List

Category
Audience
Tags

Foul Play at Seal Bay

Judy Leigh

It was meant to be the start of quiet season in the sleepy Cornish village of Seal Bay, but not for sexagenarian librarian and wild swimming enthusiast Morwenna Mutton.

Because when a local businessman is found on the beach with a bread knife is his back, bungling police officer DI Rick Tremayne is soon out of his depth. Morwenna knows it's going to be down to her to crack the case.

The list of people the victim upset is long, the evidence is slight, and an arrest illusive. Morwenna has plenty to occupy her time what with ghostly goings-on at the library and skullduggery at her granddaughter's school, but she could never resist a challenge. And even the most ruthless of murderers should quake at the sight of this amateur sleuth getting on her bike to track them down.

View Details >>

Anne, 36, Mom of 1, Pirate Queen

Joseph Malott

She's 36, a mom of one, and her life is about as exciting as the artisanal cat litter she markets for a living... until she decides to become a pirate.

Anne Devereaux is adrift. One year post-divorce, stuck in a soul-crushing marketing job in sunny Tampa, Florida, she's failing spectacularly at modern app-based dating and generally feeling like she's walking the plank of mid-life mediocrity. Her only real adventure? Navigating her pirate-obsessed eight-year-old son, Max, through the treacherous waters of third grade.

But when a disastrous sailboat date (the guy was a barnacle, but the sailing? That was treasure) and a bizarre confession from her mom support group—about the thrilling little secret of "innocuous" shoplifting from "The Man"—plant a wildly outlandish seed, Anne's life is about to get a serious jolt of oomph.

Inspired by Max, her own seafaring ancestry, and a desperate need for something more, Anne trades her spreadsheets for a sailboat (dubbed "The Second Chance"), her sensible cardigans for a cheap eye patch and a surprisingly empowering bikini, and her mundane existence for a hilariously thrilling new career: becoming Tampa Bay's most unlikely Pirate Queen.

Armed with a gifted ceremonial sword, a crew of supportive (if bewildered) gal pals, a salty seadog mentor, and eventually, a (surprisingly functional) antique cannon bought off eBay, Anne begins a laugh-out-loud campaign of petty plunder. Her targets? The obnoxious, entitled elite of the Tampa/Clearwater yachting scene. Her loot? Mostly their dignity, a few tacky deck ornaments (hello, giant inflatable flamingo!), and some very expensive, "liberated" craft beer and cheese.

But as "Captain Annie's" local legend grows (#TampaPirateQueen is trending!), keeping her swashbuckling alter ego a secret from her observant son, her suspicious ex-husband, and a charming new marine biologist who definitely wouldn't understand her preferred method of "resource acquisition" becomes a whole new adventure.

Can Anne navigate the choppy waters of single motherhood, find love, make peace with her past, and learn to love herself, all while trying to remember where she buried that hideous abstract sculpture she "rescued"?

If you love laugh-out-loud stories about strong women taking the helm of their own lives, second chances that come with a side of minor larceny, and finding adventure (and yourself) in the most unexpected of coves, then climb aboard for "Anne, 36, Mom of 1, Pirate Queen"! It's a feel-good, whimsical romp that proves it's never too late to hoist the mainsail on a new life... even if you have to "borrow" the anchor.

View Details >>

Remote: The Six

Eric Rickstad

A serial killer is rampaging across the country, tying families to chairs—arranged in puzzling tableaus—then murdering them, without leaving a trace of evidence.

FBI Special Agent Lukas Stark has been hunting the Tableau Killer for eighteen months but is always two steps behind in a maze of dead ends. He has no understanding of why the killer stages the scenes so meticulously or chooses entire families. Burning out, Stark is forced to take on a new partner, Gilles Garnier.

Garnier, an odd loner with a vague past, claims he's a remote viewer who "sees" people, places, and events far away—remote—as if they're right in front of him. Stark knows this sort. Cons. Wannabes desperate to worm their way onto a sensational case. Stark dismisses his new partner as a fraud ... until Garnier precisely describes a new Tableau Killer crime scene from hundreds of miles away.

As Stark and Garnier track the Tableau Killer across the country, they start to believe they finally have the advantage. But Garnier's ability to remote-view fails him and leaves him ill and weak. Then Stark realizes how the killer has stayed ahead of them all this time. The reason is more terrifying than either man can fathom.

They face a killer who may be unstoppable, and stand at the abyss of a conspiracy so ominous, it shakes their reality to the core.

View Details >>

Stuck in the Midlife With You

Freya Kennedy

Your forties just got fabulous...

Becca Burnside is going to make this the year she turns her forties around, and creates a life her 16-year-old self would be proud of... A smidgen of romance wouldn't go amiss either.

And with a new job, and a blossoming friendship with handsome Conal, she's off to a great start. Or at least, she was, until her youngest son dropped the mother of all bombshells: his girlfriend, who just happens to be the daughter of Becca's best friend Niamh, is pregnant. Now Becca and Niamh find themselves not only facing the usual problems that come with being women of a certain age, they're going to be grannies.

So when Becca's new job invites them on a weekend retreat, it seems the perfect way to distract themselves from 'the Situation'. But will wild water swimming and yoga be enough to help the women face the biggest challenge of their adult lives? And can their friendship survive the chaos of a new baby?

Make sure you join the most fabulous club in town, and find out what happens when Derry Girls become Derry Women...

View Details >>

The Agent's Demon

L E Medlock

IT TAKES A DEMON TO CATCH A DEMON

LONDON, 1888

When her mentor is brutally murdered, Hazel Locke is dragged into the investigation as the newest agent at Her Majesty's Paranormal Investigation Agency. To solve the case, she must summon a demon partner called a Hound, a creature who can track down others of its kind. But the demon she summons is unlike any she's encountered before, and he wants nothing to do with her or the Agency.

As the body count rises, Hazel realizes there's more at stake than getting justice for her mentor. A ruthless killer haunts the streets of London, and to stop them, she and her demon will have to put their differences aside and work together to solve the crime - no matter where the journey takes her...

The Agent's Demon is the first book in the historical paranormal series, Locke & Steel.

View Details >>

TEST - The Bookshop of Second Chances

Jackie Fraser

A woman desperate to turn a new page heads to the Scottish coast and finds herself locked in a battle of wills with an infuriatingly aloof bookseller in this utterly heartwarming debut, perfect for readers of Evvie Drake Starts Over.

“Humor and charm abound. . . . [This] love story hits the spot.”—Publishers Weekly

Thea Mottram is having a bad month. She’s been let go from her office job with no notice—and to make matters even worse, her husband of nearly twenty years has decided to leave her for one of her friends. Bewildered and completely lost, Thea doesn’t know what to do. But when she learns that a distant great uncle in Scotland has passed away, leaving her his home and a hefty antique book collection, she decides to leave Sussex for a few weeks. Escaping to a small coastal town where no one knows her seems to be exactly what she needs.

Almost instantly, Thea becomes enamored with the quaint cottage, comforted by its cozy rooms and lovely but neglected garden. The locals in nearby Baldochrie are just as warm, quirky, and inviting. The only person she can’t seem to win over is bookshop owner Edward Maltravers, to whom she hopes to sell her uncle’s book collection. His gruff attitude—fueled by an infamous, long-standing feud with his brother, a local lord—tests Thea’s patience. But bickering with Edward proves oddly refreshing and exciting, leading Thea to develop feelings she hasn’t experienced in a long time. As she follows a thrilling yet terrifying impulse to stay in Scotland indefinitely, Thea realizes that her new life may quickly become just as complicated as the one she was running from.

View Details >>

TEST - The Busybody Book Club

Freya Sampson

LibraryReads Pick

They can’t even agree on what to read, so how are they going to solve a murder?

Having recently moved from London to a small Cornish seaside village, Nova Davies started a book club at the local community center, but so far it’s a disaster. The five members disagree on everything, and to make matters worse, a significant sum of money is stolen during one of the meetings, putting the much-loved community center at risk.

Suspicion for the theft falls on book club member Michael, especially when he disappears and a dead body turns up at his house. But the book club has their own theories. Agatha Christie superfan Phyllis is determined to prove Michael’s been framed, while romance reader Arthur believes there’s a mystery woman involved, and teenage sci-fi fan Ash thinks dark forces are at play. 

While trying to locate Michael, solve the murder and recover the stolen money, each of them has their own secrets to protect. But despite the danger closing in, they won’t rest until they’ve cracked the case and gotten everyone safe at home with a book, where they belong.

View Details >>

TEST - Fat + Flour

Nicole Rucker

A fuss-free, downright delicious collection of recipes for pies, cookies, brownies, cakes, and more—from “pastry queen” (Bon Appétit) Nicole Rucker, chef/owner of Los Angeles’s Fat + Flour

Fat + Flour is a celebration of the delights that abound when these two simple ingredients come together. Famed for her rustic desserts, homespun pies, and unique flavor combinations, Nicole Rucker is revered as one of America’s best bakers, and in this baking bible she shares the accessible, unfussy recipes that made her name. 

From Rucker’s legendary pies—White Chocolate Banana Cream Pie! Stone Fruit Party Pie!—to cookies (Boozy Banana Snickerdoodles!), bars (Abuelita Milk Chocolate Brownies!), loaf cakes (Zucchini and Date Loaf Cake!), and much more, the book is a treasure trove of treats (including not one, not two, but five different chocolate chip cookies, six kinds of brownies, six unique apple pies, and five distinctly different banana breads). 

Rucker gives readers everything they need to make bakery-quality baked goods at home—but without the fuss, in part thanks to what she calls the Cold Butter Method, a low-effort technique for melding fat and flour that produces perfect cookies and the tenderest pie dough every time. A cookbook guaranteed to take your baking to the next level.

View Details >>

TEST - The President's Shadow

James Patterson

One of America's iconic thriller heroes recruits his lasting love, Margo Lane, and his great-great-granddaughter, Maddy Gomes, to join an international investigation. 

For over 150 years, Lamont Cranston, and his alter ego, The Shadow, has possessed an array of mental and physical powers: scientific skills, shape-shifting ability, and mind control.

When a series of deadly natural disasters strike the planet, immediately set out to identify who's responsible...

A disgruntled graduate student? The power-hungry president of the Americas? Or could it be Shiwan Khan, the Shadow's fiercest enemy?

The Shadow's latest adventure is also his, Maddy's, and Margo's most dangerous. Triumph or perish, they'll rise or fall...together.

View Details >>

TEST - King of Ashes

S. A. Cosby

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Pick up the novel everyone will be talking about.” —The Atlantic
“Dark, riveting, and accomplished.—Washington Post
“Propulsive and powerful. . . A gripping roller coaster ride of escalating danger.” —New York Times Book Review

Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby returns with King of Ashes, a Godfather-inspired Southern crime epic and dazzling family drama.

Amazon Best Books of the Year So Far 2025 Indie Next pick for June 2025 • Library Reads pick for June 2025 • Book of the Month Club pick • Starred Library Journal • Starred Kirkus Los Angeles Times 30 Must-Read Books for Summer • NPR’s 10 books we're looking forward to this spring • New York Post’s Must-Read New Thriller Books • New York Times’s 12 Summer Books We’re Looking Forward To • USA TODAY’s Most Anticipated Books of summer 2025 • The Atlantic’s 24 Books to Read This Summer • TIME’s 16 Most Anticipated Books to Read This Summer • People’s The 15 Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2025 • Vulture’s 28 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Summer • New York Times’s Books to Read This Summer • New York Times’s 4 Summer Books We’re Looking Forward To • Washington Post’s 30 Books to Read This Summer • New York Post’s 30 Best Beach Reads

When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his brother: himself, and his own particular set of skills.

Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything.

Because everything burns. 

“A fast-paced thriller that will have readers asking whether the ends justify the means if there is no end in sight. . . Reminiscent of the great tragedies, this is Cosby at his best.”
—Library Journal, starred review

View Details >>

TEST - Ocean

David Attenborough

Award-winning broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough and longtime collaborator Colin Butfield present a powerful call to action focused on our planet's oceans, exploring how critical this habitat is for the survival of humanity and the earth's future.



Through personal stories, history and cutting-edge science, Ocean uncovers the mystery, the wonder, and the frailty of the most unexplored habitat on our planet--the one which shapes the land we live on, regulates our climate, and creates the air we breathe. This book showcase the oceans' remarkable resilience: they can, and in some cases have, recovered the fastest, if we only give them the chance. 



Drawing a course across David Attenborough's own lifetime, Ocean takes readers on an adventure-laden voyage through eight unique ocean habitats, countless intriguing species, and the most astounding discoveries of the last 100 years, to a future vision of a fully restored marine world--one even more spectacular than we could possibly hope for. Ocean reveals the past, present and potential future of our blue planet. It is a book almost a century in the making, but one that has never been more urgently needed.

View Details >>

TEST - All the Blues in the Sky

Renée Watson

# 1 New York Times bestselling and Newbery Honor author Renée Watson explores friendship, loss, and life with grief in this poignant novel in verse and vignettes.

Sage's thirteenth birthday was supposed to be about movies and treats, staying up late with her best friend and watching the sunrise together. Instead, it was the day her best friend died. Without the person she had to hold her secrets and dream with, Sage is lost. In a counseling group with other girls who have lost someone close to them, she learns that not all losses are the same, and healing isn't predictable. There is sadness, loneliness, anxiety, guilt, pain, love. And even as Sage grieves, new, good things enter her life-and she just may find a way to know that she can feel it all.

In accessible, engaging verse and prose, this is a story of a girl's journey to heal, grow, and forgive herself. To read it is to see how many shades there are in grief, and to know that someone understands.

View Details >>

TEST - Olivetti

Allie Millington

The heartfelt national bestseller novel praised by Tom Hanks in the New York Times as "a great favor" to readers; perfect for fans of Kate DiCamillo and Peter Brown.

"Perfect for young readers and nostalgic grownups alike."--Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper, summer reading recommendations

Being a typewriter is not as easy as it looks. Surrounded by books (notorious attention hogs) and recently replaced by a computer, Olivetti has been forgotten by the Brindle family—the family he’s lived with for years. The Brindles are busy humans, apart from 12-year-old Ernest, who would rather be left alone with his collection of Oxford English Dictionaries. The least they could do was remember Olivetti once in a while, since he remembers every word they’ve typed on him. It’s a thankless job, keeping memories alive.

Olivetti gets a rare glimpse of action from Ernest’s mom, Beatrice—his used-to-be most frequent visitor—only for her to drop him off at Heartland Pawn Shop and leave him helplessly behind. When Olivetti learns Beatrice has mysteriously gone missing afterward, he believes he can help find her. He breaks the only rule of the “typewriterly code” and types back to Ernest, divulging Beatrice’s memories stored inside him.

Their search takes them across San Francisco—chasing clues, maybe committing a few misdemeanors. As Olivetti spills out the past, Ernest is forced to face what he and his family have been running from, The Everything That Happened. Only by working together will they find Beatrice, belonging, and the parts of themselves they’ve lost.

View Details >>

TEST - Creature Powers: The Biggest! (Wild Kratts)

Martin Kratt

The Wild Kratts explore how being really big can be an awesome creature power in this Step into Reading, Step 2 leveled reader! Perfect for young readers ages 3 to 6!

Chris and Martin Kratt—the Wild Kratts—explore the worlds of big elephants, big whales, and big wolf packs—and more! Fans of the Wild Kratts TV series will learn how animals use their size as an awesome creature power to survive in different environments. Children ages 4 to 6 year-old fans will love this information-packed Step 2 Step into Reading leveled reader that also helps them learn to read.
Step 2 readers use basic vocabulary and short sentences to tell simple stories. For children who recognize familiar words and can sound out new words with help.

View Details >>

TEST - Memorial Days

Geraldine Brooks

A New York Times Bestseller

“Brooks tracks the geography of grief with patience and grace as she comes to terms with the ongoing nature of outliving the ones you love most. ... Her memoir is certainly a testament to her own unique loss, but it’s moreover a lifeline to others who will find themselves in this familiar, shattered landscape of grief.” —Los Angeles Times

“A rich account of marriage and mourning.” —Washington Post

A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey towards peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse

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 – just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy – collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk.

After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha’s Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends at the beach. But all of this ended abruptly when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf.

Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on a pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony’s death.

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.

View Details >>

TEST - Educated

Tara Westover

#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • One of the most acclaimed books of our time: an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University
 
“Extraordinary . . . an act of courage and self-invention.”—The New York Times
 
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • BILL GATES’S HOLIDAY READING LIST • FINALIST: National Book Critics Circle’s Award In Autobiography and John Leonard Prize For Best First Book • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award • Los Angeles Times Book Prize
 
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
 
“Beautiful and propulsive . . . Despite the singularity of [Westover’s] childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?”—Vogue

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, O: The Oprah Magazine, Time, NPR, Good Morning America, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, The Economist, Financial Times, Newsday, New York Post, theSkimm, Refinery29, Bloomberg, Self, Real Simple, Town & Country, Bustle, Paste, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, LibraryReads, Book Riot, Pamela Paul, KQED, New York Public Library

View Details >>