Take a look at these brand-new eBooks on Libby for September, free to read with your library card! Includes titles by Susie Dent, Elizabeth Strout, Kathryn Stockett and more.
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The Calamity Club
Kathryn Stockett
Oxford, Mississippi, 1933. Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one.
Ever since her beloved mother failed to come home last Christmas Eve, she’s been one of the ‘unadoptable’ girls at the town’s orphanage, where she fights each day to keep her wits sharp and her spirit unbowed.
When she meets Birdie, a young woman who has come to Oxford determined to remind her socialite sister of the impoverished family she left behind, for the first time in a long while it seems someone else might care about Meg’s future.
But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie begins to suspect her sister’s charmed life may be founded on a tapestry of lies. Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman haunted by loss who has been pushed to the brink with nothing left to lose.
Drawn together by circumstance, they find unexpected kinship among a disreputable, determined band of women. But in a town steeped in hypocrisy, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences…
The House That Eats the Dead
Max Doty
The new house is a fresh start for Claire and her family. It’s a move towards the quiet suburban life she has craved since her turbulent childhood; a step up the corporate ladder for her husband, Tom; and a safe haven for their two children.
Yet, as they unpack their boxes, she senses something is wrong…
Fresh flowers dry up, store-bought eggs are inexplicably hollow and her daughter’s favourite toy disappears. Claire soon confronts a series of impossible truths: the house is hungry. It’s devouring anything that was once alive. And only Claire and Tom, the owners of the house, will remember that this ‘food’ ever existed.
When Claire exploits the house’s power in a moment of weakness, she and the house forge a fragile bond. But as its hunger intensifies and Claire starts to lose control, she fears who else might be drawn to her home – and what sinister appetites they’ll bring.
Death Writ Large
Susie Dent
When mysterious symbols appear as graffiti around Oxford, lexicographer Martha Thornhill recognises them from an alphabet created by a deceased writer whose papers she once worked on.
But this is no publicity stunt, and tensions intensify when further graffiti is found near the body of a university lecturer.
Martha is not the only one to have doubts when the suspicious death is assumed by police as suicide. Called upon to lend their linguistic expertise to the case, Martha and her colleagues begin to unearth a tragedy that extends beyond the ancient walls of the university.
As new messages portend more death, it’s clear that a spirit of vengeance is stalking the city’s streets, and may be reaching out towards them too.
The Things We Never Say
Elizabeth Strout
Artie Dam is a man with a secret. He spends his days teaching history to high schoolers, expanding their young minds, correcting their casual cruelties, and lending a kind word to those who need it most. He goes to holiday parties with his wife of three decades, makes small talk with neighbours, and, on weekends, takes his sailboat out on the beautiful Massachusetts Bay.
He is, by all appearances, present and alive. But inside, Artie is plagued by feelings of isolation. He looks out at a world gone mad—at himself and the people around him—and turns a question over and over in his mind: how is it that we know so little about one another, even those closest to us?
And then, one day, Artie learns that life has been keeping a secret from him, one that threatens to upend his entire world. Once he learns it, he is forced to chart a new course, to reconsider the relationships he holds most dear—and to make peace with the mysteries at the heart of our existence.
Rites of the Starling
Colm Toibin
Calandra’s five kingdoms are on the verge of destruction. The crux migration is coming. And in the wake of a devastating attack, I’ve been separated from the man who owns my heart.
I’m lost. Terrified. Homesick. Hunted by monsters, driven to exhaustion, and kidnapped by a powerful priest, the only thing keeping me going is the little girl counting on me to keep her safe.
It’s my turn to become the Guardian.
Our lives change one fateful night. A night of death. A night of monsters. A night of truths. That night, I learn the real meaning of fear and the depth of my own strength.
Everyone wants me to be something I’m not a queen, a spy, a sacrifice. But what if I embrace my crown? What if the secrets I uncover save our realm? What if my sacrifice means salvation for the man I love?
For too long, I’ve feared the monsters we make. It’s time to discover the monster within.
Lost Lambs
Madeline Cash
Think your family is dysfunctional? Meet the Flynns. For the three Flynn daughters, it’s been disastrous since their parents opened up their marriage.
Abigail, the eldest, is dating an ex-soldier several years her senior nicknamed ‘War Crimes Wes’.
Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist.
And the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to a wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone – or something – is monitoring the town’s citizens.
Casting a shadow across their lives is Paul Alabaster, a nefarious local billionaire. Rumours of corruption circulate, but no one dares dig too deep. No one except Harper, whose obsession with Alabaster’s machinations sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy – one that may just, finally, bring them closer together.
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