The River Has Roots

 By: Amal El Mohtar  

Location: FIC ELM

Genre: Fantasy 

Alex reviewed it this way:

It’s half poetry, half fairytale and it WILL make you cry. Five stars, perfection❤️

"But that is not the truth of grammar. There was a time when grammar was wild— when it shifted shapes and unleashed new forms out of old. Grammar, like gramarye, like grimoire. What is magic but a change in the world? What is conjugation but a transformation, one thing into another? She runs; she ran; she will run again.”

Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.

“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.”

In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.

There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.

But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…

Wolf Siren

 By: Beth OBrien 

Location: FIC OBR

Genre: Fantasy

A vibrant, evocative and magical debut which centres a positive, empowered disabled character at the heart of a reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood.

The woods are hiding a secret… but then so is Red…

Red is not allowed to go into the woods. Everyone knows that they are dangerous – because of their strange magic and the wolves that lurk there… But Red finds herself increasingly drawn to the woods and the place where her grandmother disappeared without a trace three years ago. When the woodcutter fails to return home one night and wolves are spotted close to the village boundary, fear drives a deep and dangerous divide between the villagers and the nature they live alongside.

Only Red seems to hold the key – but she has a secret, and exposing it could ruin her family forever

Review by Rae: Wolf Siren is a beautifully crafted fairy tale retelling that is haunting, empowering, and deeply immersive. Fans of gothic fantasy, strong female protagonists, and magical realism will find much to love here.

Here One Moment

By: Liane Moriarty 

Location: FIC MOR

Genre: Mystery 

Nilufer's review: Wow! This long, fascinating saga is a mind-bending mystery with mystical, dramatic, and philosophical elements. It delivers a powerful message, advising readers to live their lives fully in their limited time, defying the odds and beating the reaper by challenging statistical consequences.

Life is full of twists and turns you never see coming. But what if you did?

Flight attendant Allegra Patel loves her job, but today is her twenty-eighth birthday and she’d rather not be placating a plane full of passengers unhappy about a long delay. There’s the well-dressed man in seat 4C desperate not to miss his daughter’s musical. A harried mother frantically tries to keep her toddler and baby quiet. Honeymooners still in their wedding finery dream of their new lives, while a chatty emergency room nurse dreams of retirement.

Suddenly a woman traveling alone stands. She walks down the aisle making predictions about how and when passengers will die. Some dismiss her, they don’t believe in psychics. Some are delighted with her prophecies! Their lives will supposedly be long. Others are appalled.

Then: a few months later, the first prediction comes true.

Intricately plotted, with the wonderful wit Liane Moriarty has become famous for, Here One Moment brilliantly looks at friends, lovers, and family and how we manage to hold onto them in our harried modern lives.

The House of Lincoln

 By: Nancy Horan 

Location: FIC HOR

Genre: Historical Fiction

Engaging, insightful, and rich!

Nancy Horan, author of the million-copy New York Times bestseller Loving Frank, returns with The House of Lincoln, which tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's ascendance from rumpled lawyer to U.S. President to Great Emancipator and presents Lincoln's Midwestern home as a complex third home front of the Civil War.

Rich with historical detail, The House of Lincoln is an insightful account of Lincoln's transformative vision for democracy as observed through the eyes of a young immigrant who arrives in Lincoln's home of Springfield, Illinois from Madeira, Portugal.

Showing intelligence beyond society's expectations, fourteen-year-old Ana Ferreira is offered a job in the Lincoln household assisting Mary Lincoln with their boys and with the hosting duties borne by the wife of a rising political star. Ana bears witness to the evolution of Lincoln's views on equality and the Union and observes in full complexity the psyche and pain of his bold, polarizing wife, Mary. Yet, alongside her dearest friend in the Black community, Ana confronts the racial prejudice her friend encounters daily as she watches the inner workings of the Underground Railroad, and directly experiences how slavery contradicts the promise of freedom in her adopted country.

Culminating in an account of the little-known Springfield race riot of 1908, The House of Lincoln takes readers on a journey through the historic changes that reshaped America and continue to reverberate today.

Nightshade

 By: Michael Connelly  

Location: FIC CON

Genre: Mystery

...'A  compelling, engrossing, twisty, fast-paced, character-driven, page-turning, well-crafted new police procedural thriller!!

#1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly introduces a new cop relentlessly following his mission in the seemingly idyllic setting of Catalina island.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has been “exiled” to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found weighed down at the bottom of the harbor—a Jane Doe identifiable at first only by a streak of purple dye in her hair. At the same time, a report of poaching on a protected reserve turns into a case fraught with violence and danger as Stilwell digs into the shady past of an island bigwig.

Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, Stilwell doggedly works both cases. Though hampered by an old beef with an ex-colleague determined to thwart him at every turn, he is convinced he is the only one who can bring justice to the woman known as “Nightshade.” Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.

Propulsive and atmospheric, Nightshade launches a brand new character into the Connelly universe, and proves without question that Michael Connelly is “the undisputed master of the modern crime novel” (Real Book Spy).

The Presidents Shadow

 By: James Patterson and Richard DiLallo    

Location: FIC PAT

Genre: Thriller

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 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.