RULES at the SCHOOL by THE SEA by Jenny Colgan
The second book in Jenny Colgan’s School by the Sea series.For the second year at Downey House, it's getting harder and harder to stick to the rules . . . Maggie Adair’s first year as a teacher at Downey House was a surprising success. After making the leap from an inner-city school, she’s learned to appreciate the mellower pace of the girls’ boarding school by the sea.Now engaged to her longtime boyfriend, sweet and steady Stan, Maggie’s just got to stop thinking about David McDonald, her colleague at the boys’ school down the road. Even as Maggie tries to stay within the lines, rules are being broken all around her. Maggie’s boss, headmistress Veronica Deveral, has more to lose than anyone. When Daniel Stapleton joins the faculty, Veronica finds herself forced to confront a scandalous secret she thought she’d carefully buried forever.
Link for PDF of books: August 2022.
THE HOTEL NANTUCKET
by Elin Hilderbrand
Fresh off a bad breakup with a longtime boyfriend, Nantucket sweetheart Lizbet Keaton is desperately seeking a second act. When she’s named the new general manager of the Hotel Nantucket, a once Gilded Age gem turned abandoned eyesore, she hopes that her local expertise and staff can win the favor of their new London billionaire owner, Xavier Darling, as well as that of Shelly Carpenter, the wildly popular Instagram tastemaker who can help put them back on the map. The staff (and guests) have complicated pasts, and the hotel can’t seem to overcome the bad reputation it earned in 1922. A tragic fire killed 19 year old chambermaid Grace Hadley. With Grace haunting the halls, a staff with all kinds of secrets, and Lizbet’s own romantic uncertainty, is the Hotel Nantucket destined for success or doom?Link for PDF of books: June and July 2022.
THE SHORE
by Katie Runde
Brian and Margot Dunne live year-round in Seaside, just steps away from the bustling boardwalk, with their daughters Liz and Evy. The Dunnes run a real estate company. But the family’s future becomes even more precarious when Brian develops a brain tumor, transforming into a bizarre, erratic version of himself. The Shore is a powerful, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting novel infused with humor about young women finding sisterhood, friendship, and love in a time of crisis. This big-hearted family saga examines the grit and hustle of running a small business in a tourist town, the ways we connect with strangers when our families can’t give us everything we need, and the comfort to be found in embracing the pleasures of youth while coping with unimaginable loss.Link for PDF of books: requested June 2022.
THE LIONESS by Chris Bohjalian
Tanzania, 1964. When actress, Katie Barstow, and her new husband, David Hill, bring their Hollywood friends to the Serengeti for their honeymoon, they envision giraffes gently eating leaves from acacia trees and great swarms of wildebeests crossing the Mara River. Terrance Dutton, the celebrated Black actor who stars alongside Katie in the highly controversial film Tender Madness—will spend their days taking photos, and their evenings drinking chilled gin and tonics. What Katie and her entourage do not expect is this: a kidnapping gone wrong. Russian mercenaries shove them into abandoned huts and Katie Barstow prays for a simple thing: to see the sun rise one more time. Link for PDF of books: May 2022 books.
BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP
Next Book Discussion: August 31st • 2 pm
"The Nature of Fragile Things" by Susan Meissner
is August's Book of the Month.
Group meets every last Wednesday of the month at 2pm.All are welcome!Call Courtney Bayne, Library Director at(609) 492-7081 for more information.
THE NATURE of FRAGILE THINGS by Susan Meissner
Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right.Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved.The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear.