreads, BookRiot, The Nerd Daily, Shelf Reflection, Novel Suspects, Borrow Read Repeat, The Everygirl, The Scout Guide, The Real Book Spy

A Publishers Marketplace 2024 BuzzBook

For fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club, an enormously fun mystery about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate... Now it's up to her great-niece to catch the killer.

It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered like she always said she would be.

In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?

As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.



The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County

by Claire Swinarski

Armed with a Crock-Pot and a pile of recipes, a grandmother, her granddaughter, and a mysterious young man work to bring a community together in this uplifting novel for readers of The Chicken Sisters.

Esther Larson has been cooking for funerals in the Northwoods of Wisconsin for seventy years. Known locally as the “funeral ladies,” she and her cohort have worked hard to keep the mourners of Ellerie County fed—it is her firm belief that there is very little a warm casserole and a piece of cherry pie can’t fix. But, after falling for an internet scam that puts her home at risk, the proud Larson family matriarch is the one in need of help these days.

Iris, Esther’s whip-smart Gen Z granddaughter, would do anything for her family and her community. As she watches her friends and family move out of their lakeside town onto bigger and better things, Iris wonders why she feels so left behind in the place she is desperate to make her home. But when Cooper Welsh shows up, she finally starts to feel like she’s found the missing piece of her puzzle.

Cooper is dealing with becoming a legal guardian to his younger half-sister after his beloved stepmother dies. While their celebrity-chef father is focused on his booming career and top-ranked television show, Cooper is still hurting from a public tragedy he witnessed last year as a paramedic and finding it hard to cope. With Iris in the gorgeous Ellerie County, though, he hopes he might finally find the home he’s been looking for.

It doesn’t seem like a community cookbook could possibly solve their problems, especially one where casseroles have their own section and cream of chicken soup mix is the most frequently used ingredient. But when you mix the can-do spirit of Midwestern grandmothers with the stubborn hope of a boy raised by food plus a dash of long-awaited forgiveness—things might just turn out okay.



Knife Skills
By Wendy Church

"Armchair travellers and foodies, rejoice!" Booklist Starred Review on Murder on the Spanish Seas

Sagarine Pfister is a great cook but has been blacklisted by almost every restaurant in Chicago. She gets her chance at Louie's, a below-average restaurant, the only place that will give her a job.

Things change when she finds head chef Louie Ferrar dead in the walk-in freezer of his restaurant. But instead of closing the place down, the owner, Russian gang boss Anatoly Morzov, not only offers her Louie's job, but also the position as his personal chef. Sagarine agrees, and while she knows she's playing with fire, the chance to turn out extraordinary food at both the restaurant and for Morzov's extravagant private parties is just too tempting.

While the Chicago P.D. searches for Louie's killer, the FBI pressures Sagarine to inform on the gang. She has no choice, but things take another dangerous turn when she falls for one of Morzov's lieutenants. As Sagarine becomes more deeply involved with the gang and with her lover, the FBI's demands put her at increased risk of discovery. She has to make a decision about where her loyalties lie as she finds herself running for her life.


Feather So Black
By Lyra Selene


Set in a world of perilous magic and moonlit forests, this seductive romantic fantasy tells the story of a defiant changeling, her cursed sister, and the dangerous fae lord she must defeat to save her family.

In a kingdom where magic has been lost, Fia is a rare changeling, left behind by the wicked Fair Folk when they stole the High Queen's daughter and retreated behind the locked gates of Tír na nÓg.

Most despise Fia's fae blood. But the queen raises her as a daughter and trains her to be a spy. Meanwhile, the real princess Eala is bound to Tír na nÓg, cursed to become a swan by day and only returning to her true form at night.

When a hidden gate to the realm is discovered, Fia is tasked by the queen to retrieve the princess and break her curse. But she doesn’t go alone: with her is prince Rogan, Fia's dearest childhood friend—and Eala’s betrothed.

As they journey through the forests of the Folk, where magic winds through the roots of the trees and beauty can be a deadly illusion, Fia’s mission is complicated by her feelings for the prince…and her unexpected attraction to the dark-hearted fae lord holding Eala captive. Irian might be more monster than man, but he seems to understand Fia in a way no one ever has.

Soon, Fia begins to question the truth of her mission. But time is running out to break her sister's curse. And unraveling the secrets of the past might destroy everything she has come to love.



The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties
By Jesse Q. Sutanto 

What should have been a family celebration of Chinese New Year descends into chaos when longtime foes crash the party in this hilariously entertaining novel by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties.

After an ultra-romantic honeymoon across Europe, Meddy Chan and her husband Nathan have landed in Jakarta to spend Chinese New Year with her entire extended family. Chinese New Year, already the biggest celebration of the Lunar calendar, gets even more festive when a former beau of Second Aunt’s shows up at the Chan residence bearing extravagant gifts—he’s determined to rekindle his romance with Second Aunt and the gifts are his way of announcing his courtship.

His grand gesture goes awry however, when it’s discovered that not all the gifts were meant for Second Aunt and the Chans—one particular gift was intended for a business rival to cement their alliance and included by accident. Of course the Aunties agree that it’s only right to return the gift—after all, anyone would forgive an honest mistake, right? But what should have been a simple retrieval turns disastrous and suddenly Meddy and the Aunties are helpless pawns in a decades-long war between Jakarta’s most powerful business factions. The fighting turns personal, however, when Nathan and the Aunties are endangered and it’s up to Meddy to come up with a plan to save them all. Determined to rescue her loved ones, Meddy embarks on an impossible mission—but with the Aunties by her side, nothing is truly impossible…



Help Wanted: A Novel
By Adelle Waldman

One of New York Magazine's "23 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2024" • One of VOGUE’s Best Books of the Year So Far • One of ELLE’s Best (and Most Anticipated) Fiction Books of 2024 • One of Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024 • One of Kirkus’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024 • One of Lilith Magazine’s “21 Books We Want to Read in 2024”

From the best-selling author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. comes a funny, eye-opening tale of work in contemporary America.

Every day at 3:55 a.m., members of Team Movement clock in for their shift at big-box store Town Square in a small upstate New York town. Under the eyes of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before the store opens and customers arrive. Their lives follow a familiar if grueling routine, but their real problem is that Town Square doesn’t schedule them for enough hours―most of them are barely getting by, even while working second or third jobs. When store manager Big Will announces he is leaving, the members of Movement spot an opportunity. If they play their cards right, one of them just might land a management job, with all the stability and possibility for advancement that that implies. The members of Team Movement―including a comedy-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman clinging on to her “cool kid” status from high school, and a college football hopeful trying to find a new path―band together to set a just-so-crazy-it-might-work plot in motion.

Adelle Waldman’s debut novel was a breakout sensation, lauded by the Los Angeles Times as an “exacting character study” with “excellent and witty prose” and described as “incisive and very funny” by the Economist and “brilliant” by both NPR’s Fresh Air and the Washington Post. In her long-awaited follow-up, Waldman brings her unparalleled wit and astute social observation to the world of modern, low-wage work. A humane and darkly comic workplace caper that shines a light on the odds low-wage workers are up against in today’s economy, Help Wanted is a funny, moving tale of ordinary people trying to make a living.


American Spirits
By Russell Banks

From one of America’s most celebrated storytellers come three dark, interlocking tales about the residents of a rural New York town, and the shocking headlines that become their local mythologies.

A husband sells property to a mysterious, temperamental stranger, and is hounded on social media when he publicly questions the man’s character. A couple grows concerned when an enigmatic family moves next door, and the children start sneaking over to beg for help. Two dangerous criminals kidnap an elderly couple and begin blackmailing their grandson, demanding that he pay back what he owes.

Suspenseful, thrilling, and expertly crafted, American Spirits explores the hostile undercurrents of our communities and American politics at large, as well as the ways local tragedies can be both devastating and, somehow, everyday. Ushering the reader through the town of Sam Dent, Russell Banks has etched yet another brilliant entry into the bedrock of American fiction.




Selling the Dream: The Billion-Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans
By Jane Marie


Peabody and Emmy Award–winning journalist Jane Marie expands on her popular podcast The Dream to expose the scourge of multilevel marketing schemes and how they have profited off the evisceration of the American working class.

We’ve all heard of Amway, Mary Kay, Tupperware, and LuLaRoe, but few know the nefarious way they and countless other multilevel marketing (MLM) companies prey on desperate Americans struggling to make ends meet.

When factories close, stalwart industries shutter, and blue-collar opportunities evaporate, MLMs are there, ready to pounce on the crumbling American Dream. MLMs thrive in rural areas and on military bases, targeting women with promises of being their own boss and millions of dollars in easy income—even at the risk of their entire life savings. But the vast majority—99.7%—of those who join an MLM make no money or lose money, and wind up stuck with inventory they can’t sell to recoup their losses.

Featuring in-depth reporting and intimate research, Selling the Dream reveals how these companies—often owned by political and corporate elites, such as the Devos and the Van Andels families—have made a windfall in profit off of the desperation of the American working class.


* Book descriptions featured are provided by the publishers*

"Witch" Book Will Put A Spell On You

  A book can cast a spell on you. They can enrapture, enrage, or enchant. Books can transport you to faraway lands, let you travel through ...