Fiction

Close your eyes for a moment and remember the gang. You know, the one from your old neighborhood. Those kids you ran wild with when it was OK to be kids outdoors. Now imagine an act of violence by an unidentified assailant against one of those friends, and you’ve got M.O. Walsh’s My Sunshine Away.

I strongly identify with our narrator. He’s completely honest in his youthful self-absorption and total lack of insight. Alternately a suspect in the investigation, then absolved, a suspect once again, he himself never quite denies this guilt or claims innocence. And the struggle for truth is

This starts off deep, but maybe faux deep. Then it gets heavier and heavier. In the best possible way. It gets authentic. As Nanette digs deeper and deeper to find her authentic self.

I gather from what I've learned and read that everyone was insecure in high school, felt they didn't fit in and relate, that any popularity was based on falsity and pretense. Yet I can't shake the belief that I didn't fit in and relate more than my peers, that my views and values and aspirations were somehow different despite that insecurity. I really do believe I was different in a way that only a small

When Le Cirque des Reves appears out of thin air, in the middle of the night, you can't help but be curious about what is inside. And once you step inside, you will not be disappointed. Intricately organized as an elaborate stage for two magicians - Marco and Celia - to compete on, the various tents and stages amaze the nightly visitors. However, the magicians don't know the full details of their competition, nor who they are competing against, and the story that unfolds is one of romance, magic and heartbreak. 

Erin Morgenstern has written a mesmerizing tale of forbidden love. The Night

Have you ever begun reading a book, and by the first few lines already accepted the fact that you probably will not sleep until the book is finished? All the Light We Cannot See is one of those books for me. I thoroughly enjoy historical fiction books, and this was no exception.

The city in which much of this story takes place- St. Malo, France- is such a beautiful place, and provides an excellent backdrop for many of the events in this book. The story centers around Marie, a sharply intelligent French girl, and Werner, a German boy with the unique talent of working with radios. The story

Paul de Marseul is the head of an esteemed family-owned winery in Saint-Emilion, France. He is an extremely overbearing father to his son Martin, who everyone assumes will take over the business one day from his father. But of course things get really interesting when the son of his estate manager returns the golden boy from his time in the Napa Valley.

From award-winning director Gilles Legrand, You Will Be My Son is a very emotionally charged and sympathetic film, with amazingly beautiful scenery of the Bordeaux region of France. The film stars French actor, Niels Arestrup (War Horse, Sarah

I picked up this book because I had liked The Chocolate Money by the same author. Norton has a talent for brutal honesty, holding back nothing about her protagonists’ motives and thoughts. In The Chocolate Money we witness the fraught relationship a privileged young woman has with her eccentric heiress mother. An heiress herself, Norton writes what she knows, and in If You Left, she continues that trend by exploring a wealthy woman’s relationship with her family as she struggles with mental health issues, which Norton has opened up about in various interviews.

It is easy to sympathize with

Georgia Ford runs away from problems in her own life and goes straight to her place of comfort: home. Unfortunately for Georgia, with her parents heading in different directions, her brothers not on speaking terms, and the uncertain future of the family vineyard, life at home is not what she was expecting. Georgia finds that among all her family's issues, she is still unable to escape her own.

This novel is all about the complexity of life's interruptions and how they affect relationships. I was hooked by the end of the first chapter when I found out why people out for a drink were staring at

What would you do if your house was falling into the ocean, you had just lost your job, and your long-lost sister appeared out of thin air from the circus? Well, if you are Simon, you would become entranced with an old, worn-out book that was mysteriously left on your doorstep. Convinced that his sister is doomed to die in a couple of weeks and that there is something off about his dead mother's relationship with his neighbor, he tries his hardest to follow the clues laid out in this book in order to save his family (past and present). But what lies in the book is an even more interesting

It’s the middle of July and we’re getting right into the heart of summer. It’s hot. It’s sticky. We know you’re looking for good books to take to the pool, the beach, or just to read while sitting on your porch. Johnson County Library has you covered – not only can you visit and get suggestions from your friendly neighborhood librarian, we also can give you sneak peeks into books that aren’t quite out yet, so you can get on the hold list and fill up that beach bag with stuff we know you’ll love.

Blake Crouch absolutely needs to be on your radar. Dark Matter is a fast-paced, emotionally packed

​Popular Sookie Stackhouse author Charlaine Harris has just finished a trilogy set in Midnight, Texas. Midnight Crossroad introduces the small town and the people that live there; a vampire, a witch, a spiritualist, weretigers and angels, with just a few people thrown into the mix.

Midnight is an old town with lots of boarded up windows; it's a place where some secrets will never see the light of day. When strangers wander into the crossroads and start killing themselves in increasingly brutal ways, the Midnighters rally together to figure out why. Lemuel acquires help translating ancient

I recently started watching the television show White Collar. As with most shows that I stick with, it’s the characters and how they interact that keep me interested.

Neal Caffrey is a thief and con man who is nearing the end of his prison sentence. When he escapes, it’s up to FBI agent Peter Burke to recapture him. Burke offers Caffrey a deal--help the FBI apprehend some of the more difficult-to-catch criminals in exchange for conditional freedom. Despite the limitations--he’s wearing a tracking device and can only be on his own within a two mile radius--it still beats being in a jail cell.

I really wasn’t expecting to like this book, but there I sat, reading page after page, anxious to find out what happens next. It has a bit of a Bridget Jones likeness. Louisa Clark is in her mid-twenties and still floundering through life, living with her quirky parents, comparing herself to her intellectually superior sister, and in a long term relationship that seems to be going nowhere.  She also has an unconventional sense of style. However, she is happy and optimistic which are valuable qualities needed to assist Will Traynor, a young, wealthy quadriplegic who wishes to end his life.

Alt

I was immediately charmed by Ferry’s first chapter, which begins “Sometimes I try to show my students the power of the story by telling them one.” He then continues to do so, complete with Princess Bride-esque interruptions by his students.

One night while driving home, Ferry drives alongside and behind a woman who can’t quite keep her car on the road. Before he can decide what, if any, action he should take, she crashes and dies. Obsession ensues, as Ferry embarks on an amateur investigation into her death. He attends her funeral, tracks down her friends, and intercepts medical reports. Or

A private jet takes off from Martha's Vineyard for the New York City area with a family of four aboard, plus another couple, a security guard, a crew of three, and a forty-something painter who was invited along on a kindly impulse. Eighteen minutes later the plane has crashed into Long Island Sound, killing everybody on board except for the painter, Scott Burroughs, who swims through the night with the only other survivor, a four-year-old boy, on his back. He is, of course, hailed as a hero.

There are ample reasons either of the two tycoons on the flight might have been targets. David

A few facts about Glory O’Brien:

• Her mother, Darla O’Brien, killed herself by sticking her head in an oven.
• It was on the letter “N” day at school
• Glory is the one who found her
• Darla was a photographer, Glory has followed in her mother’s footsteps
• Glory’s best friend is  Ellie, she lives on a hippie commune across the street
• Ellie has crabs from her boyfriend Rick
• Glory isn’t so sure she wants to be best friends with Ellie any more
• Glory and Ellie celebrate graduation by drinking a petrified bat Glory has named Max Black
• Max Black gifts them with the ability to see the past and

It's been a long time since a book has transported me so completely. Has taken me so deeply into myself that I become oblivious to the world around me and my head spins with disconnection when I try to regain awareness. Just me and the book, and nothing else. I started reading and was supposed to stop because life was still going on around me, but I didn't. I couldn't find my way back. So life moved on without me until I finished the book. Now I must figure out how to catch up, but that's okay. It was worth stopping at a special place for a while.

That's not entirely different than what

Miller’s Valley is a coming of age novel about Mimi Miller, a girl growing up in the 1960s in rural Pennsylvania. Mimi and her family live on the same farm their family has lived on contentedly for generations. But things in Miller's Valley are beginning to change. Mimi’s dad is a farmer, but he’s really the fix-it man for the entire town. Mimi’s mom is a nurse who still manages to be around to raise Mimi and her two brothers. Mimi’s aunt, Ruth, also lives in a little house on their farm. In fact, she hasn’t left the inside of her house for many years. Over the years, their valley has been

It's been three years since her husband was killed in a freak accident and Taylor Cabot is making plans to start living again.  She’s made a moving-on list and is marking items off.  She's moved home, is getting active with the help of an activity tracker, and has replaced the donuts with healthier choices. She's even started spending time with a handsome plastic surgeon from the hospital where she works as an ER nurse. When her old friend, Seth Donovan, turns up at the hospital to train the crisis team, old feelings begin to resurface.  

While in San Diego to train crisis volunteers

Everyone (literally) in the small town (pop. 3,000) of Healey, Texas, knows the truth about Alice Franklin. Well, they know what's been determined by the collective consciousness of the town's population as the truth, which is virtually the same thing. Everyone believes it, so it must be so. Everyone treats Alice as if it's true, so the end result is the same.

So what is it that everyone knows? Four narrators take turns gradually revealing that, at the final party of summer before their junior year of high school, Alice, who already had a bit of a reputation, had sex with two guys at the same

Denver neurosurgeon Maggie Sullivan has reached a low point and needs a break. After being named in a wrongful death lawsuit, her medical partners being indited for fraud, and a miscarriage and break up with her boyfriend, Maggie is yearning for the peace of the mountains where her father's country store and campground on the Continental Divide Trail reminds her of less complicated times. Cal Jones is an early arrival to the campground and is there for a specific purpose; letting go and moving on after his wife's prolonged illness and passing. Of course, he doesn't share that right away and

The Travelers is a fast-paced, globe-trotting novel filled with CIA intrigue. What better cover for a spy than to be a travel writer? Travel writers go to far-flung, exotic locals, meet people, and there are no red flags on why they travel so much. Will Rhodes is a personable, intriguing character looking for perfection in all areas of his life; from drinking the perfect glass of wine to finding the perfect wall sconce. While on assignment in France, his life begins to turn upside down when he meets Elle Hardwick, a woman who may wreck his marriage, career and life. Caught in the middle of a

Calvin was born on the day the final Calvin and Hobbes comic strip was published. His parents claim that they didn’t name him after it, that’s it’s just a fluke. They don’t understand what’s the big deal about his grandfather putting a stuffed tiger named Hobbes into baby Calvin’s crib, either. Calvin understands the significance. He is special: eternally bound to Bill Watterson, the creator of the beloved comic strip.

Then his mom accidentally washes Hobbes to death and everything changes.

When I was nine or so, Mom washed Hobbes to death. She threw him into the washing machine with a few

I read a good review of The Red Notebook on the Brit blog, We Love this Book and decided to give it a try. A Parisian woman, Laure, is mugged outside her apartment and her expensive leather bag is stolen. The assailant disposes of the bag in a nearby dumpster and it is found by a neighborhood bookseller, Laurent. With the wallet and any other identifying items taken, Laurent is intrigued with the remaining contents of the bag, including a little red notebook and is determined to find the owner. Francophiles and fans of The Little Paris Bookshop and The Elegance of the Hedgehog will want to

The mansion, Black Rabbit Hall, at times feels like the main character of this story. It's a second home for the Alton family in Cornwall, England in the 1960's. It's much loved but crumbling; an aging home with wings and turrets and windows that seem to watch you while you're outside. Set near the water with its own private cliffs and beaches, it also has a path that leads into the woods and seems purposely designed to get you lost.  

Two alternating stories reveal the secrets at Black Rabbit Hall. The first, Lorna and Jon, present day, are searching for a place to have their wedding. Lorna

Black Rabbit Hall is a debut novel by journalist Eve Chase. Londoners Lorna, a school teacher, and her fiancé, Jon, a carpenter, are in Cornwall looking at wedding venues. They arrive at Pencraw Hall (or Black Rabbit Hall as known to the locals). Although the manor house and grounds are in a state of disrepair, Lorna is entranced and seems to feel a kinship to it. The elderly owner, Mrs. Alton, is somewhat mysterious, and lends a gothic air to the story.  Lorna’s visit to Black Rabbit Hall turns into an extended visit on the pretense that she will help Mrs. Alton with promoting her estate as

A quick read with a poignant message, Our Souls at Night is a moving story of two elderly neighbors who find themselves lonely after both their spouses have gone, one by choice and one by death. In an act of bravery, Addie visits her longtime neighbor, Louis, and propositions him to be her sleeping partner. Addie has no hidden agenda or sordid intent; just a desire to sleep next to another person again. Taking her up on her offer, Louis and Addie get to know each other all while sharing their nights together. A wrench is thrown into their arrangement when Addie’s six-year-old grandson needs to

Ana is the perfect daughter, student and big sister. Over the course of her high school career she has built the perfect resume through test scores, an exemplary GPA and a host of extracurricular activities and volunteer opportunities including being the captain of her school’s quiz bowl team.

Zak on the other hand, has scraped by mostly on luck and some quick thinking. But when his teacher catches him plagiarizing a paper (for Health class people… come on!), Zak has to shape up, or delay his graduation. He agrees to join the quiz bowl team as an alternate, giving up the greatest weekend of

Good, but not great. Published thirteen years ago, it doesn't quite hold up today. Ginny is unbelievably pathetic throughout most of the story, and only toward the Hollywood-like ending does she-surprise-develop some confidence. Normally I love pathetic people because I can relate to their insecurity, but Ginny's character is a tad too two-dimensional, not a fully fleshed out character worthy of my concern. I also didn’t like how the author handled the date-rape subplot, as if she just needed a “juicy” reason for us to stop liking that character, rather than giving that heavy subject matter

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott is a haunting coming-of-age story, ripe with teenage angst and suburban mystery. Set in the 1980s, the novel is about two thirteen-year-old girls who are best friends and in their last month of their last year of middle school. It is a time before internet, cell phones, and instant digital recording of every moment of life. One of the girls, Evie Verver, goes missing one afternoon, and the other, Lizzie Hood, tells the story of what it is like to be caught up in the drama: the waiting, the suspicion, the false rumors, and, ultimately, the secrets uncovered

My Name Is Lucy Barton by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout is a novel to be read slowly and savored for its richness of story. At less than 200 pages, it is a novel with a simple plot: a woman, Lucy, is in the hospital for a prolonged stay, and her mother is visiting her. Lucy has been estranged from her mother since her marriage. She is grateful for her mother's presence, while at the same time she wants more than her mother is capable of giving her. In other words, the novel is rich in family dynamics and the complexities of the human heart.

What we as readers learn over the course of