New for Children
Graceful
by Wendy Mass
Angelina D’Angelo has left town to see the world. It’s now Grace’s turn to use her magic to protect the people of Willow Falls, and she is up to the challenge. This is her destiny, after all. But destiny is a funny thing—it doesn’t always behave the way you’d expect it to.
Mysterious postcards from Angelina begin showing up in the mail; Grace’s parents are freaking out with worry; and something BIG is coming to town that will affect everybody who lives there. But all Grace is powerful enough to do is turn leftover meatloaf into pizza.
Fortunately, she’s not alone. She has Team Grace on her side! Amanda, Leo, Rory, Tara, David, and Connor know a thing or two about magic and how it works. But none of them is prepared for what’s coming, and none of them knows how to stop it. Life in Willow Falls is about to change forever
Aref does not want to leave his elementary school, his friends, or his beloved grandfather, Siddi, and he does not want to live in Michigan, where his parents will go to graduate school. When he refuses to pack his suitcase, his mother calls Siddi for help. Rather than pack, however, Aref and Siddi go on a series of adventures. At each stop on their travels, Siddi finds a small stone that he later slips into Aref’s suitcase—mementos of home.
All the Answers
by Kate Messner
What if your pencil had all the answers? Would you ace every test? Would you know what your teachers were thinking? When Ava Anderson finds a scratched-up pencil, she doodles the way she would with any other pencil. But when she writes a question in the margin of her math quiz, she hears a clear answer in a voice no one else seems to hear.
With the help of her friend Sophie, Ava figures out that the pencil will answer factual questions only—those with definite right or wrong answers—but won’t predict the future. Ava and Sophie discover all kinds of uses for the pencil, and Ava’s confidence grows with each answer. But the pencil’s getting shorter with every sharpening, and when it reveals a scary truth about Ava’s family, she realizes that sometimes the bravest people are the ones who live without all the answers.
New for Young Adults
The Shadow Cabinet
by Maureen Johnson
Rory and her friends are reeling from a series of sudden and tragic events. While racked with grief, Rory tries to determine if she acted in time to save a member of the squad. If she did, how do you find a ghost? Also, Rory’s classmate Charlotte has been kidnapped by Jane and her nefarious organization. Evidence is uncovered of a 40-year-old cult, 10 missing teenagers, and a likely mass murder. Everything indicates that Charlotte’s in danger, and it seems that something much bigger and much more terrible is coming.
Time is running out as Rory fights to find her friends and the ghost squad struggles to stop Jane from unleashing her spectral nightmare on the entire city. In the process, they’ll discover the existence of an organization that underpins London itself—and Rory will learn that someone she trusts has been keeping a tremendous secret
Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke
by Anne Blankman
Acclaimed author Anne Blankman returns to the shadowy and dangerous world of 1930s Germany in this thrilling sequel to “Prisoner of Night and Fog.”
The girl known as Gretchen Whitestone has a secret: She used to be part of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle. More than a year after she made an enemy of her old family friend and fled Munich, she lives in England, posing as an ordinary German immigrant, and is preparing to graduate from high school. Her love, Daniel, is a reporter in town. For the first time in her life, Gretchen is content.
But then Daniel gets a telegram that sends him back to Germany, and Gretchen’s world turns upside down. When she receives word that Daniel is wanted for murder, she has to face the danger she thought she’d escaped—and return to her homeland.
Gretchen must do everything she can to avoid capture, even though saving Daniel will mean consorting with her former friends, the Nazi elite. And as they work to clear Daniel’s name, Gretchen and Daniel discover a deadly conspiracy stretching from the slums of Berlin to the Reichstag itself. Can they dig up the explosive truth and get out in time—or will Hitler discover them first?
New for Adults
The Body in the Birches: A Faith Fairchild Mystery
by Katherine Hall Page
At home on Sanpere Island, Maine, caterer and amateur sleuth Faith Fairchild discovers that real estate can be murder, especially when it’s all in the family.
The Fourth of July is one of the hottest on record, and even the breeze off Penobscot Bay can’t seem to cool things down for Faith and the rest of the folks on Sanpere Island. But the fireworks are just beginning. After the celebrations are over, Faith discovers a body in the woods near The Birches, an early 20th-century “cottage.”
The body is identified as The Birches’ housekeeper, who seems to have succumbed to a heart attack. The death is only one of the dramatic events upending the historic house. A family gathering has been called to decide who will inherit the much loved, and very valuable, estate that has been in the Proctor family for generations. With this much money involved, it’s just a matter of time before trouble arises.
Faith is juggling her own family problems. Her teenage son, Ben, has started a new job as a dishwasher at The Laughing Gull Lodge—learning things that could land him in very hot water. And her daughter, Amy, is worried about her new friend, Daisy Proctor. Daisy is terrified—convinced that someone is trying to eliminate her mother from getting a share of The Birches. To protect her children, Faith has to find a possible murderer—before he strikes too close to her own home.
The Fateful Lightning: A Novel of the Civil War
by Jeff Shaara
This concluding novel of Shaara’s epic Civil War tetralogy tells the dramatic story of the final eight months of battle from multiple perspectives: The commanders in their tents making plans for total victory, as well as the ordinary foot soldiers and cavalrymen who carried out their orders until the last alarum sounded. Through William Tecumseh Sherman’s eyes, we gain insight into the mind of the general who vowed to “make Georgia howl” until it surrendered. In General Joseph Johnston, we see a man agonizing over the limits of his army’s power and accepting the burden of leading the last desperate effort to ensure the survival of the Confederacy.
