Between the Covers
See what our library's book club is reading in 2024
Bad Cree : a novel = ācimoiᐧn
Johns, Jessica, author
2023
Mackenzie, a Cree millennial, wakes up clutching a pine bough she had been holding in her dream just moments earlier. When she blinks, it disappears. Mackenzie continues to accidentally bring back items from her dreams, dreams that are eerily similar to real memories of her older sister and Kokum before their untimely deaths. Desperate for help, Mackenzie returns to her mother, sister, cousin, and aunties in her small Alberta hometown. Together, they try to uncover what is haunting Mackenzie before something irrevocable happens to anyone else around her.
The covenant of water : a novel
Verghese, Abraham, 1955-, author
2023
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, set in Kerala, on South India's Malabar Coast, this novel follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning. A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself, this is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today.
Greenwood : a novel
Christie, Michael, 1976-, author
2020
It's 2034 and Jake Greenwood is an overqualified tour guide in one of the world's last remaining forests. It's 2008 and Liam Greenwood is a carpenter, fallen from a ladder and sprawled on his broken back. It's 1974 and Willow Greenwood is out of jail, free after being locked up for one of her endless series of environmental protests. It's 1934 and Everett Greenwood is alone, as usual, in his maple syrup camp squat when he hears the cries of an abandoned infant and gets tangled up in the web of a crime that will cling to his family for decades. And throughout, there are trees: thrumming a steady, silent pulse beneath Christie's effortless sentences and working as a guiding metaphor for withering, weathering, and survival.
The last thing he told me : a novel
Dave, Laura, author
2021
Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his beloved wife of one year: protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers: Owen's sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Hannah soon realizes her husband isn't who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen's true identity - and why he really disappeared. Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth, together. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen's past, they soon realize they are also building a new future.
The little village of book lovers : a novel
George, Nina, 1973- author
2023
As a girl, Marie-Jeanne realizes she can see the marks Love has left on the people around her - little glowing lights on the faces and hands that shimmer more brightly when the one meant for them is near. As she grows up, Marie-Jeanne is playing matchmaker, bringing true loves together every place she travels. However, the only person that she can't seem to find a soulmate for is herself. She has no glow of her own. Everyone must have a soulmate, surely - but will Marie-Jeanne be able to recognize hers when Love finally comes to her?
The love story of Missy Carmichael
Morrey, Beth, author
2020
The world has changed around Missy Carmichael. At seventy-nine, she's estranged from her daughter, her son and only grandson live across the world in Australia, and her great love is gone. Missy spends her days with a sip of sherry, scrubbing the kitchen in her big empty house and reliving her past - though it's her mistakes, and secrets, that she allows to shine brightest. The last thing Missy expects is for two perfect strangers and one spirited dog to break through her prickly exterior and show Missy just how much love she still has to give.
Malibu rising : a novel
Reid, Taylor Jenkins, author
2021
Malibu 1983. Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. Before the Riva mansion will have burned to the ground, in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play and the loves and secret yearnings that shaped this family across generations will all come bubbling to the surface to make for a night no one will ever forget.
The Paris apartment : a novel
Foley, Lucy (Novelist), author
2022
Jess needs a fresh start. She's broke and alone, and she's just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn't sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn't say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up, to find a very nice apartment, (could Ben really have afforded this?) he's not there. The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother's situation, and the more questions she has. Ben's neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it's starting to look like it's Ben's future that's in question. The socialite. The nice guy. The alcoholic. The girl on the verge. The concierge. Everyone's a neighbor. Everyone's a suspect. And everyone knows something they're not telling.
The push : a novel
Audrain, Ashley, 1982- author
2021
Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting, supportive mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood's exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter--Violet rejects her mother, screams uncontrollably, and becomes a disturbing, disruptive presence at her preschool. Her husband, Fox, says she's imagining things. What he sees is an overwhelmed wife who can't cope with the day-to-day grind. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well. Then their son Sam is born--and with him, Blythe has the natural, blissful connection she'd always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.
The reading list : a novel
Adams, Sara Nisha, author
2021
Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life after losing his beloved wife. Working at the local library for the summer, Aleisha discovers a list of novels that she's never heard of before. Intrigued, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list. When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading list hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again.
Violeta : a novel
Allende, Isabel, author
2022
Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling. She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy.