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The following books are available at the Transylvania County Library. The book synopses come from Goodreads.
FICTION
Gundar-Goshen, Ayelet. “The Wolf Hunt.” Lilach has it all: a beautiful home, a successful husband and stable marriage, and a teenage son, Adam, with whom she has always felt a particular closeness. Israeli immigrants, the family has now lived in the U.S. long enough that they consider it home. But after a brutal attack on a local synagogue shakes their sense of safety, Adam enrolls in a self-defense class taught by a former Israeli Special Forces officer. There, for the first time, he finds a sense of confidence and belonging. Then, tragedy strikes again when an African American boy dies at a house party apparently from a drug overdose. Though he was a high school classmate, Adam claims not to know him. Yet rumors begin to circulate that the death was not accidental, and that Adam and his new friends had a history with Jamal. As more details surface and racial tensions in the community are ignited, Lilach begins to question everything she thought she knew about her son. (FIC GUN)
Lapena, Shari. “Everyone Here is Lying.” William is a family man on the surface. But he’s been having an affair, an affair that ended horribly one afternoon at a motel up the road. So when he returns to his house, devastated and angry, to find his difficult nine-year-old daughter, Avery, unexpectedly home from school, William loses his temper. Hours later, Avery’s family declares her missing. As witnesses come forward with information that may or may not be true, Avery’s neighbors become increasingly unhinged. Who took Avery Wooler? Nothing will prepare you for the truth. (FIC LAP)
Luesse, Valerie Fraser. “Letters from My Sister.” Emmy and Callie are living a privileged life as the only daughters of a wealthy Alabama cotton farmer when their household gets turned upside down by the arrival of Lily. Arrestingly beautiful, Lily quickly – and innocently – draws the wrong kind of attention. Meanwhile, Callie meets a man who offers her the freedom to abandon social constraints and discover her truest self. After Lily has a baby, Callie witnesses something she was never meant to see – or did she? Her memory is a haze, just an image of Emmy standing on a riverbank, cradling Lily’s missing baby girl. Only when the sisters are separated does the truth come to light, including a revelation that will shape the rest of Callie’s life. (FIC LUE)
Miri, Yu. “The End of August.” In 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea, Lee Woo-Cheol was a running prodigy and a contender for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. But he would have had to run under the Japanese flag. Nearly a century later his granddaughter is living in Japan and training to run a marathon herself. She summons Korean shamans to hold an intense, transcendent ritual to connect with Lee Woo-Cheol. When his ghost appears, alongside those of his brother, and their young neighbor, who was forced to become a comfort woman to Japanese soldiers stationed in China during World War II, she must uncover their stories to free their souls. (FIC MIR)
Xu, Wendy. “The Infinity Particle.” Clem moves from Earth to Mars for a new start and lands her dream job with Dr. Lin, an Artificial Intelligence pioneer. On her first day of work Clem meets Dr. Lin’s assistant, a humanoid AI named Kye. Clem is no stranger to robots—she built herself a companion named SENA. Still, there’s something about Kye that feels human. When Clem and Kye begin to collaborate, their chemistry sets off sparks. But Dr. Lin is enraged by Kye’s growing independence and won’t allow him more freedom. As her past and Kye’s future weigh down on her, Clem becomes determined to help him break free—even if it means risking everything. (GN FIC XU)
NONFICTION
McKenzie, Stephen. “Mindfulness at Play: Parenting Healthy, Happy Children.” Mindfulness is widely used in personal development, health care, business and sports to improve well-being and performance. This book is for those it can potentially be of the greatest value to ― young people ― and the people who give them their primary support, their parents. It combines science and wisdom, theory and practice, strategies, and activities. It also provides a combination of psychological knowledge and practical guiding principles which will help parents help themselves, as well as their children, to achieve mindfulness. This book will greatly help young people’s learning development, social development and whole-person development. It is a comprehensive yet light, playful, and play-based one-stop mindfulness resource for parents. (649.1 MCK)
Posnanski, Joe. “Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments.” Posnanski writes of major moments that created legends like Willie Mays’s catch, Babe Ruth’s called shot, and Kirk Gibson’s limping home run; the slickest steals; the biggest bombs; and the most triumphant no-hitters. But these are also moments raw with the humanity of the game, the unheralded heroes, the mesmerizing mistakes, and every story, from the immortal to the obscure, is told from a unique perspective. From nineteenth-century pitchers’ duels to breaking the sport’s color line in the ’40s, Posnanski’s illuminating take allows us to rediscover the sport we love—and thought we knew. (796.357 POS)
Rush, Elizabeth. “The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth.” In 2019, 57 scientists and crew set out onboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer. Their destination: Thwaites Glacier. Their goal: to learn as much as possible about this mysterious place, never before visited by humans, and believed to be both rapidly deteriorating and capable of making a catastrophic impact on global sea-level rise. What emerges is a new kind of Antarctica story, one preoccupied not with flag planting but with the collective and challenging work of imagining a better future. With understanding the language of a continent where humans have only been present for two centuries. With the contributions and concerns of women, who were largely excluded from voyages until the last few decades, and of crew members of color, whose labor has often gone unrecognized. The Quickening teems with their voices—with the colorful stories and personalities of Rush’s shipmates—in a thrilling chorus. (998.9 RUS)
Wallach, Janet. “Flirting with Danger: The Mysterious Life of Marguerite Harrison, Socialite Spy.” Born a privileged child, Marguerite Harrison rebelled, married the man she loved, was widowed at thirty-seven, and set off on a life of adventure. Hired as a society reporter, when America entered World War I she applied to Military Intelligence to work as a spy. She arrived in Berlin after the Armistice and befriended the enemy, dining with aristocrats and socialists. Late into the night she wrote prescient reports on the growing power of the German right. Although she carried press credentials she was caught and imprisoned as an American spy. Terrified when told her only way out was to spy for the Cheka, she became a double agent, aiming to convince the Russian rulers she was working for them while striving to stay loyal to her country. In Germany and Russia, Harrison saw the future—a second war with Germany—but her reports were ignored by many back home. (B Harrison)
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