Book of the Week: Listen, Slowly
Listen, SlowlyThanhha Lai2015, 260 pagesFiction – Children’s Twelve-year-old Mai is looking forward to spending the summer at the beach in California with her best friend and her secret crush. Instead her parents force her to accompany her grandmother, Ba, to Vietnam to discover her roots. Ba has engaged a detective to search for her husband who was listed as MIA in the war. She doesn’t believe he is still alive but doesn’t feel in...
Book of the Week: Hex
HexThomas Olde Heuvelt2016, 384 pagesThriller/Horror Welcome to the picturesque town of Black Spring. It’s beautiful, thriving . . . and haunted. The ghost of Katherine, a dark witch killed by Dutch settlers in the 1600s, walks the streets, enters homes at will and stands next to beds at night. Although she is blinded and mute, residents know that she can never be freed. If she is, she will destroy everything in her path.The town...
Book of the Week: A Taste for Nightshade
A Taste for NightshadeMartine Bailey2016, 464 pagesHistorical fiction When Mary Jebb swindles Michael Croxon’s brother with a fake pound note, she has no idea that it will change her life. Convicted for theft and transported to Australia in 1787, she sends Michael a “Penny Heart” – a copper heart inscribed with a verse – as a token of her revenge. Two years later Michael’s lonely, isolated bride Grace turns to her newly hired cook for...
Book of the Week: Landfalls
Landfalls Naomi J. Williams 2015, 315 pages Historical fiction Naomi Williams’s debut novel puts an inventive spin on the Laperouse expedition, a sea-faring mission that left France in 1785 in search of new lands, and consequently vanished off the coast of Australia. Landfalls captures the doomed expedition on its voyage around the world, with chapters based in Chile, Alaska, Siberia, California and more. Each chapter is also...
Book of the Week: Killing Trail
Killing Trail Margaret Mizushima 2015, 314 pages Fiction Mattie Cobb really likes her new partner. He’s good-looking, has thick dark hair, brown eyes, a killer smile, and he listens to what she says. He’s also eager to please! He’s their first K-9 police dog, Robo. Mattie won the chance to be his trainer, and she is excited about working with him. Mattie and Robo find the body of a teenage girl in the woods, and Mattie suspects...
