Making Faces was the first Amy Harmon book I ever read and it caught me; I have been a Harmon fan ever since. I've yet to give one of her books to someone who didn't come back raving about it and wanting more of her work. She is just a great story-teller. 

Making Faces is the story of Ambrose and his circle of best friends. They are high school wrestlers who, instead of going to college, follow Ambrose into the military and then into war. The fallout of that decision haunts Ambrose and devastates their hometown. It is the story of a high school crush and high school friends who grow up and make decisions that tear them apart and then bring them together in ways they never could have anticipated. 

Harmon understands the grief of growing up and trying to reconcile the ramifications of your choices with the image of who you are and who you thought you'd be. 

Grab this book or any Harmon book to lose yourself in this summer. You won't regret it! 

Read what the author wrote on her book blog, in 2013, about this book and why she hopes you'll read it. 

"THIS ONE IS PERSONAL . . .

10/7/2013

 My son, Samuel, was born with a port-wine stain that covered half of his face. It was very dark red and the skin on that side is slightly thicker than the skin on the other side of his face. Luckily for Sam, they can now treat this condition, where even ten-fifteen years ago, that option did not exist. The treatments are very expensive and painful, and so far, Sam has had four laser surgeries, which have improved the overall appearance. He will have to have several more. However, he still gets stares and whispers, and I can't tell you how many times I've overheard someone say, (mostly little kids who don't know better) "What's wrong with his face?"

In my new book, Making Faces, I introduce you to Ambrose Young, a handsome, young, athlete who volunteers to serve his country and is injured in Iraq. This is a special story, and it's an important one. It's funny and romantic and heart-breaking. I hope my romance readers won't be turned off by Ambrose Young or his injuries, both emotional and physical. 

Available on October 20! I would really love to see this book do well, because it isn't your typical romance. It will break your heart, but you'll love every second of it."     — Amy Harmon

I think I finished this book in only three or four days. It was compulsive reading, just as King says. The mistake I made was starting it when my husband and son were gone hunting. 

What was I thinking? 

I was fine while I was actually awake reading, but when the time came to turn off the light and go to sleep? Different story. 

I managed to finish it, and, eventually, to get a full night's sleep after they returned. Both experiences were great. 

There is a little twist at the end of Boogeyman that is well-developed and springs up on you out-of-the-blue. There's a couple of them, in fact. As for a night of good, hard sleep? Well, that's always a welcome thing. As long as the boogeyman stays away.  =)

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

Lincoln City Libraries

LSW Library (Print)

LSW Library (Audio)

"The Lincoln Highway is a joyride!"

"Amor Towles' new Great American Road Novel tails four boys — three 18-year-olds who met in a juvenile reformatory, plus a brainy 8-year-old — as they set out from Nebraska in June, 1954, in an old Studebaker in pursuit of a better future. 

Like his first two novels, The Lincoln Highway is elegantly constructed and compulsively readable. Again, one of the ideas Towles explores is how evil can be offset by decency and kindness on any rung of the socio-economic ladder. 

Towles' new novel ranges —  geographically — from Nebraska's farmland to New York's Adirondacks by way of some of New York City's iconic sites — but its action-packed plot is compressed into just 10 days. The Lincoln Highway, which owes a debt to Huckleberry Finn, revisits American myths with a mix of warm-hearted humor and occasional outbursts of physical violence and malevolence.

The novel begins on June 12, 1954 and ends on the same date, clearly not coincidentally, as Towles's previous novel, A Gentleman in Moscow. When we meet him, Towles' latest hero, Emmett Watson, has been released a few months early from detention in consideration of his father's death, the foreclosure of the family farm, and his responsibility for his 8-year-old brother, Billy. (Billy has been ably taken care of by a neighbor's hard-working daughter, Sally, during Emmett's absence; she's another terrific character.) The kindly warden who drives Emmett home reminds him that what sent him to the Kansas reformatory was "the ugly side of chance," but now he's paid his debt to society and has his whole life ahead of him.

Shortly after the warden drives off, two fellow inmates turn up, stowaways from the warden's trunk — trouble-maker Duchess and his hapless but sweet protegé, Woolly. (In another fun connection for Towles nerds, naïve trust funder Wallace "Woolly" Wolcott Martin is the nephew of Wallace Wolcott from
Rules of Civility.)

Eagerness to discover what landed these three disparate musketeers in custody is one of many things that keeps us turning pages. Expectations are repeatedly upended. One takeaway is that a single wrong turn can set you off course for years — though not necessarily irrevocably.

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

Lincoln City Libraries

LSW Library (Print)

LSW Library (Audio)

LSW Library (ebook)

The above podcast episode is the story of the Lincoln Highway, the first cross-country road in the Untied States, linking Times Square in Manhattan with Lincoln Park in San Francisco via a patchwork of pre-existing roads in twelve states.

QR Code for Big Library Read

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

Lincoln City Libraries

Hoopla (multi-user ebook and audio book)

Libby (ebooks and audio books)

LSW Library (multi-user ebook)

LSW Library (Print)

A Letter From the Author

Dear Reader,

Do you have a winter storm story? Maybe you’ve slid off an exit ramp, built a giant snow fort with your kids, or shivered in your house as a storm coated the entire state in a thick layer of ice. The thing about a winter storm is that it causes the world to shift gears. Traffic slows down. People stay home. Flights are canceled. And since rush hour is twice as miserable with a few inches of the white stuff, I think the best course of action in such weather is to stay home curled up with a good book.

Perhaps I’m biased, but it appears you’ve already taken my advice.

FIVE TOTAL STRANGERS started as a kernel of an idea, one inspired by my own terrible experiences with bad winter weather. From the snowstorm that stranded me on the side of a rural highway, to the multi-car pile-up that I feel lucky to have survived, to the ice storm that took out power for a week the night my mother died, winter storms have set the stage for many of my own most frightening nights. I can’t think of a better setting for Mira’s story.

Because Mira is just desperate to get through the mountains of Pennsylvania in a blizzard—she’s forced to make the journey home with five complete strangers. And one of those strangers doesn’t want her to make it home at all. How does that road trip turn out for everyone? Well, you’ll just have to read FIVE TOTAL STRANGERS to find out. I can’t tell you all my secrets!

I hope you enjoy Mira’s story, and if you’d like to share your winter storm experience, I’d love to hear it! Write me at natdrichards@gmail.com anytime.

Safe travels and happy reading,  

Natalie  

________________

"Colson Whitehead returns with a vivid, wildly entertaining heist novel that makes you feel as if you're walking down a bustling 125th Street in 1960s Harlem. 

A veritable page-turner from start to finish."

________________

"Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked..." To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. 

Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. 

Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn't ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn't ask questions, either. 

Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa—the "Waldorf of Harlem"—and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist doesn't go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. 

"Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. At school the other kids make fun of her—her clothes are torn, her hair a mess. But let them throw their sticks, because she’ll throw stones. Duchess might be a badass, but she’s really just trying to survive. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin. She is the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids.

Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He’s the chief of police, trying to keep Cape Haven, with its beautiful bluffs overlooking the sea, not only safe, but safe from becoming a cookie-cutter tourist destination for the rich. But he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he’s in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother as their mother slides deeper into self-destruction.

Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released. As soon as he steps one foot back into his childhood town, trouble arrives. It shows up on Walk’s and Duchess’s doorsteps, and they will be unable to do anything but usher it in, arms wide closed.

We Begin at the End looks at families—the ones we are born into and the ones we create. Duchess and Walk—and everyone they love and whose hearts they break, who deserve so much more than life serves them—will sear your heart in this extraordinary novel."  

— Goodreads

________________

On the shelf

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021  ________________

  "Funny, sad, astute, occasionally creepy, and slyly irresistible.” – Kirkus 

________________

" The Delaney family love one another dearly—it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other. 

If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father?

This is the dilemma facing the four grown Delaney siblings.

The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it their chemistry is palpable. But after fifty years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable?

The four Delaney children—Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke—were tennis stars in their own right, yet as their father will tell you, none of them had what it took to go all the way. But that’s okay, now that they’re all successful grown-ups and there is the wonderful possibility of grandchildren on the horizon.

One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaneys are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. If only that was all she wanted.

Later, when Joy goes missing, and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question the one person who remains: Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he, like many spouses, seems to have a lot to hide. Two of the Delaney children think their father is innocent, two are not so sure—but as the two sides square off against each other in perhaps their biggest match ever, all of the Delaneys will start to reexamine their shared family history in a very new light." — Goodreads

     “The best fantasy novel I’ve read in years, because it’s about real people. Bardugo’s imaginative reach is brilliant, and this story―full of shocks and twists―is impossible to put down.” – Stephen King ________________

  "Genuinely terrific…The worldbuilding is rock solid, the plot is propulsive, and readers will be clamoring for a sequel as soon as they read the last page.” – Library Journal (starred review)

________________

"Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most prestigious universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. Their eight windowless “tombs” are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street’s biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living." —Amazon

  " On the day she returns to active duty with the Serial Crimes Unit, Detective Inspector Anjelica Henley is called to a crime scene. Dismembered body parts from two victims have been found by the river.

The modus operandi bears a striking resemblance to Peter Olivier, the notorious Jigsaw Killer, who has spent the past two years behind bars. When he learns that someone is co-opting his grisly signature—the arrangement of victims’ limbs in puzzle-piece shapes—he decides to take matters into his own hands.

As the body count rises, DI Anjelica Henley is faced with an unspeakable new threat. Can she apprehend the copycat killer before Olivier finds a way to get to him first? Or will she herself become the next victim?

Drawing on her experience as a criminal attorney, debut novelist Nadine Matheson delivers the page-turning crime novel of the year. Taut, vivid and addictively sinister, The Jigsaw Man will leave you breathless until the very last page.."                 —Amazon

LSW Print Book  

In a Lincoln City Library 

Hoopla (Multi-User/Always Available) Audio 

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

Readers ask me how to find a book like the last one they just read and loved and I always show them NoveList. It's a reader's wonderland, or rabbit-hole depending on your level of self-control. Type in the name of your favorite author or book it will give you read-alikes. Open one of those and you'll get more read-alikes, and on and on it goes. Moreover, it's FREE to all NE residents, just log in with your NE driver's license number.  (Click on Login Again on the next screen then scroll down to NoveList Plus :) 

LSW Print Book (The Exiles) 

LSW Audio Book (The Exiles) 

LSW Print Book (Orphan Train)  

LSW eBook (Orphan Train) 

In a Lincoln City Library (The Exiles)

In a Lincoln City Library (Orphan Train) 

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

"Richardson has penned an emotionally moving and fascinating story about the power of literacy over bigotry, hatred and fear."

—BookPage

_________________

Well said.   I loved this book.

 When suiter after undesirable suiter comes calling for Cussy (out of greed for her father's land, not love for Cussy) she lights a courting candle to limit the amount of time she has to endure the man in her home. It was understood that when the candle had burned down, he had to leave.  I had never heard of courting candles. Here is what the author had to say about them in the back of the book in her Author's Notes. 

"The spiral design of courting candles over a hundred years ago was likely created to keep the melting candle in place and from slipping—a mere practicality, more folklore than fact—though they certainly could have been used later by a patriarch to teach a daughter to respect his judgment and as a way to screen for potential suitors. 

Still, I found it a commanding and curious induction of courtship. How powerful that the candle could be the source of someone's lifelong misery or joy, and passed on in different generation. How wonderful  the conversations that must have taken place around and over it." 

She could have been talking about the men and women in this novel! 

I meant to order one book, but they sent another book altogether, so I reordered the book I intended to get and read them both. 

Aaaaannd . . . 

I LOVED them both. 

For those of you who are not into books about serial killers or homicides, I promise there is so much more here than meets the eye. 

Both of these books delve into the societal issues, such as systemic racism, misogyny, and superstition, that affected the respective investigations. They're both fascinating and enlightening, I promise.  

I picked this book up because it is historical fiction, which is my jam. Also, the author weaves the lives of real people and actual events through a fictional narrative. I like that too.

My favorite voices from Millions

• The main character, Rye: strong, simple, and honest. He wants to live a simple, honest life and reminds me of Ma Joad, from The Grapes of Wrath. "Hell, it took only your first day in a Montana flop or standing over your mother's unmarked grave to know that equal was the one thing all men were not." 

• Ursula the Great, the smart, beautiful vaudeville performer who performs with a live cougar.  “We were served a French red wine, a fine local beefsteak, scallops from Seattle, and gnocchi that might have been pinched from the ass of an Italian angel.”

•  Del Dalveaux, the washed up hired killer who comes out of semi-retirement to hunt agitators. “Spokane gave me the morbs. Right blood blister of a town. Six-month millionaires and skunk hobos, and none in between….The city was twice the size of the last time I’d hated being there.”

Okay, this book is a bit of a departure from the adult, or even the young adult, books that I normally blog about.

Several years ago I read Everything for a Dog out loud each night for a week sitting on the edge of my 10-year-old son's bed.  I can't tell you how we chose it or where we found it; I don't remember.  But I can tell you that this story has stuck with me in ways that even some more critically acclaimed, high falutin fiction has not. 

It's just over 200 pages, of fairly large print, and it is simple and it is wonderful. I'm telling you, you should grab a copy of this book and read it to your kid, or read it to your dog, or read it to yourself.  

Just read it. 

BUT WAIT. . . a word of warning, whatever you do, DO NOT LOOK AHEAD!  

There is a surprise little twist at the end. =) 

 _____________________

A BRIEF SYNOPSIS

"Bone is a stray dog, all alone in the world, looking for a safe place to call home. Charlie is devastated by the death of his older brother, but at least he has his brother’s dog to comfort him. All Henry wants is a dog of his own, and even when his best friend moves away, his parents still won’t let him have one. Bone, Charlie, and Henry don’t know each other, but their lives are about to connect in a very surprising way. Because dogs, and dog lovers, have a way of finding each other." 

— Goodreads

______________________

Available for purchase February 2, 2021! _____________________

I was able to get an advanced librarian's audio copy of this book (Thank you Libro!) and I couldn't wait to listen. 

This book ticked several boxes for me. 

• It's historical fiction

• I'm already a big fan of Kristin Hannah (Remember The Nightingale? Two thumbs WAY up.  BTW, that movie will be here soon! Find out more HERE.) 

• It features a strong female heroine who survives on wits and nerve

• It's Great Depression/Greatest Generation Era fiction

So what's not to love?

I listened obsessively, of course, and I was sad when it ended. What a great story. Amazing, strong women, fascinating history, and engrossing descriptions of what it must have been like to endure a West Texas dust storm in 1934.

I was particularly taken aback by the story of Elsa's family and their expectations of what a "good" woman did and didn't do in 1934. Their treatment of her when she breaks their rules is infuriating. That she found the guts to stand against them and to, eventually, stand against the world to take care of her children made for great reading. 

I have this book on pre-order for the LSW library and I can't wait to add it to the Hannah collection I have already built. She really is one of my favorite authors.  

Get it checked out or pre-ordered before the next big storm and then sit back and enjoy.

______________________

Here's what happened... 

I ordered this book, and several others in the same vein, for the LSW library so the students in Forensics class would have new titles to choose from for their research project. Then I read it myself so I could book talk it for them. Then I became obsessed and consumed all things related to the stories of Joseph James Deangelo and Michelle McNamara. 

It's all so fascinating and twisty-turny.  

To begin, the book is amazing and if you are going to follow me down this particular rabbit hole, I suggest you start here. Read it or listen to it. The author takes you on a journey, case-by-case, into the terrifying crimes of Joseph Deangelo. She really does an amazing job of just scaring the hell right out of you. This guy was the stuff of nightmares. Really. 

BUT the story doesn't end there because the book was published before the killer was caught. And how he was caught is crazy. Investigators ran DNA from crime scenes through an online genealogy database. They got a partial match that lead them to a close relative. Then it was just a matter of deduction and elimination to find the killer himself. 

WOW!  

Add to this the story of McNamara, she died of an accidental drug overdose before she could publish this book, and you have just a whole lot of fodder for inquisitive minds, like mine and yours. 

So read the book. Listen to the podcasts. Watch the documentary. 

There you go. You've got lots to do. 

You're welcome.

I like looking at lists like this to see what books are making noise out there. Daisy Jones came in at number 12. 

12.) “Daisy Jones & the Six” by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2019)

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

USA TODAY BESTSELLER

NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER

THE WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER

#1 Indie Next Pick―October 2020

Recommended by Entertainment Weekly, Real Simple, NPR, Slate, and Oprah Magazine

#1 Library Reads Pick―October 2020

BOOK OF THE YEAR (2020) FINALIST―Book of The Month Club

A “Best Of” Book From: Oprah Mag * CNN * Amazon * Amazon Editors * NPR * Goodreads * Bustle * PopSugar * BuzzFeed * Barnes & Noble * Kirkus Reviews * Lambda Literary * Nerdette * The Nerd Daily * Polygon * Library Reads * io9 * Smart Bitches Trashy Books * LiteraryHub * Medium * BookBub * The Mary Sue * Chicago Tribune * NY Daily News * SyFy Wire * Powells.com * Bookish * Book Riot * Library Reads Voter Favorite *

In your LSW Media Center

"One enemy spy knows the Allies' greatest secret: the location of the coming D-Day invasion. He is a brilliant aristocrat and ruthless assassin -- code name: "The Needle" -- he holds the key to ultimate Nazi victory.

Only one person stands in his way: a lonely Englishwoman on an isolated island/ She is attracted to the handsome stranger who has mysteriously entered her life and she is the last hope of the entire Allied force. 

All will come to a terrifying conclusion in Ken Follett's unsurpassed and unforgettable masterwork of suspense, intrigue, and the dangerous machinations of the human heart." —Goodreads 

On Amazon 

Named after the famous mystery writer, Edgar Allan Poe, The Edgar Award is presented "... each spring by the Mystery Writers of America. The award is widely acknowledged to be the most prestigious award in the [mystery writing] genre." 

Click HERE to see past and recent winners. 

“A deeply funny and warm examination of how individual experiences can bring a random group of people together. Backman reveals each character’s many imperfections with tremendous empathy, reminding us that people are always more than the sum of their flaws.” —BookPage

“If you liked Where the Crawdads Sing, you’ll love This Tender Land...This story is as big-hearted as they come.” —Parade

"The unforgettable story of four orphans who travel the Mississippi River on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression.

In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota’s Gilead River, Odie O’Banion is an orphan confined to the Lincoln Indian Training School, a pitiless place where his lively nature earns him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee after committing a terrible crime, he and his brother, Albert, their best friend, Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.

Over the course of one summer, these four orphans journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an enthralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole." —Amazon

______________________

"The Only Good Indians follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.

At the crossroads of horror, poetry and history sits The Only Good Indians. These three paths might seem inconceivable considering the first road mentioned. No talk here of what will keep you up at night. “Poetic” should be called out in Jones’ writing. He gives distinct voice to his four main characters. You will forever hear their stories in your mind, long after turning the last page. And in those stories is a deep history of Native American culture. Sometimes the true horror in a story goes beyond the passages that keep you up at night. 

First rate all around for this novel."

— Barnes&Noble

Synopsis from Amazon:

"In a matter of weeks, Massachusetts has been overrun by an insidious rabies-like virus that is spread by saliva. But unlike rabies, the disease has a terrifyingly short incubation period of an hour or less. Those infected quickly lose their minds and are driven to bite and infect as many others as they can before they inevitably succumb. Hospitals are inundated with the sick and dying, and hysteria has taken hold. To try to limit its spread, the commonwealth is under quarantine and curfew. But society is breaking down and the government's emergency protocols are faltering. "

  —Amazon.

Book Review

“You may be repelled, you may be shocked, you will almost certainly be horrified, but you will read every last word.”—The Washington Post

On Amazon 

"In the present, [Donald Ray] reportedly lives in Chillicothe, just eight miles from Knockemstiff," Ohio, one of the settings in the novel. Yep, it's a real place! 

Read about the real Knockemstiff, Ohio HERE. 

Elizabeth Wetmore

Writing honestly about the ‘poison’ in a Texas hometown

Valentine is Elizabeth Wetmore's debut novel and an instant NYT Bestseller. 

On Amazon 

"When the time comes and I am called to take the stand, I will testify that I was the first person to see Gloria Ramírez alive. That poor girl, I will tell them. I don't know how a child comes back from something like this. The trial will not be until August, but I'll tell those men in the courtroom the same thing I will tell my daughter when she is old enough to hear it. . . Come August, I will testify that I did the best I could, under the circumstances, but I will not tell them how I failed her."    ˜Mary Rose

On Amazon 

___________________________

I appreciate a great first line and this book's is fantastic. 

"Listen. Three miles deep in the forest just below Arnott's Ridge, and you're in silence so dense it's like you're wading through it." 

"'You've made a mistake', she said in disbelief, peering at her perfect child. The doctor continued, relentless. "She's mongoloid... She'll be feeble-minded, no more intelligent than a dog... women never realize the impact that raising an imbecile has on a marriage... You must think of your son." 

On Amazon