Holds hardcover/paperback books in your lap, on a table etc. Little plastic piece holds the pages. Haven’t used as much as I thought I would. 

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Missouri

English

The Bookseat/Purple

Kate Fagan

Bought new from book of the month. Read once

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

A Novel

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets First Lie Wins in this electric, voice-driven debut novel about an elusive bestselling author who decides to finally confess her true identity after years of hiding from her past. Cate Kay knows how to craft a story. As the creator of a bestselling book trilogy that struck box office gold as a film series, she’s one of the most successful authors of her generation. The thing is, Cate Kay doesn’t really exist. She’s never attended author events or granted any interviews. Her real identity had been a closely guarded secret, until now. As a young adult, she and her best friend Amanda dreamed of escaping their difficult homes and moving to California to become movie stars. But the day before their grand adventure, a tragedy shattered their dreams and Cate has been on the run ever since, taking on different names and charting a new future. But after a shocking revelation, Cate understands that returning home is the only way she’ll be a whole person again.

The Three Lives of Cate Kay

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Adrienne Young

In this captivating atmospheric novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Unmaking of June Farrow, a woman investigates her twin brother’s mysterious death while confronting the ghosts of her own haunted past. James and Johnny Golden were once inseparable. For as long as she can remember, James shared an almost supernatural connection with her twin brother, Johnny, that went beyond intuition—she could feel what he was feeling. So, when Johnny is killed in a tragic accident, James knows before her phone even rings that her brother is gone and that she’s alone—truly alone—for the first time in her life. When James arrives in the secluded town of Six Rivers, California, to settle her brother’s affairs, she’s forced to revisit the ominous events of their shared past and finally face Micah, the only other person who knows their secrets—and the only man she has ever loved. But as James delves deeper into Johnny’s world, she realizes that their unique connection hasn’t completely vanished. The more she immerses herself in his life, the more questions she has about the brother she thought she knew. Johnny was hiding something, and he’s not the only one. The deeper she digs, the more she is compelled to unravel the truth behind the days leading up to Johnny’s death. Ultimately, James must decide which truths should come to light, and which are better left buried forever.

A Sea of Unspoken Things

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Gayle Forman

"After Life is a masterful tale about a family coping with loss, showing the way grief affects us and people we don't even know in ways we don't see. Once I met Amber and her family, I didn't want to let them go." ---Brigid Kemmerer, New York Times bestselling author of Carving Shadows into Stone "Forman is a master at making her readers fall in love--with a girl whose life is over, with a community of people in a small town who are barely surviving her loss, and with the incredible, surprising way everyone's stories knit together into a heartbreaking and hopeful whole." --E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars and Genuine Fraud One spring afternoon after school, Amber arrives home on her bike. It's just another perfectly normal day. But when Amber's mom sees her, she screams. Because Amber died seven years ago, hit by a car while on the very same bicycle she's inexplicably riding now. This return doesn't only impact Amber. Her sister, Melissa, now seven years older, must be a new kind of sibling to Amber. Amber's estranged parents are battling over her. And the changes ripple farther and farther out: Amber's friends, boyfriend, and even people she met only once have been deeply affected by her life and death. In the midst of everyone's turmoil, Amber is struggling with herself. What kind of person was she? How and why was she given this second chance? This magnificent tour de force by acclaimed author Gayle Forman brilliantly explores the porous veil between life and death, examines the impact that one person can have on the world, and celebrates life in all its beautiful complexity.

After Life

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Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

When Night Breaks

Bought new, Owlcrate special edition. Read once 

Where Dreams Descend

Kate Alice Marshall

Bought new from book of the month. Read once 

They were eleven when they sent a killer to prison. They were heroes . . . but they were liars.

Kate Alice Marshall's What Lies in the Woods is a thrilling novel about friendship, secrets, betrayal, and lies - and having the courage to face the past.

"Clever and deliciously dark." --Alice Feeney, bestselling author of Rock Paper Scissors
"Shines an incisive light on the secrets of a small-town community...Great writing and boldly drawn characters bring a terrifying tale to all-too-vivid life." --Kirkus, starred review

Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls' testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes.

And they were liars.

For decades, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods--no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be.

"What Lies In the Woods is a gorgeous fever dream of a novel about the dangers lurking in the hearts and imaginations of little girls. Kate Alice Marshall deftly charts a winding path through her creepy woods, doubling back and changing course to build a labyrinth of secrets and lies in which I was delighted to lose myself for hours. Hands down, it's the best thriller I've read in a long, long time."--Chandler Baker, bestselling author of The Husbands

What Lies in the Woods

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Caroline Frost

Set in 1970s and 90s East Texas, Possum Run is a literary debut about a scrappy young woman and the partner-in-crime she can't escape from, perfect for readers of Where the Crawdads Sing and Valentine. It was 1970 when thirteen-year-old Kit Walker was abducted by Manny Romero, a smooth-talking, low-level criminal. Longing for the family and security she never had, she allowed herself to be coddled and groomed into Manny's partner-in-crime. Before long, Kit and Manny became infamous for their string of gas station robberies throughout Texas, making a name for themselves as the Texaco Twosome. But as Manny's fatherly demeanor shifts to something darker and more violent, Kit is forced to reconsider their relationship and her own safety. In a flash decision, she leaves Manny at a holdup gone wrong. Thirteen years after her escape, she has made a home for herself and her daughter amongst the pecan trees and muddy creeks of the claustrophobic town of Possum Run. When Manny shows up at her doorstep a new man, fresh out of prison, Kit's profound and twisted attachment to him compels her to let him in. Immediately, Kit's world is transformed and her community is sent into a tailspin. With its rich landscape, indelible characters, and evocative language, Possum Run is a hauntingly intimate and distinctly original debut about the strength and vulnerability of womanhood and the complexity of love--both romantic and familial. This penetrating, gritty, and unexpectedly tender novel ensnares the reader in its story of resilience and the bonds that define us.

Shadows of Pecan Hollow

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Amy Watson

Weaving culinary delights with an honest, appraising look at how we deal with the world when it becomes too much, Closer to Okay is the comfort food we all need in these, well, crazy times.

Kyle Davies is doing fine. She has her routine, after all, ingrained in her from years of working as a baker: wake up, make breakfast, prep the dough, make lunch, work the dough, make dinner, bake dessert, go to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat. It's a good routine. Comforting. Almost enough to help her forget the scars on her wrist, still healing from when she slit it a few weeks ago; that she lost her job at the bakery when she checked herself in as an inpatient at Hope House; then signed away all decisions about her life, medical care, and wellbeing to Dr. Booth (who may or may not be a hack). So, yeah, Kyle's doing just fine.

Except that a new item's been added to her daily to-do list recently: stare out her window at the coffee shop (named, well...The Coffee Shop) across the street, and its hot owner, Jackson. It's healthy to have eye candy when you're locked in the psych ward, right? Something low risk to keep yourself distracted. So when Dr. Booth allows Kyle to leave the facility--two hours a day to go wherever she wants--she decides to up the stakes a little more. Why not visit? Why not see what Jackson's like in person?

Turns out that Jackson's a jerk with a heart of gold, a deadly combination that Kyle finds herself drawn to more than she should be. (Aren't we all?) At a time when Dr. Booth delivers near-constant warnings about the dangers of romantic entanglements, Kyle is pulled further and further into Jackson's orbit. At first, the feeling of being truly taken care of is bliss, like floating on a wave. But at a time when Kyle is barely managing her own problems, she finds herself suddenly thrown into the deep end of someone else's. Dr. Booth may have been right after all: falling in love may be the thing that sends Kyle into a backslide she might never be able to crawl out of. Is Jackson too much for her to handle? Does love come at the cost of sanity?

Closer to Okay

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Douglas Westerbeke

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue meets Life of Pi in this dazzlingly epic debut that charts the adventures of one woman as she walks herself around the world many times over trying to outrun a mysterious curse that will destroy her if she ever stops moving—or returns to the same place twice. Paris, 1885: Aubry Tourvel, a spoiled and stubborn nine-year-old girl, comes across a wooden puzzle ball on her walk home from school. She tosses it over the fence, only to find it in her backpack that evening. Days later, at the family dinner table, she starts to bleed to death. When medical treatment only makes her worse, she flees to the outskirts of the city, where she discovers that it is this very act of movement that keeps her alive. So begins her lifelong journey on the run from her condition, which won’t allow her to stay anywhere for longer than three or four days or return to a place she’s already been. From the scorched dunes of the Calashino Sand Sea to the blinding, snow-packed peaks of the Himalayas; from a bottomless well in a Parisian courtyard, to the shelves of an infinite underground library, we follow Aubry through the decades of her life, as she learns what it takes to survive and fall in love, with goodbye always on the tip of her tongue. But the longer Aubry wanders and the more desperate she is to share her life with others, the clearer it becomes that the world she travels through may not be quite the same as everyone else’s… Fierce, hopeful, and full of tender yearning, Aubry Tourvel is an unforgettable character fighting her way through a world of wonders to find a place she can call home. A spellbinding and inspiring story about finding gratitude and meaning in a life that seems otherwise impossible, A Short Walk Through a Wide World reinforces the message that it’s not the destination, but rather the journey—no matter how long it lasts—that matters.

A Short Walk Through a Wide World

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Bought new, special edition from Barnes and noble. Read once

The Reappearance of Rachel Price

Melissa Baron

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

The Time Traveler's Wife meets Oona Out of Order in this imaginative and moving debut novel of a love more powerful than time.

Isla has fled the city for small-town Missouri in the wake of a painful and exhausting year. With her chronic anxiety at a fever pitch, the last thing she expects is to meet a genuine romantic prospect. And she doesn't. But she does get a text from a man who seems to think he's her husband. Obviously, a wrong number--except when she points this out, the mystery texter sends back a picture. Of them--on their wedding day.
 
Isla cautiously starts up a texting relationship with her maybe-hoax, maybe-husband Ewan, who claims to be reaching out from a few years into the future. Ewan knows Isla incredibly well, and seems to love her exactly as she is, which she can hardly fathom. But he's also grieving, because in the future, he and Isla are no longer together.
 
Ewan is texting back through time to save her from a fate he is unwilling to share--and all she can do to prevent that fate is to learn to be happy, now, in the body she has, with the mind she has. The only trouble is the steps she takes in that direction might be steps away from a future with Ewan.
 
Melissa Baron's time-crossed romance features a quintessentially endearing and brave protagonist, and an engrossing plot that will keep you turning pages until its breathtaking finish.

Twice in a Lifetime

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stacy Willingham

Following up her instant New York Times bestseller, A Flicker in the Dark, Stacy Willingham delivers a totally gripping thriller about a desperate mother with a troubled past in All the Dangerous Things.

One year ago, Isabelle Drake's life changed forever: her toddler son, Mason, was taken out of his crib in the middle of the night while she and her husband were asleep in the next room. With little evidence and few leads for the police to chase, the case quickly went cold. However, Isabelle cannot rest until Mason is returned to her--literally.

Except for the occasional catnap or small blackout where she loses track of time, she hasn't slept in a year.

Isabelle's entire existence now revolves around finding him, but she knows she can't go on this way forever. In hopes of jarring loose a new witness or buried clue, she agrees to be interviewed by a true-crime podcaster--but his interest in Isabelle's past makes her nervous. His incessant questioning paired with her severe insomnia has brought up uncomfortable memories from her own childhood, making Isabelle start to doubt her recollection of the night of Mason's disappearance, as well as second-guess who she can trust... including herself. But she is determined to figure out the truth no matter where it leads.

All the Dangerous Things

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Stacy Willingham

A sharp and twisty exploration of female friendship from the New York Times bestselling author of A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things. Lucy Sharpe is larger than life. Magnetic, addictive. Bold and dangerous. Especially for Margot, who meets Lucy at the end of their freshman year at a liberal arts college in South Carolina. Margot is the shy one, the careful one, always the sidekick and never the center of attention. But when Lucy singles her out at the end of the year, a year Margot spent studying and playing it safe, and asks her to room together, something in Margot can't say no—something daring, or starved, or maybe even envious. And so Margot finds herself living in an off-campus house with three other girls, Lucy, the ringleader; Sloane, the sarcastic one; and Nicole, the nice one, the three of them opposites but also deeply intertwined. It's a year that finds Margot finally coming out of the shell she's been in since the end of high school, when her best friend Eliza died three weeks after graduation. Margot and Lucy have become the closest of friends, but by the middle of their sophomore year, one of the fraternity boys from the house next door has been brutally murdered... and Lucy Sharpe is missing without a trace. From the author of A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things comes a tantalizing thriller about the nature of friendship and belonging, about loyalty, envy, and betrayal—another gripping novel from an author quickly becoming the gold standard in psychological suspense.

Only If You're Lucky

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S. K. Golden

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

The hotel was her refuge, but scandal is afoot--and a killer stalks the halls in this charming series debut perfect for fans of Rhys Bowen and Ashley Weaver.

It's 1958 and Evelyn Elizabeth Grace Murphy has not left the Pinnacle Hotel in fourteen months. She suffers from agoraphobia, and what's more, it's her father's hotel, and everything she needs is there. Evelyn's always been good at finding things, she discovered her mother dead in a Manhattan alleyway fifteen years earlier. Now she's finding trouble inside her sanctuary. At a party for artist Billie Bell, his newest work is stolen, and Evelyn's fake boyfriend (and real best friend), movie star Henry Fox, is accused of the theft. But just as Evelyn sets out to prove Henry's innocence, she finds Billie Bell dead.
 
The murder weapon links the crime to the hotel's chief of security. But why would he use a knife with his initials on the handle? With her beloved home in disarray, Evelyn joins up with hotel employee (and her secret crush) Mac Cooper to get to the bottom of the case.
 
As Mac picks locks and Evelyn snoops around the hotel, they discover the walls around them contain more secrets than they previously knew. Now, Evelyn must force herself to leave the hotel to follow the clues--but when she and Mac set off to chase a lead, their car crashes and they barely escape with their lives. Someone snipped Evelyn's brake lines, and now the stakes have become dangerously high.
 
Evelyn's knack for sleuthing--and her playful imagination--are always hard at work, and she throws an elaborate party at the hotel where every guest is a suspect. But will the killer emerge from the glamorous lineup? If not, Evelyn just might find herself...next in line for murder.

The Socialite's Guide to Murder

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Katy Hays

The Secret History meets Ninth House in this sinister, atmospheric novel following a circle of researchers as they uncover a mysterious deck of tarot cards and shocking secrets in New York's famed Met Cloisters.

When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination.

Desperate to escape her painful past, Ann is happy to indulge the researchers' more outlandish theories about the history of fortune telling. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession when Ann discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition at The Cloisters turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs.

A haunting and magical blend of genres, The Cloisters is a gripping debut that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

The Cloisters

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Kate Robb

Bought new, read once. Some bending in spine

Is love on the small screen better than the real thing? A young divorcée finds herself in the ideal world of her favorite 2000s teen soap in this “gleefully nostalgic and completely fresh”* romance from the author of This Spells Love. *Jessica Joyce, bestselling author of You, with a View Newly divorced on the eve of her thirtieth birthday, Brynn is sick of heartbreak. She thought she had found her happy ending, but now she’s living with a roommate, Josh, to afford her mortgage, and she’s trying to adjust to her new single life. At least she’s got Carson’s Cove to binge, her beloved 2000s teenage soap. The show ended unexpectantly on a cliffhanger after five seasons, and the two main characters, Sloan and Spencer, never got to declare their love for each other. The show is still perfect in Brynn’s eyes; despite all the drama that goes down, things always have a way of working out in Carson’s Cove . . . unlike her own life. So when a birthday cake surprisingly shows up on her and Josh’s doorstep, Brynn makes a wish for the one thing she’s always wanted (but has failed to achieve herself): a happily-ever-after. The next morning, she doesn’t wake up in her apartment. She’s in Carson’s Cove . . . and Josh is there too. Everyone seems to know them, except they’re not Brynn and Josh; they’re Sloan, the sweetheart of Carson’s Cove, and Fletch, the town’s bad boy. And to get home, they have to make Brynn’s wish come true by ensuring Sloan and Spencer, the hometown heartthrob, end up together at last. But as they spend more time together, Brynn and Josh realize that Carson’s Cove might not be as perfect as seen on television . . . especially when they start developing feelings for each other in a plot twist no one has expected. Will they stick to the script, or will real love change the story forever?

Prime Time Romance

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Jen DeLuca

Bought new from Book of the month. Read once

All's faire in love and war for two sworn enemies who indulge in a harmless flirtation in a laugh-out-loud rom-com from debut author Jen DeLuca. Emily knew there would be strings attached when she relocated to the small town of Willow Creek, Maryland, for the summer to help her sister recover from an accident, but who could anticipate getting roped into volunteering for the local Renaissance Faire alongside her teenaged niece? Or that the irritating and inscrutable schoolteacher in charge of the volunteers would be so annoying that she finds it impossible to stop thinking about him? The faire is Simon's family legacy and from the start he makes clear he doesn't have time for Emily's lighthearted approach to life, her oddball Shakespeare conspiracy theories, or her endless suggestions for new acts to shake things up. Yet on the faire grounds he becomes a different person, flirting freely with Emily when she's in her revealing wench's costume. But is this attraction real, or just part of the characters they're portraying? This summer was only ever supposed to be a pit stop on the way to somewhere else for Emily, but soon she can't seem to shake the fantasy of establishing something more with Simon or a permanent home of her own in Willow Creek.

Well Met

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Lia Louis

A heartwarming novel about hope after loss as a young widow receives mysterious messages of love from the "must-buy author" (Jodi Picoult) of Eight Perfect Hours.

Sparkly and charming Natalie Fincher has it all--a handsome new husband, a fixer-upper cottage of her dreams, and the opportunity to tour with the musical she's spent years writing. But when her husband suddenly dies, all her hopes and dreams instantly disappear.

Two and a half years later, Natalie is still lost. She works, sleeps (well, as much as the sexually frustrated village foxes will allow), and sees friends just often enough to allay their worries, but her life is empty. And she can only bring herself to play music at a London train station's public piano where she can be anonymous. She's lost motivation, faith in love, in happiness...in everything.

But when someone begins to mysteriously leave the sheet music for her husband's favorite songs at the station's piano, Natalie begins to feel a sense of hope and excitement for the first time. As she investigates just who could be doing this, Natalie finds herself on an unexpected journey toward newfound love for herself, for life, and maybe, for a special someone.

The Key to My Heart

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Claire Alexander

"The brilliant author of this brilliant book" will have you laughing and crying as Meredith, after spending three years inside her house, figures out how to rejoin the world one step at a time (Gillian McAllister, author of the Reese's Book Club Wrong Place Wrong Time). 



She has a full-time remote job and her rescue cat Fred. Her best friend Sadie visits with her two children.  There's her online support group, her jigsaw puzzles and favorite recipes, her beloved Emily Dickinson poems.  Also keeping her company are treacherous memories of an unstable childhood and a traumatic event that had sent her reeling.  



But something's about to change. First, two new friends burst into her life.  Then her long-estranged sister gets in touch.  Suddenly her carefully curated home is no longer a space to hide.  Whether Meredith likes it or not, the world  is coming to her door...



 

Meredith, Alone

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reckless girls

The Wife Upstairs

Maggie Thrash

"Lacey Bond has grown up in her parents' hippie New Hampshire daycare, idolizing her blasphemous, ultra-fashionable sister, Éclair, chasing baby squirrels, and contemplating trees. Then the Satanic Panic hits - the moral hysteria that shook the United States by its shoulders in the 80s and 90s. It's the summer of 1990 when Lacey's parents are handcuffed, flung into the county jail, and faced with a torrent of jaw-dropping accusations from dozens of current and former daycare kids. The criminal trial that follows is one of several in the novel, and it marks the beginning of Lacey's relentless effort to survive after her literal and figurative guardians vanish, one by one. After the hysteria results in a devastating murder, Lacey runs away and starts over in Montreal with a new identity. But will she ever escape the constant fear of being found out and having to face the trauma of the media spotlight all over again? For readers of Ottessa Moshfegh, Emma Cline, and Donna Tartt comes a genuinely unique coming-of-age story that's also an unrelenting interrogation of America's endless cycle of moral panics"--

Rainbow Black

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Ashley Schumacher

Told in alternating perspectives, in a small town in Texas, mellophone player Weston Ryan and saxophonist Anna James are forced to work together on a duet for their school's marching band competition.

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