Biographies

New Books Tuesday @ RRPL

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These are the books we are adding to our collection this week…

BATTLE MOUNTAIN

Nate Romanowski seeks vengeance after a devastating attack, while Joe Pickett teams up with a rookie game warden setting both on separate paths destined to collide at Battle Mountain, in the latest addition to the series following Three-Inch Teeth.

CLOSE YOUR EYES AND COUNT TO 10

A single mother joins a deadly island game set up by a charismatic daredevil and extreme adventurer, but a monstrous storm and an unseen menace transform the social media stunt into a ruthless fight for survival.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

Returning to work, new mom Camilla’s life is upended when she learns her husband is the gunman in a London hostage crisis, leaving her to decipher his cryptic goodbye note and make a critical choice.

BACK AFTER THIS

Podcast producer Cecily Foster reluctantly agrees to host a show documenting her dating life under the guidance of an influencer coach and must reconcile her growing feelings for a kind photographer with her coach’s conflicting advice.

SHOW DON’T TELL

Stories of complex, realistic characters confronting transformative moments, including a divorced woman reconnecting with friends, an artist challenging gender norms, and a reunion with a beloved character from the novel Prep, all woven with humor, insight, and an intimate portrayal of personal growth.

THE STRANGE CASE OF JANE O.

After giving birth, Jane experiences amnesia, hallucinations, and premonitions, leading to her sudden disappearance and a subsequent episode of dissociative fugue; her psychiatrist investigates the links between her struggles and a traumatic past, he grapples with questions of memory and reality, while a ghostly figure warns of impending disaster.

I’LL HAVE WHAT SHE’S HAVING

In hilarious and tender essays, #1 New York Times bestselling author Chelsea Handler shares her unforgettable story of becoming the woman she always wanted to be.

There’s a woman I want to become, Chelsea Handler thought as a child. She’ll be strong and confident. She’ll light up a room and spread that light to make others feel better. She’ll make a living being herself. She’ll be a survivor.

NOT WHO WE EXPECTED

Rock star Billy Diamond enlists crime experts Ellie Carr and Rachael Davies to find his missing daughter, Devon, whose boyfriend Carlos was found dead near the Nevada ranch retreat they were attending; Devon is thriving at the ranch but follows leader Galen slavishly, and Rachael wonders why Billy knows her late sister, Isis, whose son she’s raising.

THE BLANKET CATS

In a quirky Tokyo pet shop, seven struggling customers take home “blanket cats” for three days, hoping these temporary companions will help them escape their realities, including a couple facing infertility and a woman on the run, but the cats challenge their expectations and perceptions of happiness.

~Semanur

New Books Tuesday @ RRPL

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Here some of the new exciting releases for you to take a look at this week!

IN TOO DEEP

Waking up handcuffed in a dark hospital room with no memory, Reacher finds himself framed for a murder, setting the stage for an explosive reckoning, in the latest addition to the long-running series following The Secret.

KARLA’S CHOICE

George Smiley, John le Carré’s most famous spy, is drawn out of retirement in 1963 to investigate a missing man tied to a Russian defector, leading him back into the perilous world of espionage and his most cunning adversary’s secrets.

PATRIOT

A political freedom fighter who paid the ultimate price for his convictions recounts his political career, the many attempts on his life and the lives of the people closest to him and the relentless campaign he and his team waged against an increasingly dictatorial regime.

BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT

Seattle attorney Keera Duggan helps former childhood friend Jenna Bernstein, a disgraced biotech CEO accused of murdering her former partner, amidst rising doubts and circumstantial evidence in the second novel of the series following Her Deadly Game.

THE WOOD AT MIDWINTER

From an internationally bestselling and prize-winning author comes a short story set in the world of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

EVERYONE THIS CHRISTMAS HAS A SECRET

A fan of mystery novels investigates a real-life murder when the benefactor of a world-famous magician turns up dead in the days leading up to Christmas and all the suspects are masters of illusion and misdirection.

DREAMING OF AUTUMN SKIES

Caroline, living with her domineering grandfather, embarks on a determined campaign to reclaim her power and independence, vowing to overcome her past suffering in the third novel of the series following Chasing Endless Summer.

~Semanur

New Books Tuesday @ RRPL

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Here are some of the new books coming to our shelves this week for you to add to your book list!

WE SOLVE MURDERS

Investigator Steve Wheeler comes out of retirement when his daughter-in-law, Amy, needs help finding out who left a dead body on a remote island with a huge bag of money.

THE NIGHT WE LOST HIM

As Nora and her estranged brother Sam form an uneasy alliance to unravel the mystery of their father’s death, they start putting together the pieces of their father’s past and uncover a family secret that changes everything.

GOOD LOOKIN’ COOKING’

Music legend Dolly Parton and her sister Rachel share their prized dishes and family stories in recipes sorted by months of the year including Barbecue Spare Ribs, Slaw of Many Colors, Watermelon Fruit Salad, Mac and Cheese and Strawberry Shortcake.

CONNIE

In this witty and definitive memoir, the trailblazing journalist recounts her groundbreaking career as the first Asian woman in U.S. television news, detailing her experiences with sexism, her major stories and her behind-the-scenes challenges and triumphs.

A SONG OF ASH AND MOONLIGHT

After the curse destroying their families finally breaks, Farrin and Ryder must put aside their hate and work together as the old gods of Middlemist awaken, in the second book of the trilogy following A Crown of Ivy and Glass.

A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE

A folklorist embarks on an expedition with six eccentric nobles to find a fabled spring and must figure out who murdered her beloved mentor at the start of their trip before they have a chance to strike again.

~Semanur

New Books Tuesday @ RRPL

semanurLeave a comment

Take a look at some of the exciting new releases coming to our shelves in this week…

JOY

Abandoned by her free-spirited mother and raised by an emotionally distant father, Allegra finds solace in books and love, only to face the harsh realities of war and its impact on her husband, who returns from Afghanistan nearly unrecognizable.

ANGEL OF VENGEANCE

An FBI Special Agent poses as a cleric in New York’s notorious Five Points slum to help catch a dangerous serial killer, in the latest addition to the long-running series following The Cabinet of Dr. Leng.

WORST CASE SCENARIO

When a pilot suffers a heart attack at 35,000 feet, a commercial airliner filled with passengers crashes into a nuclear power plant in the small town of Waketa, Minnesota, which becomes ground zero for a catastrophic national crisis with global implications.

I NEED YOU TO READ THIS

When her childhood hero, Francis Keen, the woman behind a famous advice column, is brutally murdered, Alex takes over as her replacement and begins receiving threatening letters, drawing into her inter her predecessor’s murder, which takes her all the way up to the power centers of Manhattan where a killer waits.

BURIED TOO DEEP

Accused of a break-in he did not commit, Phineas Bishop, a nighttime security guard at a private investigator’s office resolves to track down the intruder and earn back everyone’s trust. By the author of Cheater.

NEVER SAW ME COMING

A money-grabbing tech genius shares her deeply personal story of how she, after the FBI said “these are not the kind of crimes Black people are smart enough to commit,” pulled off an ingenious white-collar scheme, stealing $40 million dollars, and after receiving an outrageous prison sentence, orchestrated her own release.

THE MURDERS IN GREAT DIDDLING

Moving to a run-down Cornwall village, author Berit Gardner, when a man blows up during a tea party, decides to snoop around to both help the police and gain ideas for her new book, discovering the villagers are using this murder as an opportunity to attract tourists to Great Diddling.

BORN OF BLOOD AND ASH

After freeing themselves from captivity at the hands of the false King of the Gods, Sera and Nyktos race to maintain peace in the Shadowlands, in the fourth novel of the series following A Fire in the Flesh.

~Semanur

New Books Tuesday @ RRPL

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There are tons of new releases that come to our shelves every week. With all the books being unique in their own ways, it is hard to choose between the ones that are suitable for your taste. Here are some books we picked out for you!

STILL SEE YOU EVERYWHERE

Asked by a female serial killer, with only 21 days left to live, to locate her long-lost sister who was kidnapped over a decade ago, Frankie Elkin is led to a tech mogul’s remote island where she goes undercover to learn the truth and possibly save a young woman’s life.

IN SUNSHINE OR IN SHADOW

Retired Detective Molly Murphy Sullivan is back with In Sunshine or in Shadow, the latest book in this beloved series by New York Times bestselling author Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles. Deep in the New York Catskills in 1908, tensions are running high, and it’s not long before a body delays Molly Murphy’s return to Westchester.

THE UNDERGROUND LIBRARY

When the Blitz destroys Bethnal Green Library in London, librarian Juliet Lansdown, along with two other women, relocates the stacks to the local Underground station where the city’s residents shelter nightly, determined to lend out stories that will keep spirits up, but soon tragedy after tragedy threatens to destroy what they’ve built.

WATCH WHERE THEY HIDE

Journalist Jordan Manning delves into the case of a mother in danger and uncovers a dangerous web of secrets that could lead right to the missing woman or put Jordan in the crosshairs of her abductors.

BECOMING MADAM SECRETARY

Describes how Frances Perkins met a young lawyer named Franklin Delano Roosevelt in turn-of-the-century New York and, despite initially not getting along, the pair formed a historic partnership that led them both to the White House.

2054

Set 20 years after the events of the New York Times best-selling 2034 the fate of American democracy is threatened by tech visionary in the Amazon rainforest who uses a breakthrough in AI to assassinate the president.

UNTIL AUGUST

In a rediscovered novel from the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Ana Magdalena Bach has been happily married for 27 years, and yet, every August, she travels by ferry to the island where her mother is buried, and for one night takes a new lover.

~Semanur

New Books Tuesday @ RRPL

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Here are some of the new books coming to our shelves this week for you to add to your book list!

THREE-INCH TEETH

When the outlaw he locked up years ago is released from prison, determined to exact revenge on the six people who sent him away, Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett, with a grizzly bear on a rampage, soon discovers he’s one of those six people.

WONDERING STARS

Tracing the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 to the aftermath of Orvil Red Feather’s shooting, Opal tries to hold her family together while Orvil becomes emotionally reliant on prescription medications, and his younger brother, suffering from PTSD, secretly enacts blood rituals to connect to his Cheyenne heritage.

AFTER ANNIE

After Annie Brown dies suddenly, her family and her best friend struggle to maintain their lives and eventually discover that they are able to grow, change and become stronger due to their memories and the lasting power of love.

THE AMERICAN DAUGHTERS

Enslaved to a businessman in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Ady, when she’s separated from her mother, meets Lenore, a free black woman who invites her to join a clandestine society of spies called the Daughters, setting her on a journey toward liberation and imagining a new future.

GRIEF IS FOR PEOPLE

The author of the New York Times best-sellers I Was Told There’d Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number shares how she dealt with the grief of losing her best friend to suicide.

AMERICAN WOMAN

Focusing on Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, a White House correspondent for The New York Times looks at the 21st century’s transformation of the First Lady’s role from a ceremonial symbol to a political operator.

A FATE INKED IN BLOOD

After discovering that she is a shield maiden who can repel any attack, a fanatical jarl binds Freya with a blood oath to protect Skaland in a Norse-inspired fantasy romance, from the best-selling author of The Bridge Kingdom series.

~Semanur

New Books Tuesday @ RRPL

semanurLeave a comment

Take a look at some of the exciting new releases coming to our shelves in this week…

RANDOM IN DEATH

When a 16-year-old girl is murdered during a show at a New York club, Lieutenant Eve Dallas, with the lab results showing a toxic mix of substances and infectious agents in the victim’s body, must find a madman consumed by hatred who’s just another face in the crowd.

HARBOR LIGHTS

Eight short stories and a never-before-published novella, from the best-selling author of Cadillac Jukebox include the tale of a father and son who watch evil forces disguised as federal agents try to ruin their family.

THE FRIENDSHIP CLUB

After a series of terrible dates, Marni McGuire, the host of a popular TV cooking show, forms an unbreakable bond with her best friend Ellen as well as a young intern on the show and her pregnant daughter Bella as they navigate the challenges and celebrate the joys of life.

DEAD MAN’S HAND

Brad Taylor and Pike Logan face off against Putin’s agents and a group of rogue Ukrainian partisans plotting to assassinate a Swedish deputy minister in the latest novel, in the series following The Devil’s Ransom.

DIVA

Describes the scandalous love affaire between the legendary opera singer, Maria Callas, and the fabulously rich Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, whose relationship ended suddenly with the shocking news that he was to marry Jacqueline Kennedy.

NO ONE CAN KNOW

Returning to the house where her parents were murdered, mother-to-be Emma Palmer who has never told anyone what she saw the night her parents died, even when she became the prime suspect, is reunited with her estranged sisters who will do anything to keep the past buried.

ONE IN A MILLION

When Frank Culhane, the wealthy patriarch of one of Texas’s most prestigious families, is murdered, Detective Sam Rafferty, a city outsider, is propelled into a tangle of simmering rivalries and forbidden attractions as Frank’s second wife and his scorned first wife hold the future of his ranching dynasty in their hands.

THE MISSING WITNESS

Framed for the murder of an FBI agent after testifying against David Chen and his illegal businesses, Kara Quinn goes on the run, determined to clear her name without putting her partner, Matt Costa, in danger.

EASTER BASKET MURDER

A collection of Easter-themed mysteries set in coastal Maine features sleuths from three best-selling cozy mystery series: Lucy Stone, Hayley Powell and Julia Snowden, who investigate a deadly art theft and a body that mysteriously vanishes after being discovered.

~Semanur

Semanur’s Top Ten of 2023

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As we approach the conclusion of 2023, it’s not just the turning of a calendar page—it’s a moment of reflection. Today, I invite you to step into my literary sanctuary as I unveil a curated selection of my favorite books from this year.

Shielding herself from the world behind the safety of her camera lens, photographer Ayah Fleming is pulled into the past when she returns home and uncovers the truth about her descendants with the help of a man who makes her long for a brighter future.

Sent into an arranged marriage, Tan Yunxian, forbidden to continue her work as a midwife-in-training as well as see her forever friend Meiling, is ordered to act like proper wife and seeks a way to continue treating women and girls from every level of society in 15th-century China.
From the best-selling and critically acclaimed author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace comes a look at the school-to-prison pipeline and life in the juvenile “justice” system.
Drawing on 30 years of experience, a renowned cat behavior scientist references historical records and examines modern scientific studies of cat-human communication to reveal previously unexplored secrets of how cats all over the world have learned to talk to us.
In 1974, Paris perfumer Radha, on the cusp of a breakthrough, travels to India where she enlists the help of her sister and the courtesans of Agra, who use the power of fragrance to seduce, while finally confronting a past secret, which threatens her already vulnerable marriage.
Based on a true story and a five-million-word secret journal, this extraordinary work of fiction follows an orphaned heiress, banished from India to England, and a brilliant, troublesome tomboy who meet at the Manor School for young ladies in 1805 York where they fall secretly, deeply and dangerous in love.
Accused of murder, an enslaved woman goes on the run with an abolitionist schoolteacher in the fall of 1863, dodging constables and slave catchers, in the new novel by the New York Times best-selling author of If I Disappear.
In the years before the Civil War, Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, struggles through the miles-long march, seeks comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother, opening herself to a world beyond this world.
In 1921 Penang, when Willie, a famed writer and old friend of her husband’s, arrives for an extended stay, Lesley, as her friendship with Willie grows, makes a dangerous decision to confide in him about life in the Straits, including her relationship with a charismatic Chinese revolutionary a confession that has devastating consequences.
As WWII ends, Elise returns to Paris to reunite with her daughter only to find her friend Juliette, the woman she entrusted her daughter with, has seemingly vanished without a trace, which leads Elise on a desperate search to New York and to Juliette one final, fateful time.
~Semanur

NaNoWriMo

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If you’ve been putting off writing that novel, November is the time to hunker down and get started. National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) takes place during the whole month of November. The organization began in 1999 and has grown to have over 400,000 participants. The challenge is self-directed but if you’re interested in winning any of the prizes, you’ll have to follow the rules:  

  1. Your novel must be at least 50,000 words and written between November 1st and November 30th. 
  1. Writing done before November 1st doesn’t count, although you can include outlines, character profiles, research, and citations in your draft. Basically, the 50,000 words should be prose written during November. 
  1. Write a novel. The term “novel” is broadly defined here. If you say it’s a novel, it’s a novel. 
  1. You should be the only author of 50,000 words. If you’re co-writing a novel, each author should contribute 50,000 words of their own. 
  1. The writing must be coherent (you can’t just copy and paste one sentence or one word to get to 50,000 words). 
  1. You need to be at least 13 years old to participate, and if you’re under 17, you have the option to sign up for the Young Writers Program. (source: https://kindlepreneur.com/nanowrimo/) 

Whether you’re ready for the challenge or just want to use NaNoWriMo as the perfect time to put pen to paper, check out these books for inspiration:

No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-stress, High-velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty 

Letters to a Writer of Color by Deepa Anappara 

I’m Still Writing: Women Writers on Creativity, Courage, and Putting Words on the Page by Virginia Ann Byrd 

Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Write Your Way Out by Jennifer McGaha 

Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life after which Everything was Different by Chuck Palahniuk 

Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami 

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King 

-Linnea

New Books Tuesday @ RRPL

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Here are some of the new books coming to our shelves this week for you to add to your book list!

IF YOU WOULD HAVE TOLD ME

The three-time Emmy nominee, producer and musician reflects on his long career and how he beat the odds to become one of today’s most successful and beloved actors.

THE SECRET

In 1992, when eight respectable, upstanding people are found dead across the US, Jack Reacher, assigned as the Army’s representative, must discover the link between these victims and who killed them, navigating around the ulterior motives and deciding if he should bring the bad guys to justice the official way or his way.

LET US DESCEND

In the years before the Civil War, Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, struggles through the miles-long march, seeks comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother, opening herself to a world beyond this world.

HERCULE POIROT’S SILENT NIGHT

In 1931, the world’s greatest detective, Hercule Poirot, finds his plans for a much-needed, restful Christmas holiday thwarted by a murder investigation and has less than a week to solve the crime and prevent more murders while someone plans to wreak holiday havoc on his life.

SISTERS UNDER THE SUN

Prisoners of war in 1942, Australian nurse Nesta James and Norah Chambers held in the notorious Camp Palembang, deep in the jungle of Sumatra battle disease, starvation and unimaginable brutality meted out by Japanese soldiers, but find, in themselves and in each other, the courage and resourcefulness to survive.

LOST & HOUND

When a dead body is placed directly in the path of an early season hunt, “Sister” Jane Arnold, with the Jefferson Hunt Club busier than ever, must decipher cryptic clues left for her and her friends before any of them wind up dead.

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS

The only surviving victim of a killer suspected in the disappearance of two sisters, bookstore owner Madeline Martin, when a true-crime podcaster opens up the cold case, must return to a past she hoped was dead to expose the terrifying truth when more young women go missing.

~Semanur