Fiction

It is 1974 and Gwendy Peterson is a twelve-year-old living in Castle Rock, Maine. She meets a strange man named Richard Farris, who says he has been watching Gwendy and that she is the person to whom he is entrusting a button box. The box has eight buttons and two levers. Farris is vague about the function of the buttons, but Gwendy quickly comes to her own conclusion about what they do. Almost immediately, she learns the result of pulling each lever, and is eager to repeat this for the prizes she receives.

At first, she is apprehensive about the buttons, and concerned about the consequences

Gwendy's Button Box is not one of King's usual horror stories; it's lighter, and more toned-down. Still, it was an enjoyable afternoon read. 

When Gwendy is twelve years old, she meets a man who offers her a mahogany box covered with eight colored buttons. The man tells Gwendy that he's been watching her and has decided she is "set solidly on her feet" and is worthy enough to keep the button box, for now. He shows her how to make the box release a tiny piece of chocolate and explains the importance of the buttons, especially the "everything" button, and then he disappears.

The story follows

Riley Callahan and Paige Warren were best friends and spent many summers together growing up in Summer Harbor. One summer Paige came back from camp all grown up, and Riley fell in love with her and was determined to tell about his feelings. But then Paige fell for his older brother, Beau. Riley could not watch the love of his life go to his brother, so he joined the Marines. Riley would often remind himself that a Marine needs to improvise, adapt, and overcome. And he has to do just that upon returning home as a veteran and amputee with PTSD. He has to face everyone from his past--most of all

When we meet Violet, she is on vacation, relaxing on the same beach where she first met her husband, Finn, and thinking about how lucky she is and how despite some obstacles she and Finn have ended up together. Everyone said it was fate that brought them together. So Violet is blindsided when she returns to their hotel room to discover that Finn has disappeared and taken their young son, Bear, with him.

What Violet didn't know is that she was the only person in their circle who didn't have a secret. Finn has secrets, Finn's best friend Caitlin has secrets that Finn uses to blackmail her into

At first glance, Anne and Marco Conti live a charmed life. They have an adored baby girl, a comfortable home, friends next door, and the support of Anne’s wealthy parents. This illusion is peeled away piece by piece as the story unfolds. While Anne and Marco are at their neighbor’s dinner party, their daughter disappears from her crib. Who is responsible for the kidnapping? Why did they leave their baby alone? Is the couple next door involved?

Anne and Marco seem devastated and guilt-ridden. The detective in charge is determined to find out what happened, and it is evident that Anne and Marco

People deal with grief, fear, anger, and other difficult emotions in many ways. One of those ways is humor. That's Mara. Her telling of her story is hilarious. With a cynical, skeptical, acerbic, over-the-top wit of the best social-commentary-humorists, she shares how she spent her senior year of high school dealing with the very real possibility that she might just spontaneously combust.

I didn’t really count Perry myself, but that still made this my fifth time. I’d seen more of these than anyone. I’d forgotten that. As much as this was a shared experience, I was the reigning champ of

Aunque no soy hispanohablante nativa, he aprendido bastante del idioma para hacer comentarios de este libro. Es un libro extraordinario de un autor maravilloso, Paulo Coelho. La protagonista, María, no tiene nada que hacer en su pueblito y desde temprana edad, está convencida que nunca experimentará lo que se llama "el amor verdadero". Ella sale de Brasil con su corazón roto y viaja a Suiza donde se volvió prostituta. Sigue viviendo allá durante muchos años hasta que tiene que tomar una decisión muy grave. ¿Debe continuar viviendo allí trabajando como prostituta o debe arriesgar todo para

Hello and welcome to our new releases roundup for the month of July! If this is your first time, we take a brief look at some of the well-reviewed titles that we either love or have heard great things about. You’ll never find John Grisham, Michael Connelly, or Janet Evanovich on these lists. It’s not that we don’t like them – we do – but those are authors who you’ve likely already heard of. We love spotlighting books and authors that you might not be familiar with. Feel free to tell us about the under-the-radar titles that you’re excited about.

First up this month is for all you thriller and

Celine is a savvy, cultured, sixty-nine year-old private investigator and sculptor battling emphysema. Gabriela hires Celine to investigate her father’s death. Paul Lamont, Gabriela’s father, is a famous National Geographic photographer. Lamont’s frequent travels to South America cause friends to joke he is a spy. After Gabriela finds a passport with a different name, she is certain her father was not killed in a bear attack at Yellowstone National Park.

Celine and her quiet, yet always-on-top of things husband, Pete, set out to Yellowstone to travel Lamont’s path. As a champion of lost

Lane is just fifteen when her mother commits suicide. She is sent from New York City to western Kansas to live with her grandparents. Even though she’s never met them, they claim to love and want her. As Lane adjusts to life away from the dysfunction of her mentally ill mother, her idealistic image of the farm blends with her mother’s version to form a reality she wants no part of.

But home and family are hard to root out, and when her cousin Allegra goes missing, Lane is dragged back into the dysfunction she thought she had escaped when she left Osage Flats ten years before.

There’s a lot

Let's get all the obvious jokes out of the way first. It's not just one song over and over. It's not just Sonny and Cher's "I Got You, Babe" on repeat. It's the original Broadway cast recording of Groundhog Day: The Musical, and I love it. Most people probably know the premise of Groundhog Day from the film upon which the musical is based--Phil the arrogant weatherman is stuck in Punxsutawney, PA, covering the festivities of Groundhog Day again and again. As with any musical, the songs don't just tell the story, they let us know what the characters are thinking and feeling at any given time

Raven Girl is the story of a girl-raven child produced by a lonely postman and the raven he fell in love with. It's a uniquely illustrated, dark, short novel—similar to Niffenegger's The Three Incestuous Sisters. The story opens with a postman rescuing a young raven who has fallen from her nest. After bringing her home and restoring her to good health, the two begin a life together and eventually fall in love. They produce a child, a girl. Though she appears human, she communicates in squawks and screeches and endlessly yearns for the sky. The story follows her as she approaches adulthood and

On the surface, this book is about a small towns obsessed with ice hockey. Under the surface, it is so much more.

Beartown is a small, dying town where everyone struggles to survive. But they do have a junior hockey team that just might make the state finals and the whole town is relying on them to bring Beartown back to life. The residents believe that a victory will bring much-needed investment and publicity to revitalize the area. When one of the players commits a horrendous crime, who will the town side with - the criminal or the victim? One thing is for sure, life will never be the same

The In Death murder mystery series is based on Lieutenant Eve Dallas solving homicides in 2058 New York City. Eve, with her troubled past and guarded demeanor, works tirelessly to give the dead the justice they deserve. Coupled with Roarke, Eve's billionaire and tech savvy husband, she often finds herself digging through cases with his help. Along with standing for the dead, Eve must face the demons in her own past. These futuristic crime novels will keep you guessing until the last page!

You can read any book out of order for a suspenseful murder mystery, or read in order to follow the

I'm a regular reader of classic literature, and I've enjoyed Merchant-Ivory films based on E.M. Forster novels in the past, so I'm not sure why I had the impression that his work was stuffy. Imagine my surprise when I found myself laughing out loud while listening to the audiobook of A Room with a View--and actually describing it repeatedly to one of my friends as "hilarious." 

In the first half of the novel, Lucy and her Aunt Charlotte are visiting Florence, and their lives unwittingly become entangled with those of their fellow English travelers, particularly an unconventional father and

Thomas Hawke is a troubled boy, whose mother died in childbirth. His father, tired of his bad behavior, tells him that his great-grandfather who was once a wise knight is still alive and lives on a hill. Thomas goes there to ask his great grandfather, "Everyone claims you are the wisest man in the realm. Please tell how I should live." The old man answers, "Would you like some tea?" Thomas's great grandfather was expecting him. Thomas becomes his great grandfather's apprentice  to help him become a better person and maybe a knight. There was much to learn and he was given a list of 20 rules to

Welcome to yet another edition of our monthly look at new titles we think should be on your radar for the month of May. Obviously, we can’t read every single book that comes out – contrary to popular belief, librarians can’t sit around and read books all day. (We tried that once, but then we got yelled at.) But, we do hear things, and when we hear those things, we like to pass them along to you.

First up is a literary and moving debut novel by Bryn Chancellor, Sycamore. The disappearance of a seventeen-year-old girl in a small Arizona town in 1991 seems long in the past until remains are

The Roanoke Girls is a disturbing, compelling read. While the “big, dark secret” is revealed early on, the story still draws the reader in. I had to find out what happened to the Roanoke girls, the sisters, aunts, cousins. They seemed to be such studies in contrast: darkness and fire, guilt and defiance, innocence and desire.

When Lane left Roanoke, the family home in rural Kansas, she never thought she would willingly return. Only one person could bring her back – her cousin Allegra, whose disappearance draws Lane back to a place she fled after learning her family’s dark secret.

The book

Hello, welcome, and join us - won’t you? - for this month’s look at some new releases to keep on your radar.

Our first selection is David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. Grann, who also wrote the brilliant book-club favorite The Lost City of Z, returns with his characteristic non-fiction-that-reads-like-fiction books as he tells the tale of a remote part of Oklahoma that held some of the wealthiest people in America – members of the Osage tribe of Native Americans who lived on oil-rich land. However, the Osage began to be found murdered, with

What a delightful book. It is spare and quirky and dryly humorous. Though it includes numerous fantastical occurrences, I wouldn't quite call it magic realism; more like metaphorical absurdity. Surreal things happen, and the characters grapple with them just like anything else that happens, because sometimes life feels absurd.

Of Things Gone Astray is about people who--none of whom realize--have lost themselves. Their routines have become habits of action without thought, and they've lost track of who they once aspired to be and to what might give their lives more meaning. They don't realize

Sometimes you begin a book, and you know after a few chapters that the book is "reading you" instead of you reading the book. It hits your core hard and churns stuff up, compelling you to turn pages. All That's Left to Tell is such a book, and it's Daniel Lowe's debut at that. From its first sentence to its last, it doesn't let go--making you question your own life and choices. Do we choose? Or does life choose for us? Is there a difference? What motivates a hostage? Or a kidnapper?

Marc and Claire are a father and a daughter. Josephine is both a truth-teller and a liar. Set in the chaotic

The Natural Way of Things opens dramatically as Yolanda discovers she is being held captive in the Australian Outback. She is one of a small group of women who all have a curious, not immediately obvious, connection: they have all been part of public sex scandals. While the story leaves a lot unanswered and is incredibly dark in content and description, the beautiful writing was enough to keep me engaged until the end.

The story follows Yolanda and another captive, Verla, as they try to navigate survival in the extreme conditions they awoke to after being drugged and kidnapped. They sleep

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel is a powerful story about a mother and father faced with making a life-altering decision concerning their youngest child: how do they support their son, Claude, as Claude transitions to become their daughter Poppy?  This is a question that involves the whole family because a whole family transitions, not just the trans-son or trans-daughter, when one family member changes.  What are the ripple effects for the whole family?  What is the cost of truth? And whose truth?

In the Author's Note, Frankel says parenting involves a "balance between what you

“Why can’t music be magic? Aren’t spells just words you repeat? And what are songs? Lyrics that play over and over again. The words are like a formula.”

The classic hiss of a vinyl record collides with magic in this fun coming-of-age story. We first meet Meche in 2009 as she travels back to her hometown of Mexico City to attend her father’s funeral. Traveling back to her hometown forces her to confront her memories of the last time she was in Mexico City at the age of 15. Chapters flip from present-day 2009 to her teen years in 1988 as present-day Meche grapples with the truth she wants to

Hello, welcome, and join us - won’t you? - for this month’s look at some new releases that you might want to keep on your radar. 

Unless you’ve been keeping your nose in a book that past few months, you’re likely aware that the plight of refugees has been in the news quite a bit recently. (If you HAVE been keeping your nose in a book, well, congratulations, we’ve done our job here at the library!) Mohsin Hamid’s EXIT WEST weaves a tender story of the slow, sweet process of falling in love and then out of it in the backdrop of an uncertain and possibly collapsing world. A young couple, Saeed

I Will Send Rain is both bleak and hopeful. You will feel a lot of things while reading this perfectly crafted, emotional story of an Oklahoma farm family living through the Dust Bowl.

Samuel and Annie Bell move from Kansas to Oklahoma, set up a home, and have two children Birdie and Fred. The Bell family clings to their land and hope rain will save their crops. The pacing brings the reader into the Dust Bowl slowly and the way Meadow’s develops each character pulls you into a world where each day is a struggle to survive. Samuel, Annie, and Birdie plod along, secretly hoping to escape their

Hello and welcome to this month’s look at some new releases at Johnson County Library. Since February is the shortest month of the year, today we’ll be doing some short, quick reviews, hopefully exposing you to some great books to warm up with in the cold weather. Plus, we know you made all those New Year’s Resolutions about reading more books that you haven’t lived up to. There’s still time! The Johnson County Library can help! We might not be able to get you to the gym, but we can certainly help you with your reading lists.

If you love an epic, sweeping, multi-generational family saga, be

The Boston Girl is told by 85-year-old Addie, who revisits her long life of memories during an interview given by one of her grandchildren.  It’s an incredibly intimate one-sided conversation that completely ensnares the reader.  This storytelling style made me feel as if Addie was my grandmother.  Like other special books with superb storytelling, The Boston Girl envelopes the reader inside a bubble.  While reading it, you feel like you are living the story and your real life is just an inconvenience that exists outside of the bubble. 

Addie Baum is both fiercely independent and endearingly

Wanna hear a ghost story? A fabulous tale about sisters, secrets, family, fire, death, and ghosts?

I'm not usually a fan of scary or horror stories, but The Thirteenth Tale is a mystery with many twists and turns that I find quite intriguing and just a little spooky. Follow biographer Margaret Lea as she discovers the true past of reclusive author Vida Winter. Piece together the hints and secrets as she reveals her extraordinary existence. Is Vida Winter who she says she is? Who set fire to the house? Is there really a ghost?

Notes: I listened to this book and the narration is very well done

Mia, "Rabbit", Hayes is a fighter and the very heart of her adoring family. But so is the cancer slowly taking over her body. Rabbit, however, refuses to acknowledge that her diagnosis has just rapidly plummeted or share the news with her 12 year old daughter, Juliet. Neither of them is ready to say goodbye. Rabbit's family is amazing, particularly her strong tough Irish "Mammy" Molly, who fights like a tiger for her daughter's life. Rabbit's father, Jack, and her siblings, Grace and Davey, are believably drawn characters. At times, the imminent loss of Rabbit threatens to push the family