The Lace Reader
by Brunonia Barry
Towner Whitney grew up in Salem, Massachusetts in a family of lace readers. Her great Aunt Eva raised Towner and taught her to read lace as well, but Towner flees the small town of Salem and moves to California, cutting off ties to her family. When her great Aunt Eva drowns, she returns to Salem and begins to confront the past she has tried for years to avoid. A self-confessed unreliable narrator, Towner tells the reader her story: a twin sister given to a mentally unstable aunt at birth, a mother who cares for abused women but can’t seem relate to her own daughter, and an uncle who has become the leader of a fanatical cult. As Towner seeks to understand her great aunt’s death, will she be able to face her family history? Cynthia B.
Fool
by Christopher Moore
Shakespeare would approve of this parody of King Lear by skilled satirist Christopher Moore. Pocket stars as the witty jester of King Lear, whose daughters are plotting to make his rule powerless. Pocket and his dim apprentice, Drool, attempt to help the king make nice with his family while balancing saucy banter, seduction, crude humor, treason and haunting apparitions. A talented Fool is always on dangerous ground angering the prideful royals & lords meaning that Pocket is no stranger to frequent death threats (and attempts). This bawdy tale contains a nice twist at the end to tie up the story nicely. Listen to this as an audiobook and you'll be laughing out loud! Sky K.
The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson
The Haunting of Hill House is the quintessential horror story by the Grande Dame of American horror fiction, Shirley Jackson (1916- 1965). Hill House, a lonely abandoned mansion in the western hills, has a bad reputation. Dr. John Montague and his three assistants, Eleanor, Luke, and Theodora, arrive planning to live in it for a summer to investigate its secrets first-hand. But no one wants to answer their questions, not the townspeople in nearby Hillsdale or old Mr. and Mrs. Dudley, the caretakers who make a point of not staying in the house overnight. But what makes Hill House so mysterious? Its odd structure? Its creepy rooms? Slowly, slowly Hill House begins to reveal things about itself, but who will die for probing its secrets? Susan L.
Provenance
by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo
Provenance documents the fascinating account of what has been called by Scotland Yard “the biggest art fraud of the twentieth century.” It takes you on a journey into the heart of the art business and deconstructs how a con artist and a forger managed to dupe, over a period of ten years, a host of art dealers, buyers, auction houses and museums in both sides of the Atlantic. By tampering with some of the world’s most important art archives, they were able to pass off over 200 paintings as authentic; some are still hanging as originals. Bonina G.
