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New in the Library: Fiction

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New Fiction Books

Hare house

"In the first brisk days of autumn, a woman arrives in Scotland having left her job at an all-girls school in London in mysterious circumstances. Moving into a cottage on the remote estate of Hare House, she begins to explore her new home - a patchwork of hills, moorland and forest. But among the tiny roads, dykes and scattered houses, something more sinister lurks: local tales of witchcraft, clay figures and young men sent mad. Striking up a friendship with her landlord, Grant, and his younger sister, Cass, she begins to suspect that all might not be quite as it seems at Hare House. And as autumn turns to winter, and a heavy snowfall traps the inhabitants of the estate within its walls, tensions rise to fever pitch."

A tale of two murders

1835. Young journalist Charles Dickens is invited to dinner at the estate of the Evening Chronicle's co-editor. He is smitten with his boss's daughter, vivacious Kate Hogarth. They are having the best of times when a scream shatters the evening. In the neighbors' home, Miss Christiana Lugoson lies unconscious on the floor. By morning, she will be dead. When Charles hears of a very similar mysterious death a year ago to the date, also a young woman, feels compelled to investigate. Kate offers to help, using her social position to gain access to the members of the upper crust who are now suspects in a murder.

The Sisters Sweet : a novel

 

"All Harriet Sisters has ever known is life onstage with her twin sister, Josie. As "The Sisters Sweet," they pose as conjoined twins in a vaudeville act conceived of by their ambitious father and managed by their practical mother, who were once theatrical stars in their own rights. Then, in an explosive act, Josie exposes the fraud in a spectacular fashion and runs away to Hollywood. The family retreats to Chicago, where Harriet must figure out how to live out of the spotlight--and her sister's shadow. Striving to keep her struggling family afloat, Harriet molds herself into the perfect daughter. But she also begins to form her first relationships outside her family. As Josie's star rises and as the Sisters fall on hard times, Harriet must decide whether to honor her mother, her father, or the self she's only beginning to get to know.

Billy Summers : a novel

 

"When Billy Summers was twelve years old, He shot and killed his mother's boyfriend after he kicked Billy's sister to death. At 17, he enlisted in the army. At 18, he was a sniper in Iraq and involved in the deadly battle to recapture Fallujah. For nearly twenty years, he's worked as a paid assassin. He's a good guy in a bad job, and he wants out. He takes on a very complicated, very lucrative job that he hopes will be his last. He's got a perfect new identity lined up and a scrupulously orchestrated, flawless escape plan. And then something happens that changes everything for Billy. A stranger needs rescuing, and Billy sacrifices the safety of his own perfectly devised new life to offer her protection. And then the two of them-the most compelling and surprising duo in King fiction-set out on one last mission, to rectify the injustices of one extraordinarily evil man"

Are you Sara? : a novel

 

"Two women named Sara each get into a rideshare but only one makes it home alive. Was it the right Sara? Law student Saraswati "Sara" Bhaduri holds down two jobs and a scholarship in order to make her way through school, but it's still a struggle. She's had to do things to pay the bills that most people wouldn't expect from "a nice Indian girl." At the end of Sara's shift at the local campus bar, her boss tells her to deal with a drunk girl in the bathroom. Sara helps the girl outside and the two share a brief conversation, where they learn they have the same name, and form a brief kinship despite their different circumstances. Sara and Sarah Ellis both order rideshares home. Exhausted from the late shift, Sara falls asleep in the car and wakes up on the wrong side of town--the wealthy side. She realizes she and Sarah had mistakenly taken each other's rides. Broke, she's forced to walk home, only to discover on arrival that the other Sarah has been killed on her doorstep. Was it supposed to be Sarah Ellis or Sara Bhaduri who died? And why would anyone want them dead? In this smart, twisty novel about ambition, wealth and dangerous longing, the layers are peeled back on two young women desperate to break out of the expectations placed on them, with devastating results."

The shadow house

 

Alex, a single mother of two, is determined to make a fresh start for her and her children. In an effort to escape her troubled past, she seeks refuge in a rural community. Pine Ridge is idyllic; the surrounding forests are beautiful and the locals welcoming. Mostly. But Alex finds that she may have disturbed barely hidden secrets in her new home. As a chain of bizarre events is set off, events eerily familiar to those who have lived there for years, Alex realizes that she and her family might be in greater danger than ever before. And that the only way to protect them all is to confront the shadows lurking in Pine Ridge.

Mrs Van Gogh

In 1890, Vincent Van Gogh dies penniless, unknown, a man tortured by his own mind. Eleven years later his work is exhibited in Paris and his unparalleled talent finally recognized. The tireless efforts of one woman gave the world one of its greatest creative minds. But twenty-eight year old Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger, Vincent's sister-in-law and the keeper of his immense collection of paintings, sketches and letters, has, until now, been written out of history.

Make a wish

 

"With her signature charm and sense of humor, bestselling author Helena Hunting creates a novel about love, family, and second chances in Make a Wish. Ever have a defining life moment you wish you could do over? Harley Spark has one. The time she almost kissed the widowed father of the toddler she nannied for. It was so bad they moved across the state and she never saw them again. Fast forward seven years and she's totally over it. At least she thinks she is. Until Gavin Rhodes and his adorable now nine-year-old daughter, Peyton, reappear at a princess-themed birthday party hosted by Spark House, Harley's family's event hotel. Despite trying to avoid the awkwardness of the situation, she can't help but notice how unbearably sexy he looks in a tutu. Add to that a spontaneous hives breakout, and it's clear she's not even remotely over the mortification of her egregious error all those years ago. Except Gavin seems oblivious to her inner turmoil. So much so that he suggests they get together for lunch. For Peyton's sake, of course. It's the perfect opportunity to heal old wounds. Or it could just reopen them. This is one of those times Harley wishes she could see the future..."

Road of bones

A supernatural thriller set in Siberia, where a film crew is covering an elusive ghost story about a highway built on top of the bones of prisoners of Stalin's gulag. Kolyma Highway, otherwise known as the Road of Bones, is a 1200 mile stretch of Siberian road where winter temperatures can drop as low as sixty degrees below zero. Under Stalin, at least eighty Soviet gulags were built along the route to supply the USSR with a readily available workforce, and over time hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the midst of their labors. Their bodies were buried where they fell, plowed under the permafrost, underneath the road. Felix Teigland, or "Teig," is a documentary producer, and when he learns about the Road of Bones, he realizes he's stumbled upon untapped potential. Accompanied by his camera operator, Teig hires a local Yakut guide to take them to Oymyakon, the coldest settlement on Earth. Teig is fascinated by the culture along the Road of Bones, and encounters strange characters on the way to the Oymyakon, but when the team arrives, they find the village mysteriously abandoned apart from a mysterious nine-year-old girl. Then, chaos ensues. A malignant, animistic shaman and the forest spirits he commands pursues them as they flee the abandoned town and barrel across miles of deserted permafrost. As the chase continues along this road paved with the suffering of angry ghosts, what form will the echoes of their anguish take? Teig and the others will have to find the answers if they want to survive the Road of Bones

The resting place

When Eleanor walked in on the scene of her grandmother's murder, she came face to face with the killer. But she suffers from prosopagnosia: face blindness, the inability to recognize a person's face, even the faces of those closest to them. She is of no help to the police in identifying the killer. When Vivianne's estate is settled, Eleanor learns she has inherited a looming estate tucked away in the Swedish woods. The place her grandfather died. A place that has housed a dark past for over fifty years. Eleanor, her boyfriend Sebastian, her aunt, Veronika, and the lawyer go to this house of secrets, looking for answers. Soon they'll wish they had never come to disturb what rests there

Forget what you know : a novel

A submerged car is pulled from the bottom of the lake. The driver has been shot in the back of the head and no other bodies are found. Only the legendary Dragon's Heart remains inside. When it rises to the surface, greedy collectors from around the world gather. They'll stop at nothing to gain possession of the priceless artifact. Only one person stands in their way... Zoe Phoenix remembers nothing about her early childhood; her mother's desire to leave those years behind never worried her...until she's almost killed in a hit and run and, days later, her mother disappears. Now Zoe fears her family secrets won't stay buried long. She has no idea who tried to murder her or why, but she's determined to unravel the dangerous truths of her past--before they claim her future

Shut up, you're pretty : stories

In Tea Mutonji's debut story collection, a woman contemplates her Congolese traditions during a family wedding, a teenage girl looks for happiness inside a pack of cigarettes, a mother reconnects with her daughter through their shared interest in fish, and a young woman decides to shave her head in the waiting room of an abortion clinic. These punchy, sharply observed stories blur the lines between longing and choosing, exploring the narrator's experience as an involuntary one. Tinged with pathos and humour, they interrogate the moments in which femininity, womanness, and identity are not only questioned but also imposed.

Locust lane

On the surface, Emerson, Massachusetts, is just like any other affluent New England suburb. But when a young woman is found dead in the nicest part of town, the powerful neighbors close ranks to keep their families safe. The three teenagers who were partying with her that night are the suspects: Hannah, a sweet girl with an unstable history; Jack, the popular kid with a mean streak; Christopher, an outsider desperate to fit in. Their parents, each with motivations of their own, only complicate the picture: they will do anything to protect their children, even at the others' expense.