fiction

The Lost Letter is an incredibly absorbing story that begins with a daughter who inherits her father’s stamp collection when he begins to lose his memory and goes into a nursing home. The daughter, Katie, has the stamp collection appraised, and an unusual stamp on an unopened letter is found in the collection.  An unopened letter! With this discovery, the author, Jillian Cantor, introduces the story of Kristoff, an apprentice of a Jewish stamp engraver, Frederick Faber, and Frederick’s family, all of whom lived in a small town in Austria prior to Germany’s invasion. The Lost Letter continues

Hello and welcome to our look at some new releases at the Johnson County Library! Each month we look at five fiction titles making their debut that we think you should know about. You might not find these books on the bestseller lists, but that's okay, as we love putting the spotlight on books you might not have heard about. Give one - or more - of these titles a chance to make it in your hold list. We hope you find something new!

In this emotionally haunting and masterful debut, THE CARE AND FEEDING OF RAVENOUSLY HUNGRY GIRLS by Anissa Gray is this month’s must-read and destined to be a book

Hello and welcome to our look at some new releases at the Johnson County Library! Each month we look at five fiction titles making their debut that we think you should know about. You might not find these books on the bestseller lists, but that's okay, as we love putting the spotlight on books you might not have heard about. Give one - or more - of these titles a chance to make it in your hold list. We hope you find something new!

Karen Thompson Walker is one of those authors who doesn't release a lot of books, or release them very often, but when she does, it’s always a good idea to sit up

A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult is a novel that grabs your attention and draws you in with the topic of abortion and all the controversy that surrounds it.  At an abortion clinic in Jackson, Mississippi, one day all present are taken hostage and the reader slowly learns how all the random people that are there that day came to be at the clinic and how their past lives have intersected and made them who they are.

This book reads a bit unconventionally in that the first chapter begins at “5:00 pm”, the second chapter begins at “4:00 pm”, taking the reader back in time all the way to “8:00 am”

Hello and welcome to our look at some new releases at the Johnson County Library! Each month we look at five fiction titles making their debut that we think you should know about. You might not find these books on the bestseller lists, but that's okay, as we love putting the spotlight on books you might not have heard about. Give one - or more - of these titles a chance to make it in your hold list. We hope you find something new!

Tasha Suri is a new and exciting voice in fantasy with her stunning debut, EMPIRE OF SAND. Featuring a daughter of a local governor who has magic in her blood from

Raw and real.

Both the contents of the story and the telling. Macy's aggressive, powerful voice assaults and engages readers immediately from the first page. By the third, her actions emerge similarly:

His nostrils twitch.

Yeah. He's pissed.

"What you're not picking up on is how much is at stake here, Macy. Nobody's gonna give you a lollipop anymore just because you throw a tantrum."

"What did you say, motherfoe?" I throw my desk.

The other kids hide under their desks like it's a tornado drill. Teacher Man pushes the office button. I'm going. Don't even need to give me a lollipop. It's a

I've reread Mariana Zapata's The Wall of Winnipeg and Me more times than I could count and I've laughed out loud every single time. This quirky romantic comedy tells the story of Vanessa, the ex-assistant/housekeeper/fairy godmother to Aiden, the top defensive end of the National Football Organization. For the two years that Vanessa worked for the man known as "The Wall of Winnipeg," he lived and breathed football, leaving no room for common decency or polite human interaction with Vanessa. Now? Now, he’s asking for the unthinkable and she can’t believe she’s actually considering his offer.

Z

Hello and welcome to this month's look at the new releases at the Johnson County Library, where we look at five fiction titles making their debut that we think you should know about. You might not find these books on the bestseller lists, but that's okay, as we love putting the spotlight on books you might not have heard about. Give one - or more - of these titles a chance to make it in your hold list. We hope you find something new and unexpected.

First up is NOVEMBER ROAD by Lou Berney, who also wrote THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE. Set in the immediate aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, a

Hello and welcome to this month’s look at new releases at Johnson County Library, where we look at five fiction books hitting shelves this month that we think you should know about. You might not find these books at the top of the bestseller lists. It’s not that we don’t like books on the bestseller lists – we do! – but those authors are likely those who you’ve already heard of. We love spotlighting books and authors that you might not be familiar with. So let’s get started!

Just like we like eating a meal that contains lots of different ingredients that combine into something delicious and

I See You is a psychological thriller about Zoe Walker, who, while commuting to work on the train, sees a picture of herself in a classified ad in a newspaper. Knowing she did not place the ad, Zoe becomes paranoid and hyper-vigilant on her way to and from work. After noticing her own picture, Zoe begins looking at the ads more closely, and believes there is a connection between the women featured and the same women being victims of recent crimes. Fearing that she will come to the same fate as the strangers whose faces she now finds so familiar, Zoe begins to view everyone she encounters as a

Fannie Flagg's The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion CD-Audio read by the author

I really enjoyed listening to Fannie Flagg read. She had the perfect accent to tell this story about the history of some women working during WWII as pilots. I was not aware they even existed. I had never heard about them in any history class that I took.

The book begins with an older southern woman, living in Point Clear, Alabama, named Sookie Poole that finds out by accident that she is adopted. Sookies’ children are grown and married so she has the time to search for her background. As Sookie looks for

I just loved Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf.

Set in a small town in Colorado during a current time period, this book kept me think about the situation that Addie Moore, a lonely widow, and Louis Waters, a widower have found themselves in. Being old and living alone can be very lonely.

What would I do if in my later years I became widowed and tried to have a relationship with a man my age?  Would my children try to direct my life? Role reversal between parent and children is a real problem when the parents don’t need to be parented.

But it's not all sad. It is also very happy when these

Where the Crawdads Sing, an enthralling, magical novel by Delia Owens, is set in rural North Carolina in the 1950s and 60s. Kya is known locally as the “marsh girl,” abandoned by her family to grow up in the marshlands with little more than her fierce determination and equally fierce intelligence. Ostracized from society and spending her time living off the land - and dodging truancy officers - she tentatively makes contact with the outside world and develops a relationships with two boys. When one of the boys is found dead under mysterious circumstances in the marshes, the community turns its

Wow. This little book packs a punch. One of the Boys is short, quick reading, deceptively simple, and deeply affecting.

The twelve-year-old narrator has always revered his affable, charismatic father. After witnessing a "war" of separation and divorce, he desperately wants to be "one of the boys" with his dad and older brother when they decide to leave Kansas for New Mexico. He wants to be there to experience his dad's promised freedom to be like a kid again. So he does what it takes to make it happen.

As they settle into their new lives, the brothers gradually realize their dad uses drugs

Hello and welcome to our new release 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.

First is BELIEVE ME by J.P. Delaney. Summer is in full swing, which means people are coming in asking for beach reads. Even though Kansas lacks ocean beaches, there’s always room in your bag for a book if you’re going to the pool, or the lake, or just sitting in your back porch in the early evening. If you love psychological thrillers, make to to look up the newest from J.P. Delaney, who

I loved this book! Clare is a recent college graduate engaged to be married but is starting to have second thoughts. The weekend of her wedding, Clare has several chance encounters with a stranger named Edith, an elderly woman who happens to be staying at Clare's wedding venue. Clare's conversations with Edith change the trajectory of Clare's life. Without giving away any plot details, the book alternates between Clare's present and Edith's past. As Clare searches to uncover the mystery of Edith's past, she learns more about herself and what's important in life. 

I'll Be Your Blue Sky is

Only Child is told by six-year-old Zach Taylor, whose world is turned upside down when a gunman enters his school and kills nineteen children, including his older brother. The author has an uncanny ability to enter the mind of a small child and describe events as only a small child is able. The voice of innocence and wonder, sadness and confusion jumps out of every page as Zach tries to comprehend the tragedy that has befallen his family and the actions and despair of the adults around him, including his parents. Through his words, the reader learns about the family dynamic, issues they have

Published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe is an oldie but a goodie! Robinson Crusoe is a young man bent on experiencing sea adventure. He finds himself shipwrecked on a small deserted island and survives for many years. His thought process and perspective alters greatly as the years pass on the island. He reckons with God and begins to realize that God has provided great blessings to him while he has resided there and, indeed, he does live quite comfortably on the island. I enjoyed this immensely more than Defoe's Moll Flanders. 

A powerful book about the tough and gritty existence on the edge of the border, where everyone dreams of better lives that are only available to a very few through even fewer routes.

I'm old enough to remember when there was some kind of order here; the cartel ruled everyone, and that was that. No one controls these streets anymore. Now it's just anarchy; total and all-out war between all-comers. It's Hell, plain and simple, and that's funny because you know what they say--"Even the Devil is scared of living in Juarez." But not me. It doesn't matter where you go; you have to die somewhere

Functioning as both a seminal look into pop culture's past as well as a fun, technological romp, Ready Player One is a fantastic tale centered around Wade Watts, a teenager and dedicated gamer in the year 2044. Having almost no family, few friends, and seemingly even fewer avenues open to him to escape his downtrodden existence, Wade has had a difficult life, to say the least. However, what Wade does have is access to the OASIS; a cyber-reality which will change his life forever.

An astonishing facet of Ready Player One is its prescience: Cline's great, sprawling work was published in 2011

Oh, I liked this one! I stayed up late to read it and grabbed it first thing in the morning to continue reading. Two strangers are stranded in harsh weather in remote mountains after a plane crash. They need each other in order to find their way out alive. A great recommendation for fans of Nicholas Sparks. The Mountain Between Us is also a major motion picture starring Kate Winslet and Idris Elba. 

Behold the Dreamers tells the story of two different families who were brought together by the Lehman Brothers collapse. Jende and Neni Jonga emigrate from Cameroon, Africa to New York City with their young son, Liomi. Jende is a loyal chauffeur who does not talk about what he hears his boss say in the car. Jende is proud of the car he drives and his ability to support his family. Coming to America is everything Neni dreams of and more. The Edwards family give Neni a job helping out during the summer at their home in the Hamptons. Cindy Edwards is a socialite, nutritionist, and mother who says

In a word -- Wow! Clytemnestra opens the downloadable audiobook House of Names with: "I have been acquainted with the smell of death. The sickly, sugary smell that wafted in the wind towards the rooms in this palace." I was immediately drawn into Clytemnestra's narrative. Based on the ancient Greek tale of the House of Atreus as outlined by the tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Colm Toibin's re-imagining does not disappoint. The tension is held throughout the entire story by the three narrators: Juliet Stevenson as Clytemnestra; Charlie Anson, as her son Orestes; and Pippa Nixon

Lucy Clark meets Gabe Samson in a Shakespeare class on September 11th. The pair spend the day together anxiously watching the news and later viewing the holes in the skyline where the Twin Towers once stood. This day shapes their lives. After a turbulent year apart, the couple reunites and begins dating. Their idyllic love is passionate, deep, and all consuming. But their careers pull them apart. Lucy wants to stay in New York working on a children's television show. Gabe wants his photography to show the world the Iraq War. The Light We Lost is Lucy and Gabe's love story and the story of life

Lucy Clark meets Gabe Samson in a Shakespeare class on September 11th. The pair spend the day together anxiously watching the news and later viewing the holes in the skyline where the Twin Towers once stood. This day shapes their lives. After a turbulent year apart, the couple reunites and begins dating. Their idyllic love is passionate, deep, and all consuming. But their careers pull them apart. Lucy wants to stay in New York working on a children's television show. Gabe wants his photography to show the world the Iraq War. The Light We Lost is Lucy and Gabe's love story and the story of life

In Anthem, Ayn Rand illustrates how society and individuals suffer under extremist rule. The characters are bound to one another, and assigned specific duties, with the intention of benefiting the collective. After Equality 7-2521 makes a discovery from an ancient time, he begins to work on something that is outside of his designated vocation. In a different society, where innovation is valued, his work would be praised when he brings it to the authorities. But instead, he is punished for thinking for himself and not sacrificing his own will and desires for the collective. Even though what he

Will knows one way to grieve, dictated by the rules passed down for generations: no crying; no snitching; always get revenge. His uncle and father have already been victim to the cyclic system created by these rules, and last night his brother joined them. Will is desperately heartbroken, so he follows the one path given him by the rules: he grabs his brother's gun and heads for the elevator.

And that's where his story takes an unexpected turn. He has to go down seven floors, and the elevator stops at each of them to let on another passenger. Each passenger is someone dead from Will's life

The Book of Polly is the hilarious and bittersweet story of Willow and her larger-than-life mom, Polly. Polly becomes pregnant with Willow in her late fifties, and Willow’s father dies during the pregnancy. Because her father dies before she is born and Polly has Willow so late in life, Willow only has Polly. Her siblings are long gone, and the bustling life that comes with having a full family is absent, so Willow clings to Polly with heartbreaking tenacity. Willow has always been consumed by the fear that Polly is going to die. Willow also tells a lot of crazy stories about Polly, stories

While the Doomsday Book is categorized as science fiction, it could easily be classified as historical fiction. Set in the near future, a time when pandemics have recently ravaged the world, Oxford instructors prepare to send a young historian, Kivrin, to fourteenth century England.

One of Kivrin’s instructors, Dunworthy, is convinced this mission is a mistake and tries his best to stop it. Kivrin is convinced she is thoroughly prepared to spend two weeks in a superstitious, unhygienic, fear and disease-ridden age.

Alternating between the twenty-first and fourteenth centuries, Willis

Everyone has their path. The choices they've made. How any two people end up in the same place at the same time is a mystery. You get on an elevator with a dozen strangers. You ride a bus, wait in line for the bathroom. It happens every day. To try to predict the places we'll go and the people we'll meet would be pointless.

In a world of 24/7 news coverage, where is the line between news and entertainment? In our instant-access world, can we handle the unknown? Do coincidences happen or is everything connected by fate? Does correlation mean causation? Before the Fall by Noah Hawley may ask