The Dead Cat Tail Assassins

 By: P Djeli Clark 

Location: FIC CLA

Genre: Fantasy

"A highly entertaining read with pace and zing, which is honestly a delightful change from the number of fantasy doorstoppers I've tripped over recently." K Charles

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins are not cats.

Nor do they have tails.

But they are most assuredly dead.

Nebula and Alex Award winner P. Djèlí Clark introduces a brand-new world and a fantastical city full of gods and assassins.

Eveen the Eviscerator is skilled, discreet, professional, and here for your most pressing needs in the ancient city of Tal Abisi. Her guild is strong, her blades are sharp, and her rules are simple. Those sworn to the Matron of Assassins―resurrected, deadly, wiped of their memories―have only three unbreakable vows.

First, the contract must be just. That’s above Eveen’s pay grade.

Second, even the most powerful assassin may only kill the contracted. Eveen’s a professional. She’s never missed her mark.

The third and the simplest: once you accept a job, you must carry it out. And if you stray? A final death would be a mercy. When the Festival of the Clockwork King turns the city upside down, Eveen’s newest mission brings her face-to-face with a past she isn’t supposed to remember and a vow she can’t forget.

Goodreads review

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins is a novella about Eveen - an assassin who is not a cat, does not have a tail, but is most assuredly dead, as she tries to figure out who wants revenge on her, survive the repercussions of breach of contract and find a legal loophole in a magical contract, all in one night.

The book is a quick and fun read, with an action packed story kicking off early on. The hints and twists, along with the witty characters kept me turning the pages until the end! The characters are engaging and relatable, though I wish we could find out more about Eveen - I hope this is not the last we see of her!

P. Djèlí Clark's sharp and masterfully succinct writing conveys a more complex world than the page count belies. We get the impression of layered characters and subtle politics without going into outright exposition. And I laughed out loud when I heard a mythical fearsome goddess of assassins offhandedly say mansplain.

All the Diamonds in Paris

 By: Kristin Harmel   

Location: FIC HAR

Genre: Historical Fiction 

“But please always remember...that there is a difference between a life that honors the past and a life dictated by it. When you let your history shape your future, you relinquish the ability to choose a better way forward."

Two jewel thieves, a priceless bracelet that disappears in 1940s Paris, and a quest for answers in a decades-old murder...

Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance.

But one night in 1942, it all went wrong. Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette’s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared in the chaos of the raid, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane’s body was found floating in the Seine—but the bracelet was nowhere to be found.

Seventy years later, Colette—who has “redistributed” $30 million in jewels over the decades to fund many worthy organizations—has done her best to put her tragic past behind her, but her life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston. If Colette can discover where it has been all this time—and who owns it now—she may finally learn the truth about what happened to her sister. But she isn’t the only one for whom the bracelet holds answers, and when someone from her childhood lays claim to the diamonds, she’s forced to confront the ghosts of her past as never before. Against all odds, there may still be a chance to bring a murderer to justice—but first, Colette will have to summon the courage to open her own battered heart.

This is such a fabulous book. I held my breath each time Colette attempted a theft. I could feel the tension and relief when she succeeded. It is a thought provoking moment with each existing chapter during WWII. The horrors of the Holocaust is well reflected as families are scattered during such a horrible time in history. Another great story of the resistance group during such a difficult time.- Review by LA

What Have They Done To Liza MCLean

 By: Amy Doak 

Location: FC DIA

Genre: Mystery

 "Didn't go where I expected, and all the better for that.

Fast-paced, action-packed, twisty.

All good. Great actually- Trisha"

Meg McLean is a scholarship student at the ultra-elite Douglas College. Meg’s younger sister, Liza, is along for the ride, and everything Liza has done since they arrived at the school seems to be putting their chances of success at risk.

Until one day, when Liza’s behaviour is so at odds with her usual temperament that Meg knows something is very, very wrong.

Benedict Hargreaves (the 4th) is Douglas College’s wealthiest student and perhaps the only one who isn’t influenced by the school and its strict code of conduct. Is he brave enough to help Meg uncover what has happened to her sister? Or is he part of the elusive ‘they’ who seem to be controlling everything – and everyone?


And, when more than one murder takes place, can Meg really trust anyone?

Anna and the French Kiss

 By: Stephanie Perkins

Location: FIC PER

Genre: Romance

“Stephanie Perkins’s characters fall in love the way we all want to, in real time and for good.” -Rainbow Rowell, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Anna can’t wait for her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. So she’s less than thrilled when her father unexpectedly ships her off to boarding school in Paris—until she meets Étienne St. Clair, the perfect boy. The only problem? He's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her crush back home. Will a year of romantic near-misses end in the French kiss Anna awaits?

"The best romance book I've ever read! This read is not only completely and utterly adorable, it is incredibly relatable and witty. I love how Stephanie Perkins wrote each character and how all of the characters will tie together in her three books. I can't wait for Isla and the Happily Ever After to come out! Zoe

The Thrashers

 By: Julie Soto

Location: FIC SOT

Genre: Thriller

"Expertly plotted and full of flawed, morally gray characters you still can't help rooting for, The Thrashers is one of the best books I've read this year." - Evelyn Skye

Either you're in or you're out.

Welcome to the Thrashers, the elite friend group at New Helvetia High.

They’re everything everyone wants to be.

Jodi Dillon was never meant to be one of them. Julian, Lucy, Paige, and the infamous Zack Thrasher are rich, sophisticated, and love attention. Jodi feels out of place, but Zack’s her childhood best friend, so she’s in.

Then Emily Mills, who desperately wanted to be a Thrasher, dies—and the whispers about the Thrashers begin. As Emily’s journal surfaces, detectives close in, and Jodi faces an impossible choice: betray her friends or protect herself.

But as eerie messages and strange occurrences escalate, it becomes clear—Emily isn’t done with them yet.

A twisty thrill-ride of unforgettable drama and suspense that "encapsulates the vulnerability of adolescents playing adult games" (Ali Hazelwood) from USA Today bestselling author Julie Soto, The Thrashers will keep you up at night desperate to read just one more page.

"A tour-de-force YA debut from Julie Soto." - Alexa Donne

"For fans of Karen McManus and Kara Thomas, The Thrashers had me holding my breath, sweaty-palming my e-reader, and dying to flip each page to see what would happen next." - Susan Lee

Everything Sad is Untrue

 By: Daniel Nayeri  

Location: FIC NAY

Genre: Realistic Fiction

“A god who listens is love. A god who speaks is law. At their worst, the people who want a god who listens are self-centered...And the ones who want a god who speaks are cruel. They just want laws and justice to crush everything...Love is empty without justice. Justice is cruel without love....God should be both. If a god isn't, that is no God.”
― Daniel Nayeri, Everything Sad Is Untrue

 "This was my life, as I experienced it, and it is both fiction and nonfiction at the same time." This is what I would call creative nonfiction, where the bones are true, but the details aren't necessarily so precise as to be factual. It reminds me of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and like that book, my library has classified this as fiction. But for all the fictional parts, I would say this is nonetheless a true expression of Nayeri's childhood.

Now in paperback!

WINNER: MICHAEL L. PRINTZ AWARD • CHRISTOPHER AWARD • MIDDLE EAST BOOK AWARD • WALTER DEAN MYERS AWARD HONOR

BEST OF THE YEAR: NPR • New York Times • Amazon • Booklist • BookPage • Publishers Weekly • Wall Street Journal • Today.com 

From national bestselling author Daniel Nayeri comes a sprawling, evocative, and groundbreaking autobiographical novel told in the unforgettable and hilarious voice of a young Iranian refugee. It is a powerfully layered novel that poses the questions: Who owns the truth? Who speaks it? Who believes it?

“A patchwork story is the shame of the refugee,” Nayeri writes early in the novel. In an Oklahoman middle school, Khosrou (whom everyone calls Daniel) stands in front of a skeptical audience of classmates, telling the tales of his family’s history, stretching back years, decades, and centuries. At the core is Daniel’s story of how they became refugees―starting with his mother’s vocal embrace of Christianity in a country that made such a thing a capital offense, and continuing through their midnight flight from the secret police, bribing their way onto a plane-to-anywhere. Anywhere becomes the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy, and then finally asylum in the U.S. 

Implementing a distinct literary style and challenging western narrative structures, Nayeri deftly weaves through stories of the long and beautiful history of his family in Iran, adding a richness of ancient tales and Persian folklore. Like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights, Daniel spins a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. 

A tale of heartbreak and resilience and urges readers to speak their truth and be heard. 

P R A I S E

“A modern masterpiece.”―New York Times

“Supple, sparkling and original.”―Wall Street Journal

“Mesmerizing.”―TODAY.com

The Dividing Sky

 By: Jill Tew  

Location: FIC TEW

Genre: Dystopia

Review by Baylee: It's hard to believe this is Tew's debut book. The Dividing Sky was exciting and engrossing, yes, AND it did what the best speculative fiction always does: it made me think more deeply about the world we live in today. The world is vividly portrayed, the characters are relatable, and the challenges they face -- connecting with our own and others' humanity in a system designed to strip that away, coping physically and psychologically with soul-crushing work -- are ones that may feel familiar (though I'll admit my day-to-day challenges don't have me on the edge of my seat the way this book did).

If you want an action-packed, gritty yet beautiful and inspiring read, READ THIS. And it is always a treat to read spec fiction featuring women and people of color, written by women and people of color.

Serpent and Dove meets Arcane in this swoony dystopian adventure, set in a near-future world that reads like Jeff Bezos’s fever dream.

Liv is a Proxy, a member of the lower class who lives to enrich the lives of others. She's supposed to use the neurochip in her brain to give her workaholic clients memories of experiences they've never had, so they can stay productive. And yeah, maybe she also deals a few happy memories illegally on the side, to her fellow lower class citizens who need a reason to keep going. She makes an extra buck, and it's harmless, right?

Rookie enforcer Adrian doesn't think so. He doggedly tracks Liv to the woods on the Metro's outskirts, only to find that she's wiped all memories of who she is, what she's done, and how much she should hate someone in his uniform.

It was supposed to be simple: find the perpetrator, bring her in. But if Liv can’t remember anything, is she truly guilty? And is the law Adrian's pledged his life to defend truly in the best interest of all? Turns out justice looks a little different in the woods’ golden light.