Books to Read: Southeast Kansas Library System

“Award-winning author Kelly Barnhill brings her singular talents to The Crane Husband, a raw, powerful story of love, sacrifice, and family. “Mothers fly away like migrating birds. This is why farmers have daughters.” A fifteen-year-old teenager is the backbone of her small Midwestern family, budgeting the household finances and raising her younger brother while her mother, a talented artist, weaves beautiful tapestries. For six years, it’s been just the three of them-her mother has brought home guests at times, but none have ever stayed. Yet when her mother brings home a six-foot tall crane with a menacing air, the girl is powerless to prevent her mom letting the intruder into her heart, and her children’s lives. Utterly enchanted and numb to his sharp edges, her mother abandons the world around her to weave the masterpiece the crane demands. In this stunning contemporary retelling of “The Crane Wife” by the Newbery Award-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon, one fiercely pragmatic teen forced to grow up faster than was fair will do whatever it takes to protect her family-and change the story”

Detective Cara Kennedy investigates a murder in a small Alaskan town after a local teen discovers a severed hand and foot washed up on the shore, teaming up with a town police officer as bad weather approaches. 50,000 first printing.

Retreating to Paris, Nevada, after an on-stage accident destroys her career, Erika Greene, to save the opera house she inherited from falling into the hands of a greedy developer, leases the space to glam rock god Christof Daae with whom she makes beautiful music until reality sets in. Original.

“Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi but in my case, it means woman. It’s fair to say that Maddie’s life in London is far from rewarding. With a mother who spends most of her time in Ghana (yet still somehow manages to be overbearing), Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from advanced stage Parkinson’s. At work, her boss is a nightmare and Maddie is tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting. When her mum returns from her latest trip to Ghana, Maddie leaps at the chance to get out of the family home and finally start living. A self-acknowledged late bloomer, she’s ready to experience some important “firsts”: She finds a flat share, says yes to after-work drinks, pushes for more recognition in her career, and throws herself into the bewildering world of internet dating. But it’s not long before tragedy strikes, forcing Maddie to face the true nature of her unconventional family, and the perils–and rewards–of putting her heart on the line. Smart, funny, and deeply affecting, Jessica George’s Maame deals with the themes of our time with humor and poignancy: from familial duty and racism, to female pleasure, the complexity of love, and the life-saving power of friendship. Most important, it explores what it feels like to be torn between two homes and cultures-and it celebrates finally being able to find where you belong”

Determined to embrace her new life as a “Surprisingly Young Divorcě,” 29-year-old Maggie, with the help of her tough-loving academic advisor, her newly divorced friend and her group chat, barrels through her first year of singledom, searching for what truly makes her happy. 100,000 first printing.

A geeky, brilliant, cosmetic chemist, Anna Ellis, to win over Craig Kimball, the man of her dreams and her boss starts fake dating Craig’s half-brother Marco, with whom Craig is super competitive, as an experiment in attraction until her feelings for Marco become all-too real. Original.

On Halloween night in 1984 Coventry, Massachusetts, four children in vintage costumes with faded, eerie makeup blend in with the neighborhood kids trick-or-treating, begging to be hidden and kept safe from The Cunning Man. 60,000 first printing.

Jayanthi, a posthuman descendant, and her pilot Vaha are sent to test the habitability of an Earthlike planet called Meru, an unoccupied new world and the future of human-alloy relations — a journey that challenges their resolve in unexpected ways as they discover they’ve been set up to fail. Original.

“It is 1912, and for the last seventy years magic has all but disappeared from the world. Yet magic is all Biddy has ever known. Orphaned as a baby, Biddy grew up on Hy-Brasil, a legendary island off the coast of Ireland hidden by magic and glimpsed by rare travelers who return with stories of wild black rabbits and a lone magician in a castle. To Biddy, the island is her home, a place of ancient trees and sea-salt air and mysteries, and the magician, Rowan, is her guardian. She loves both, but as her seventeenth birthday approaches, she is stifled by her solitude and frustrated by Rowan’s refusal to let her leave. One night, Rowan fails to come home from his mysterious travels. To rescue him, Biddy ventures into his nightmares and learns not only where he goes every night, but that Rowan has powerful enemies. Determination to protect her home and her guardian, Biddy’s journey will take her away from the safety of her childhood, to the poorhouses of Whitechapel, a secret castle beneath London streets, the ruins of an ancient civilization, and finally to a desperate chance to restore lost magic. But the closer she comes to answers, the more she comes to question everything she has ever believed about Rowan, her own origins, and the cost of bringing magic back into the world”

“1944, Poland. Jacob Stein and Zalman Mendelson meet as boys under terrifying circumstances. They survive by miraculously escaping, but their shared past haunts and shapes their lives forever. Years later, Zalman plows a future on a Minnesota farm. In Brooklyn, Jacob has a new life with his wife, Esther. When Zalman travels to New York City to reconnect, Jacob’s hopes for the future are becoming a reality. With Zalman’s help, they build a house for Jacob’s family and for Zalman, who decides to stay. Modest and light filled, inviting and warm with acceptance–for all of them, it’s a castle to call home. Then an unforeseeable tragedy–and the grief, betrayals, and revelations in its wake–threatens to destroy what was once an unbreakable bond, and Esther finds herself at a crossroads”

In 1944 Normandy, when German snipers start picking off hundreds of Allied soldiers every day, Pacific hero Earl Swagger, assigned this crucial and bloody mission, must infiltrate the shadowy corners of London and France to expose the traitor who is tipping off these snipers with the locations of American GIs.

“Award-winning novelist Larry D. Sweazy’s first published short story collection features eleven western stories, including a new short story, “A Cow Hunter’s Lament.” Three of the stories, “Rattlesnakes and Skunks,” “Lost Mountain Pass,” and “Shadow of the Crow,” are origin stories for Sweazy’s series characters Josiah Wolfe, Trusty Dawson, and Sonny Burton. The stories are traditional westerns with a few that have underlying mysteries, as well as two that have supernatural elements, all written in Sweazy’s signature atmospheric style. All of the stories feature western characters challenged by the landscape and loneliness they exist in, overcoming adversity, with a respect for history, along with plenty of expected action”

In this gripping true story of daring rescues, body doubles and political intrigue, the New York Times best-selling authors of The First Conspiracy and The Lincoln Conspiracy reveal the Nazi’s plans to kill FDR, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill?—?an assassination plot that would’ve changed history. 300,000 first printing.

Assembling a team of dubious allies, Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to find a gateway to the underworld and rescue Darlington from purgatory

When she accidentally takes the wrong gym bag, Sam Kemp tries on a pair of six-inch high Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes that give her the confidence to change her life, while the shoes’ owner tries to cling to her glamorous life after her husband cuts her off

The author of the New York Times bestseller Group reflects on her lifelong struggles to sustain female friendship and how the return of an old friend helped her explore the reasons she has avoided attachment.

Sharing her year-long journey as a daughter, wife, mother, writer and maker, the New York Times best-selling author, a lifelong knitter, shows how she, to keep herself engaged and cope with a series of seismic shifts in family life, set out to make a sweater from scratch. 75,000 first printing.

A revelatory investigation into how America is failing its children, and an urgent manifesto on why helping them is the best way to improve all of our lives. By the New York Times best-selling author of Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice.

Steeped in scientifically backed practical advice, this groundbreaking guide provides real-world practices and the latest research on how to train your brain for better learning.

“Smil presents the long history and modern infatuation with invention and innovation. Meticulous as always, these vast realms of human ingenuity are organized into sensible categories: inventions that went from welcome to undesirable, inventions that dominate and missed the mark, inventions we still dream about, and lastly, the exaggerations, myths, and wise expectations for innovations we need most”

A noted physician and medical research discusses how big Pharma and healthcare corporations has eroded the faith of both doctors and patients and why our interactions with medical professionals feel less personal and impactful. 40,000 first printing.