Relationships make for interesting reading

Relationships are the stuff of life, and the force that drive these new titles. These new books are all worth making a trip to the library, and we have enough new titles to keep you reading all summer. Celebrate the slow days of summer by exercising your library card and your freedom to read. 

Crazy for the Storm, by Norman Ollestad ~ From the age of three, Norman Ollestad was thrust into the world of surfing and competitive downhill skiing by the intense, charismatic father he both idolized and resented. While his friends were riding bikes, playing ball, and going to birthday parties, young Norman was whisked away in pursuit of wild and demanding adventures. Yet it were these exhilarating tests of skill that prepared “Boy Wonder,“ as his father called him, to become a fearless champion, and ultimately saved his life, when as an eleven-year old he was the only survivor of a horrific plane crash at 8,200 feet during a blizzard and had to make his way to safety alone. This may read like a wild adventure novel, but it is a true story.

Dune Road, by Jane Green ~ This sparkling new novel moves from the sunny green lawns of Connecticut to the cafes of London to the sandy beaches of Nantucket. Green draws from her own life to craft each delicious story and this is another fun and fearless adventure that will take readers from laughter to tears and back again. The novel is set in the beach community of a Connecticut town. Our heroine is a single mom who works for a famous, and famously reclusive, novelist. When she stumbles on a secret that the great man has kept hidden for years, she knows that there are plenty of women in town who would love to get their hands on it, including some who fancy the writer for themselves. Dune Road is the story of life in an exclusive beach town after the tourists have left for the summer and the eccentric (and moneyed) community sticks around.

Swimsuit, by James Patterson ~ Syd, a breathtakingly beautiful supermodel on a photo shoot in Hawaii, disappears. Fearing the worst, her parents travel to Hawaii to investigate for themselves, never expecting the horror that awaits them. LA Times reporter Ben Hawkins is conducting his own research into the case, hoping to help the victim and get an idea for his next bestseller. With no leads and no closer to uncovering the kidnapper’s identity than when he stepped off the plane, Ben gets a shocking visit that pushes him into an impossible-to-resist deal with the devil.

The Widow’s Season, by Laura Brodie ~ This is a mesmerizing debut novel about love, grief, and the ghosts who show up where we least expect them. Sarah McConnell’s husband had been dead for three months when she saw him in the grocery store. What does a woman do when she’s thirty-nine, childless, and completely alone for the first time in her life? Does it mean she’s crazy to think she sees her late husband beside a display of pumpkins? Or is it just what people do, a natural response to grief that will fade in time? But what if there was another answer? What if he was really there? They never found the body, after all. What if he is still here somehow, and about to walk back into her life?

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict: a Novel, by Laurie Viera Rigler ~ In this Jane Austen-inspired comedy, love story, and exploration of identity and destiny, a modern LA girl wakes up as an Englishwoman in Austen’s time.  After nursing a broken engagement with Jane Austen novels and Absolut vodka, Courtney Stone wakes up and finds herself not in her Los Angeles bedroom or even in her own body, but inside the bedchamber of a woman in Regency England. Not only is Courtney stuck in another woman’s life, she is forced to pretend she actually is that woman; and despite knowing nothing about her, she manages to fool even the most astute observer. But not even her love of Jane Austen has prepared Courtney for the chamber pots and filthy coaching inns of nineteenth-century England, let alone the realities of being a single woman who must fend off suffocating chaperones, condom-less seducers, and marriages of convenience. Enter the enigmatic Mr. Edgeworth, who fills Courtney’s borrowed brain with confusing memories that are clearly not her own. Try as she might to control her mind and find a way home, Courtney cannot deny that she is becoming this other woman, and being this other woman is not without its advantages after all.

City of Thieves, by David Benioff ~ As wise and funny as it is thrilling and original, this is the story of two young men on an impossible adventure. A writer visits his retired grandparents in Florida to document their experience during the infamous siege of Leningrad. His grandmother won’t talk about it, but his grandfather reluctantly consents. The result is the captivating odyssey of two young men trying to survive against desperate odds. Lev Beniov considers himself built for deprivation. He’s small, smart, and insecure, a Jewish virgin too young for the army, who spends his nights working as a volunteer firefighter with friends from his building. When a dead German paratrooper lands in his street, Lev is caught looting the body and dragged to jail, fearing for his life. He shares his cell with the charismatic and grandiose Kolya, a handsome young soldier arrested on desertion charges. Instead of the standard bullet in the back of the head, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful colonel to use in his daughter’s wedding cake.