On Our Shelf

ON OUR SHELF

NOWHERE GIRL by Cheryl

Diamond

By the age of nine, I will have lived in more than a dozen countries, on five continents, under six assumed identities. I’ll know how a document is forged, how to withstand an interrogation, and most important, how to disappear . . .

Wild, heart-wrenching, and unexpectedly funny, Nowhere Girl is an inspiring coming-ofage memoir about running for freedom against the odds.

Surviving would require her to escape, and to do so Diamond would have to unlearn all the rules she grew up with. Like The Glass Castle meets Catch Me If You Can, Nowhere Girl is an impossible-to-believe true story of self-discovery and triumph.

THE CENTER OF

EVERYTHING by Jamie

Harrison

For Polly, the small town of Livingston, Montana, is a land charmed by raw, natural beauty and a close network of family that extends back generations. But the summer of 2002 finds Polly at a crossroads: a recent head injury has scattered her perception of the present, bringing to the surface longforgotten events.

As Polly’s many relatives arrive for a family reunion during the Fourth of July holiday, a beloved friend goes missing on the Yellowstone River. Search parties comb the river as carefully as Polly combs her mind, and over the course of one fateful week, Polly arrives at a deeper understanding of herself and her larger-than-life relatives.

THE INLAND SEA: A NOVEL

by Madeleine Watts

Drifting after her final year in college, a young writer begins working part-time as an emergency dispatch operator in Sydney. Over the course of an eight-hour shift, she is dropped into hundreds of crises, hearing only pieces of each. Callers report car accidents and violent spouses and homes caught up in flame.

The work becomes monotonous: answer, transfer, repeat. And yet the stress of listening to far-off disasters seeps into her personal life, and she begins walking home with keys in hand, ready to fight off men disappointed by what they find in neighboring bars. During her free time, she gets black-out drunk, hooks up with strangers, and navigates an affair with an ex-lover whose girlfriend is in their circle of friends.

ON OUR SHELF

CELADON by Raymond Avery Bartlett

In the late 1960s, in the shadow of the Vietnam War, Neil Chase, a young man yearning to travel, risks everything to take a journey by freighter and see the world. He arrives at a rural Japanese village famous for its pottery, but he soon realizes that things are not perfect in this seemingly idyllic spot. The town and its residents hold secrets hidden for centuries, each with their own different cross to bear. Chase falls in love with a beautiful potter's daughter who lives across the river; she too has a secret she's determined to hide. As Chase learns the ceramic craft and becomes ever closer to the potter family, he discovers that even good intentions can be as destructive as bad ones, that it is easier to make mistakes than undo them, and that no voyage allows you to return unchanged. GET READY TO RUN by

Joseph Phillip Natoli

Cecily Darden, called “Alice” by her shrink, is drawn into the dangerous world of a husband, Thomas Limone, who suddenly disappeared a decade earlier. Somehow an unexpected inheritance from Thomas’ father brings her to a Brooklyn neighborhood facing gentrification. She finds herself a target for everyone with a claim on a certainly illegal treasure trove that the IRS is also looking for. Whether or not she is or isn’t a shill in a long con, an involvement that begins with her relationship with Thomas, known as “Trip” in the New Utrecht Avenue neighborhood is something that Angelo Bari, the “Prince” of the neighborhood and fascinated by Alice, cannot decide.

HARVEST MOON by Jenny

Knipfer

In the wilds of 19th century Ontario, Maang-ikwe, a young Ojibwe woman, falls into a forbidden love, breaks her father’s honor, and surrenders her trust to someone who betrays it. The abuse she suffers divides her from her tribe and causes her to give up what she holds most dear.

Niin-mawin must come to grips with his culture being ripped away from him. Brought up in a “white man’s” school, he suffers through an enforced “civilized” education and separation from his family. When a man he respects reveals a secret about Niin-mawin’s past, he embarks on a search for the person he hopes can mend the part of his heart that’s always been missing.

ON OUR SHELF

THE SIXTH OF

SEPTEMBER by Callista Bowright

As Olivia grows up within a simple Lancashire background, her traumatic childhood experiences propel her on a painful path that eventually molds her into a tough, beautiful fighter. Sophie could not be more different. Although she is raised in wealth and comfort, she lacks confidence and struggles, in her hippy way, through similar life experiences and losses with nervous bravery. Both are sensual, raunchy, strong, and loving women who defy society's hypocrisy. Then one September day, their worlds collide. Olivia and Sophie could be bitter rivals, but they are intelligent women who combine their strengths to face and cope with the past and present. The Sixth of September is the story of two scarred yet strong women whose lives intertwine and lead them into new beginnings where they must each uncover what truly makes them happy.

BEWARE THE VIOLET

by Maria Vermisoglou

Discovering supernatural creatures are real is one thing but learning I have powers and learning to use them is quite a feat.

My name is Violet Webb. I live in a small town that nearly worships Halloween but I hate it. I can't wait until I graduate and get as far as I can from that silliness.

Everything changed when I followed the white rabbit. I ended up in a Realm full of vampires, fairies, witches and every creature possible.

Oh, Did I mention Jacques? The hot shapeshifter with the French accent that makes me see rabbits everywhere?

Now what? Some bloody lady of Fate gave me a prophecy to get home. The only problem is that I must defeat the darkness before it swallows both of our worlds. THE CALL TO SEE by Sara

Enochs

She would do anything for her kids. When she learns the planet is in grave danger, can she save it to protect her descendants?

Ava Andrews puts family above all. Still grieving after her brother’s shocking murder years before, the mother of four is nervous when her husband’s new job relocates them from Arizona to Texas. And when her elderly mom has a stroke back in Phoenix, Ava plunges into a nightmare of visions revealing a dying Earth and her children fighting to survive.

Praying it isn’t too late to reverse course, the determined woman vows to invoke the change needed to ensure a safe future for her offspring. But despite her exhaustive search for answers, she can’t shake the feeling that the solution lies in her own heart.

ON OUR SHELF

EARTHLINGS

by Sayaka Murata

As a child, Natsuki doesn't fit in with her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut, who talks to her. He tells her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth. One summer, on vacation with her family and her cousin Yuu in her grandparents' ramshackle wooden house in the mountains of Nagano, Natsuki decides that she must be an alien, which would explain why she can't seem to fit in like everyone else. Later, as a grown woman, living a quiet life with her asexual husband, Natsuki is still pursued by dark shadows from her childhood, and decides to flee the "baby factory" of society for good, searching for answers about the vast and frightening mysteries of the universe--answers only Natsuki has the power to uncover.

RECRUITMENT

by K.A. Riley

In the Valta, no matter what month you were born, everyone is assigned the same birthday. November 1st. It's the anniversary of the day when the government declared war on the Eastern Order. The day you turn seventeen, the Recruiters come to take you away. And no one ever hears from you again. It's October 31st. Today, Kress is sixteen years old. Tomorrow, she'll be taken. The good news? So will her best friend Cardyn, and Brohn, the handsome, enigmatic boy she's avoided all her life. The bad news? Recruitment isn't what any of them expected.Weeks of training await. Military and psychological tests, escape rooms, hand-to-hand combat. The Recruits are told they're the key to winning the war. But with each day that passes, things begin to make less sense. If only Kress had been able to bring her trained raven, Render, with her.

THE HARPY by Megan Hunter

Lucy and Jake live in a house by a field where the sun burns like a ball of fire. Lucy has set her career aside in order to devote her life to the children, to their finely tuned routine, and to the house itself, which comforts her like an old, sly friend. But then a man calls one afternoon with a shattering message: his wife has been having an affair with Lucy's husband, Jake.

The revelation marks a turning point: Lucy and Jake decide to stay together, but make a special arrangement designed to even the score and save their marriage--she will hurt him three times.

As the couple submit to a delicate game of crime and punishment, Lucy herself begins to change, surrendering to a transformation of both mind and body from which there is no return.

ON OUR SHELF

ABUNDANCE: A NOVEL

by Jakob Guanzon

Evicted from their trailer on New Year’s Eve, Henry and his son, Junior, have been reduced to living out of a pickup truck. Six months later, things are even more desperate. Henry, barely a year out of prison for pushing opioids, is down to his last pocketful of dollars, and little remains between him and the street. But hope is on the horizon: Today is Junior’s birthday, and Henry has a job interview tomorrow.

To celebrate, Henry treats Junior to dinner at McDonald’s, followed by a night in a real bed at a discount motel. For a moment, as Junior watches TV and Henry practices for his interview in the bathtub, all seems well. But after Henry has a disastrous altercation in the parking lot and Junior succumbs to a fever, father and son are sent into the night, struggling to hold things together and make it through tomorrow.

THE SONGBOOK OF BENNY LAMEN

by Amy Harmon

New York, 1960: For Benny Lament, music is his entire life. With his father’s deep ties to the mob, the Bronx piano man has learned that love and family can get you in trouble. So he keeps to himself, writing songs for other musicians, avoiding the spotlight…until the night his father brings him to see Esther Mine sing.

Esther is a petite powerhouse with a gorgeous voice. And when Benny writes a hit song and performs it with her, their collaboration thrusts the duo onto the national stage…and stirs up old issues and new scrutiny that the mob—and Benny—would rather avoid.

It would be easier to walk away. But the music and the woman are too hard for the piano man to resist.

LOVE LIKE WATER, LOVE LIKE FIRE

by Mikhail Iossel

From the moment of its founding, the USSR was reviled and admired, demonized and idealized. Many Jews saw the new society ushered in by the Russian Revolution as their salvation from shtetl life with its deprivations and deadly pogroms. But Soviet Russia was rife with antisemitism, and a Jewish boy growing up in Leningrad learned early, harsh, and enduring lessons.

Unsparing and poignant, Mikhail Iossel’s twenty stories of Soviet childhood and adulthood, dissidence and subsequent immigration, are filled with wit and humor even as they describe the daily absurdities of a fickle and often perilous reality.

ON OUR SHELF

SWIMMING TO THE TOP

OF THE TIDE by Patricia Hanlon The Great Marsh is the largest continuous stretch of salt marsh in New England, extending from Cape Ann to New Hampshire. Patricia Hanlon and her husband built their home and raised their children alongside it. But it is not until the children are grown that they begin to swim the tidal estuary daily. Immersing herself, she experiences, with all her senses in all seasons, the vigor of a place where the two ecosystems of fresh and salt water mix, merge, and create new life.

In Swimming to the Top of the Tide, Hanlon lyrically charts her explorations, at once intimate and scientific. Noting the disruptions caused by human intervention, she bears witness to the vitality of the watersheds, their essential role in the natural world, and the responsibility of those who love them to contribute to their sustainability.

HER PERFECT BONES

by Ellery Kane

The girl’s body is curled up like a shell and almost completely buried in sand. Only her fingertips can be seen, reaching helplessly up towards an escape she will never find…

Seventeen-year-old Shelby Mayfield sits alone on a bus to Fog Harbor, California. Aside from a few items of clothing, all she has with her is twenty-two dollars, the ragdoll she’s kept since kindergarten, and the devastating secret she’s been hiding.

How long will it be before her family realizes she’s gone?

Can anyone see the fresh bruise on her cheek beneath the makeup?

Perhaps she was a fool to believe the person she is meeting in this remote little town could help her…

FORESHADOW: STORIES TO CELEBRATE THE MAGIC OF READING AND

WRITING YA by Nova Ren Suma and Emily X.R. Pan

Thirteen Short Stories from Bold New YA Voices & Writing Advice from YA Icons

Created by New York Times bestselling authors Emily X. R. Pan and Nova Ren Suma, Foreshadow is so much more than a short story collection. A trove of unforgettable fiction makes up the beating heart of this book, and the accompanying essays offer an ode to young adult literature, as well as practical advice to writers.

This unique compilation reveals and celebrates the magic of reading and writing for young adults.

ON OUR SHELF

SINGULARITY

by Jayme A. Oliveira Filho and Jayme S. Alencar

SINGULARITY is a scifi book that mixes the UNIVERSE, science, physics, adventure, love, romance, faith and religion in an inspiring story about the future of mankind and the decisions that we will make as Species to survive in a world during the 22nd Century.

PHOENIX FLAME by Sara

Holland

Maddie Morrow thought her problems were over. She saved the Inn at Havenfall--a sanctuary between magical worlds hidden deep in the mountains of Colorado--from the evil Silver Prince. Her uncle the Innkeeper is slowly recovering from a mysterious spell that has left him not quite human. And there are still a few weeks of summer left to spend with her handsome, more-than-just-a-friend Brekken, even though she can't stop thinking about Taya.

But Maddie soon realizes there's more work to be done to protect the place her family has run for centuries. She must embark on a dangerous mission to put an end to the black-market trading of magical objects and open the Inn's doors to Solaria, the once feared land of shapeshifters.

As she tries to accomplish both seemingly impossible tasks, Maddie uncovers family secrets that could change everything.

FOOL'S ERRAND by Jeffrey S. Stephens

Years after the death of his gangster father, a young man discovers a letter that sends him reluctantly defying the mob as he races to locate a hidden treasure.

It’s been six years since the untimely death of Blackie—a charming rogue who endlessly pursued “The Big Deal”—when his son discovers an enigmatic letter telling of a cache of stolen money. Feeling no choice but to pursue his father’s dream, he embarks on a search that leads from New York, to the Strip in Las Vegas, and ultimately to the south of France. Along this life-altering journey, he is confronted by the dangers of his father’s past as he unravels a decadesold mystery, while revealing other long-buried secrets as well.

Poignant and entertaining, humorous and exciting, romantic and mysterious, Fool’s Errand leads him to discover both the treasure and himself.

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— GIACOMO LEOPARDI, THOUGHTS

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