new releases

Hello and welcome to our look at some new releases in the fiction section at the Johnson County Library! Every month we look at five titles making their debut that we think you absolutely need to know about. Give one - or more - of these titles a chance to make it in your hold list. We hope you find something new!

Kate Elizabeth Russell’s MY DARK VANESSA is one of the most hotly-anticipated debuts this year, and for good reason. A fresh and powerful look at the aftermath of a relationship between a young student at an elite boarding school and her much older English teacher, this is bound to

Hello and welcome to our look at some new releases in the fiction section at the Johnson County Library! Every month we look at five titles making their debut that we think you absolutely need to know about. Give one - or more - of these titles a chance to make it in your hold list. We hope you find something new!

December gives us the opportunity to look back at this year, to reflect on what we did in the previous months, and more importantly, examine who we were. Science fiction writer Charles Soule, the author of last year’s breakout hit THE ORACLE YEAR is back with the new novel ANYONE

Hello and welcome to our look at some new releases this month at the Johnson County Library! Every month we look at five fiction titles making their debut that we think you absolutely need to know about. Give one - or more - of these titles a chance to make it in your hold list. We hope you find something new!

It seems that around this time of year a new psychological thriller busts the door down and becomes the new irresistible word-of-mouth hit. Last year it was Alex Michaelides’ THE SILENT PATIENT; two years ago it was A.J. Finn’s THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW. The jury is out for what the

Hello and welcome to our look at some new releases this month at the Johnson County Library! Every month we look at five fiction titles making their debut that we think you absolutely need to know about. Give one - or more - of these titles a chance to make it in your hold list. We hope you find something new!

YOUR HOUSE WILL PAY by Steph Cha. A powerful and complex work of crime fiction, the seeds of Cha’s novel are set in the 1991 Los Angeles riots, where a 15-year-old African American girl is shot by the pregnant wife of a Korean storekeeper. She was convicted of the crime, but served no

Hello and welcome to our look at some new releases this month at the Johnson County Library! Every month we look at five fiction titles making their debut that we think you absolutely need to 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!

A delightful historical romance set in 1879, BRINGING DOWN THE DUKE by Evie Dunmore is about a headstrong daughter of a local vicar who is

Hollywood has the Oscars. Football has the Super Bowl. Political parties even have their national conventions in election years. Many industries have an event where the most influential people in that world gather together, usually around a celebration or competition of some sort. The book publishing world doesn’t have anything quite like that, but BookExpo is something very close to it. BookExpo is a yearly convention where book publishers, editors, authors, marketing people, booksellers, bloggers, book reviewers - and yes, even librarians - get together, talk about the industry, and look

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!

Blake Crouch caused many eyebrows to raise with his 2016 sleeper hit DARK MATTER. Writing a Michael Crichton-ish science thriller but with a postmodern twist and

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!

The chick-lit genre, personified by titles like BRIDGET JONES’ DIARY and CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC, doesn’t quite hold the share of the market that it used to, as

Small town.  Urban Legends.  A gruesome stabbing.

Before She Was Found definitely felt like it could be the ripped from the headlines fictionalized retelling of the Slender Man stabbing.  For those unfamiliar, in 2014 two 12 year old girls lured their 12 year old friend into the woods and proceeded to stab her 19 times to appease the entity known as 'Slender Man'.  For the first couple of chapters I was worried that this book was going to be nothing more than a retelling of true events with the names changed.  Though the plot does concern the aftermath of a brutal stabbing involving three 12

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!

BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE by Trent Dalton is a powerful debut novel about a boy’s coming of age while living in an Australian slum is much more than it seems and is

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hello and welcome to our monthly look at the new releases that will be hitting your library’s shelves – and hopefully, hitting your holds list. Summer is here, and we love it when we see library books by the pool, or at the lake, or even on the porch. (The kiddos have Summer Reading to do – why should THEY have all the fun?)

First up is a debut novel by Karen Dionne: The Marsh King's Daughter. Taking place in the remote swamps of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, this smart, engrossing thriller is about a young woman, Helena, whose mother was a victim of an Elizabeth Smart-style kidnapping by the

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

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

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

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

If there’s one thing I’m a sucker for, it’s a good psychological thriller. I’m not alone – it seems like every year there’s a flood of books that are all trying to be the next Gone Girl or Girl on the Train. As 2017 begins, we’ve already seen a bunch of novels attempt to take that particular crown, so let’s start our survey of new releases with some thrillers to get your blood flowing and your heart pumping.

Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson, is a wonderful follow-up to 2015’s stellar The Kind Worth Killing. What Swanson does best is create a handful of realistic characters and then play them

Welcome to a quick look at some new releases that will be hitting the bookshelves of a library near you!

Zadie Smith’s deep, enriching novels have been mainstays of book clubs for years, and her newest, Swing Time, follows that very same course charted in novels like White Teeth and On Beauty. Here, a young mixed-race girl in 1980s underclass London meets another brown girl and they bond over their shared love of dancing and obsession over the movies of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The novel follows our unnamed narrator through her teen years and twenties as the two friends drift apart

First up, we'll take a look at Today Will be Different, a followup to 2013’s brilliant Where'd You Go Bernadette, Semple, a former writer for the TV show Arrested Development, continues her unique blend of scattershot, witty skewerings of the domestic world. Following one day in the life of Seattle wife and mother, Eleanor, who wishes she could be someone else – someone who can navigate through the world with ease and confidence instead of teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The plot, involving family and marriage secrets, isn’t as important as how Semple goes about telling it, and

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett is a lyrical and sprawling book about how a single action rebounds and spreads out over time. Here, an impulsive romantic action between two married (to other) people leads to tons of unexpected consequences, the shattering and then blending of two different families, and an unflinching look at how that action unfolds and ricochets over time. Patchett is a master of deep, thoughtful characters, and this look at domestic complications should not only satisfy fans of her previous books that include Bel Canto and State of Wonder but should pull in new fans as well.