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What’s Happening At the Library!
The library board enlisted the professional services of Allstate Consultants an engineering firm to do an on-site inspection that took place on May 3, 2022.
NEW BOOK ARRIVALS
She thought she was alone…
True crime writer Wylie Lark doesn’t mind being snowed in at the isolated farmhouse where she’s retreated to write her new book. A cozy fire, complete silence. It would be perfect, if not for the fact that decades earlier, at this very house, two people were murdered in cold blood and a girl disappeared without a trace.
As the storm worsens, Wylie finds herself trapped inside the house, haunted by the secrets contained within its walls—haunted by secrets of her own. Then she discovers a small child in the snow just outside. After bringing the child inside for warmth and safety, she begins to search for answers. But soon it becomes clear that the farmhouse isn’t as isolated as she thought, and someone is willing to do anything to find them.
Lexi Villiers is a 29-year-old Englishwoman doing her medical residency in Hobart, working too hard, worried about her bank balance, and living with friends. It's a good life, and getting even better, because as the dawn is breaking on New Year's Day, Lexi is about to kiss the man she loves for the very first time.
But by midnight, everything will change. Because Lexi is in fact not an ordinary young woman. She is Princess Alexandrina, third in line to the British throne - albeit estranged from the rest of her family and living in voluntary exile on the other side of the world. But following a terrible accident, Lexi - the black sheep of her family and, until this moment, always destined to be the spare - is now the heir apparent, first in line to the throne once her grandmother, the elderly Queen, dies. Called back to do her duty, she arrives in London to a Palace riven with power plays and media leaks, all the while guarding painful secrets of her own. Palace waters are treacherous, rumours are rife, and selling each other's secrets is a family tradition. And with the Crown just within her grasp, Lexi must choose what bonds she will keep ... and what she is willing to leave behind.
It was supposed to be the party of the century: miles of idyllic white sand beaches, lush jungle foliage...and a dark legend nobody dreamed might be all too true.
When an online influencer and several hundred of his most loyal fans land on Prosperity Island, the plan is simple: five days of elaborate games, drinking, and suntanned fun.
A week in paradise should have been a welcome respite. The only survivor of an infamous cult, Ruth wants nothing more than to keep her head down and not draw attention. She's spent decades outrunning her blood-soaked childhood, and her identity is a closely held secret.
But then the true history of the island is revealed…along with its sinister connection to Ruth's past. As guests go missing and games turn deadly, Ruth and the rest of the attendees are forced to question whether they've really been invited to paradise...or whether something much darker―and far bloodier―is waiting for them just beyond the bonfire's light.
A missing girl. A frantic mother. A desperate search.
Across the country, notes taped to restroom stalls read, “On a date that isn’t going well? Ask for Andrea at the bar. We’ll make sure you get home safe.”
But Andrea—the girl behind the campaign—didn’t make it home safe.
She disappeared without a trace at seventeen. The police labeled her a runaway, and the case went cold. That is, until her mother, Sabina, starts digging for answers.
But the closer she gets to the truth, the clearer it becomes that not everyone wants Andrea to be found. A predator is hiding in plain sight, keeping close tabs on the search. And he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure his secrets stay buried.
Forget You Saw Her is the chilling standalone prequel to the international bestseller Ask for Andrea.
In this riveting dark fantasy debut, a woman with missing memories fights to survive a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy—and the man tasked with unearthing the deepest secrets of her past.
“What is it you think you’re protecting in that brain of yours? The war is over. Holdfast is dead. The Eternal Flame extinguished. There’s no one left for you to save.”
Once a promising alchemist, Helena Marino is now a prisoner—of war and of her own mind. Her Resistance friends and allies have been brutally murdered, her abilities suppressed, and the world she knew destroyed.
In the aftermath of a long war, Paladia’s new ruling class of corrupt guild families and depraved necromancers, whose vile undead creatures helped bring about their victory, holds Helena captive.
According to Resistance records, she was a healer of little importance within their ranks. But Helena has inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture, making her enemies wonder: Is she truly as insignificant as she appears, or are her lost memories hiding some vital piece of the Resistance’s final gambit?
To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world. Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena’s fight—to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self—is just beginning. For her prison and captor have secrets of their own . . . secrets Helena must unearth, whatever the cost.
After losing her job, her fiancé, and her home in one fell swoop, Natalie Belmont leaves the city without a plan… and without a working car. Suddenly stranded on the snowy backroads of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Natalie only needs a place to stay for the night, but the charming—and incredibly persuasive—innkeeper at The Mistletoe House has something much more festive in mind.
Now cast as one of Santa’s helpers in the tiny town of Chestnut Cove, Natalie is thrust into a Christmas wonderland brought to life, complete with a magical workshop, a snow-dusted sleigh, and a real-life reindeer. A very aromatic reindeer, one with a spleen-shattering hind kick.
For some people, this might be a dream come true (minus the reindeer), but Natalie has a problem, and it’s a big after a holiday tragedy upended her childhood, she no longer has the Christmas spirit.
But Chestnut Cove has a way of making miracles happen, and maybe a warm and welcoming community, a hundred-foot Christmas tree, and a small-town doctor with a heart of gold can change Natalie’s mind… and help her discover that the life she’s always dreamed of can be found in the most unexpected of places.
Seven college students set out to explore an abandoned 1800s mining ghost town and Native American village with their Anthropology professor, Dr. Bailey. One student does not return from the trip. His death is ruled an accident. Eighteen years later, the students are invited back to the same town to enjoy the preview opening of a new resort, The Village, that has been built from the remains of an old saloon in hopes of growing the town again. But the invitation is deceiving. The resort's owner is unknown, and the group of adults can't find any information about it online. Slowly, the guests start dying. Will the former Anthropology students find out who is behind this trip before they all end up dead?
A blizzard has arrived, trapping the former students with no contact with the outside world. As people start dying one by one, they have to figure out who has invited them back to The Village for revenge. Set in an old mining town in rural Montana, this locked room mystery will keep readers guessing until the end.
In 1930s Berlin, dark days dawn under Hitler’s Third Reich. For nineteen-year-old Sophia Alexander, life will never be the same. The daughter of a respected doctor, Sophia has always believed that her destiny is to look after others, and as the persecution of Jewish families begins, she joins a group of dissidents who are committed to helping them to safety.
As war is declared, Sophia answers her religious calling and enters a convent, where she continues to fight bravely against the Nazi regime. That is until the fateful day she is arrested and taken to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where her only hope of survival is to escape and successfully make the dangerous journey to the border.
Sophia’s situation is further complicated when she meets a US airman, shot down nearby. As she nurses him back to health, they grow close, but she is still resolute that her destiny is with the Church.
As Sophia looks for a sign of which path to follow, will she have the strength to question what she has committed her whole life to?
Minnesota, 1977. For the teens of one close-knit community, summer means late-night swimming parties at the quarry, the county fair, and venturing into the tunnels beneath the city. But for two best friends, it’s not all fun and games.
Heather and Brenda have a secret. Something they saw in the dark. Something they can’t forget. They’ve decided to never tell a soul. But their vow is tested when their friend disappears—the second girl to vanish in a week. And yet the authorities are reluctant to investigate.
Heather is terrified that the missing girls are connected to what she and Brenda stumbled upon that night. Desperately searching for answers on her own, she learns that no one in her community is who they seem to be. Not the police, not the boys she met at the quarry, not even her parents. But she can’t stop digging because she knows those girls are in danger.
She also knows she’s next.
To Kaley Arens, a PhD student and expert in folklore, fairy stories have always had a power and an allure beyond mere entertainment.
It’s only when Kaley accompanies her lifelong friend Jobi on a visit to his home that she realizes how much she still has to learn. Bellis isn’t the remote island that she believed it to be. It’s another world—a stunningly beautiful and seductive one, with its own royalty, its own rules, and inhabitants who breathe life into the tales she was taught were fiction.
Kaley’s presence is no simple holiday. She has a mysterious connection with Jobi and with Bellis, and abilities that may help determine this world’s fate. Tasked with locating a lost prince, Kaley and her companions—the enigmatic Tanek, a member of the Order of Swans, and Sojee, Kaley's colossal bodyguard—journey through a land both thrilling and terrifying, where the uncanny and the familiar go hand in hand.
But in fairy tales, heroes and villains are easy to discern. Here, nothing is quite as it seems. And though Kaley is discovering that she can change the outcome of the fairy tales she knows so well, her own story is unfolding in ways impossible to predict, with a destiny she could never have foretold…
They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.
Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who knows she’s going to go home and marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.
Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.
It’s 11:59.
And the city that never sleeps is afraid to get out of bed.
A bomb explodes in a crowded New York subway station at exactly 11:59 a.m. The next day, a second blast rips through a busy department store—again at 11:59.
As the bombs go off with clockwork precision, the death toll climbs and businesses shut their doors as the city hunkers down in fear.
NYPD Red Detectives Kylie MacDonald and Zach Jordan face their most twisted case ever, as they race against the clock in search of one man who has vowed “to destroy New York City the way it destroyed my family.”
Vic Hale isn’t anyone’s idea of a father figure. He is one of the biggest – and loudest -- podcasters in the nation and got there by spewing overheated rhetoric that’s reviled by some but loved by even more. His particular brand of “entertainment” is so successful, he’s about to sign the biggest contract in the history of online broadcasting. Vic’s riding high...until he gets a visit from Spenser, who specializes in bringing guys like Hale back down to Earth.
Spenser is there on behalf of Daniel Lopez, a young man who believes Hale may be his father. It’s a potentially explosive revelation for a man in the podcaster’s position and it might even be enough to blow up his massive new deal. That could explain the bodies that start popping up – bodies connected in one way or another with the mystery surrounding Daniel’s birth. There are a lot of questions remaining, and Spenser’s going to have to find the answers before someone shuts Hale or Daniel up for good.
From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing.
Shari Franke’s childhood was a constant battle for survival. Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2.5 million subscribers. But a darker truth lurked beneath the surface—Ruby’s wholesome online persona masked a more tyrannical parenting style than anyone could have imagined.
As the family’s YouTube notoriety grew, so too did Ruby’s delusions of righteousness. Fueled by the sadistic influence of relationship coach Jodi Hildebrandt, together they implemented an inhumane and merciless disciplinary regime.
Ruby and Jodi were arrested in Utah in 2023 on multiple charges of aggravated child abuse. On that fateful day, Shari shared a photo online of a police car outside their home. Her caption had one word: “Finally.”
For the first time, Shari will reveal the disturbing truth behind 8 Passengers and her family’s devastating involvement with Jodi Hildebrandt’s cultish life coaching program, “ConneXions.” No stone is left unturned as Shari exposes the perils of influencer culture and shares for the first time her battle for truth and survival in the face of her mother’s cruelty.
Well-read and world-weary, Sheriff Walt Longmire has been maintaing order in Wyoming's Absaroka County for more than thirty years, but in this riveting seventh outing, he is pushed to his limits. Raynaud Shade, an adopted Crow Indian, has just confessed to murdering a boy ten years ago and burying him deep within the Big Horn Mountains. After transporting Shade and a group of other convicted murderers through a snowstorm, Walt is informed by the FBI that the body is buried in his jurisdiction-and the victim's name is White Buffalo. Guided only by Indian mysticism and a battered paperback of Dante's Inferno, Walt pursues Shade and his fellow escapees into the icy hell of the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area, cheating death to ensure that justice-both civil and spiritual-is served.
In the early hours of Sunday, August 5, 1962, Marilyn Monroe’s live-in housekeeper wakes with a sinking feeling. She knocks loudly at her employer’s locked bedroom door, and when there is no answer, she calls Monroe’s psychiatrist, Ralph Greenson.
Greenson breaks into Monroe’s bedroom and finds a horrifying the thirty-six-year-old movie star lying naked, lifeless, face down on her bed, still clutching the telephone receiver.
At 4:20 a.m., Greenson alerts the LAPD.
It is established protocol for the chief medical examiner to conduct celebrity autopsies, but inexplicably, junior medical examiner Dr. Thomas Noguchi performs the procedure on the five-four, 118-pound actress. When you are a coroner, Noguchi believes, you start from the assumption that every body you examine might be a murder victim.
In those final summer days, did Marilyn Monroe have more enemies than friends?
Scotland, 1563: Crops failed. People starved. And the Devil's influence was stronger than ever—at least, that's what everyone believed. If you were a woman living in Scotland during this turbulent time, there was a very good chance that you, or someone you knew, would be tried as a witch.
During the chaos of the Reformation, violence against women was codified for the first time in the Witchcraft Act—a tool of theocratic control with one chilling to root out witches and rid the land of evil. What followed was a dark and misogynistic chapter in history that fanned the flames of witch hunts across the globe, including in the United States and beyond.
In How to Kill a Witch, Zoe Venditozzi and Claire Mitchell, hosts of the popular Witches of Scotland podcast, unravel the grim yet absurdly bureaucratic process of identifying, accusing, trying, and executing women as witches. With sharp wit and keen feminist insight, they reveal the inner workings of a patriarchal system designed to weaponize fear and oppress women.
This captivating (and often infuriating) account, which weaves a rich tapestry of trial transcripts, witness accounts, and the documents that set the legal grounds for the witch hunts, exposes how this violent period of history mirrors today's struggles for justice and equality. How to Kill a Witch is a powerful, darkly humorous reminder of the dangers of superstition, bias, and ignorance, and a warning to never forget the past… while raising the question of whether it could ever happen again.
Harry Bosch is California's newest private investigator. He doesn't advertise, he doesn't have an office, and he's picky about who he works for, but it doesn't matter. His chops from thirty years with the LAPD speak for themselves.
Soon one of Southern California's biggest moguls comes calling. The reclusive billionaire is nearing the end of his life and is haunted by one regret. When he was young, he had a relationship with a Mexican girl, his great love. But soon after becoming pregnant, she disappeared. Did she have the baby? And if so, what happened to it?
Desperate to know whether he has an heir, the dying magnate hires Bosch, the only person he can trust. With such a vast fortune at stake, Harry realizes that his mission could be risky not only for himself but for the one he's seeking. But as he begins to uncover the haunting story--and finds uncanny links to his own past--he knows he cannot rest until he finds the truth.
At the same time, unable to leave cop work behind completely, he volunteers as an investigator for a tiny cash-strapped police department and finds himself tracking a serial rapist who is one of the most baffling and dangerous foes he has ever faced.
THE REST OF THE STORY...
Buck Turner, Author of The Long Road Back To You, brings you the highly anticipated companion novel I'll Wait
We all know Charlie's side of the story. Now, see the beloved romance through the eyes of Anna, his true love. In I'll Wait, get a fresh perspective from the young woman who experienced it all. From the first breathless moment, when she fell in love, to the day she finally overcame the obstacles and found true happiness.
This story goes back to the beginning, to the early days when Charlie caught Anna's eye. Watch as Anna falls in love, endures countless tragedies, and becomes a strong woman along the way.
Heart-warming and heart-breaking, this is not just a love story, it's a life story.
Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that's before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart.
Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother's enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves?
NEW MOVIE ARRIVALS
Sonny Hayes was the most promising phenom in the 1990s in FORMULA 1® until an accident on the track. Thirty years later, his former teammate Ruben Cervantes convinces him to come back and drive alongside hotshot rookie Joshua Pearce for one last chance to be the best in the world. Sonny’s past catches up with him, and he finds that the road to redemption is not something you can travel alone.
The oil business, politics, Inuit customs, and animal preservation normally don't mix, especially when the press gets involved. But a funny thing happens when Alaska television reporter Adam Carlson (John Krasinski) discovers a trio of gray whales trapped in the ice near the small town of Point Barrow. Adam's report gets national exposure, and his ex-girlfriend and Greenpeace worker Rachel (Drew Barrymore) hears the story, begins lobbying politicians to save the whales, and hops a plane for Alaska. The story reaches the local Inupiat people and millions of Americans, including oil tycoon J.W. McGraw (Ted Danson), presidential aide Kelly Meyers (Vinessa Shaw), Marine colonel Scott Boyer (Dermot Mulroney), and Los Angeles reporter Jill Jerard (Kristen Bell). Each gets involved in the fight for their own distinct reason. The Inupiat whalers decide to help the whales rather than hunt them, in a round-about effort to preserve their way of life, while McGraw sees the project as an opportunity to make his environmentally unfriendly oil-drilling business look like it cares about the earth. Meyers sees an opportunity to curry political popularity for President Reagan, while Boyer is simply following orders and Jerard is looking to advance her career. The group forms an unlikely alliance and pools their resources in an effort to save the three gray whales, but the experience leaves each of them unexpectedly changed. Based on a true story from 1988, the film is a masterful blend of pure entertainment and a sometimes almost documentary style that manages to be quite appealing to both children and adults. The references to '80s culture and politics are spot-on and will inspire more than a few smirks and snickers from adult audience members, and the environmental message of the film is heartening to all ages. But perhaps the most powerful thing about the film is its honest look at what motivates people and how, in America, even the most diametrically opposed factions can occasionally join forces to achieve a common good. (Ages 7 and older)
From Alejandro Monteverde, award-winning director of 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮, comes the powerful epic of Francesca Cabrini, an Italian immigrant who arrives in New York City in 1889 and is greeted by disease, crime, and impoverished children. Cabrini sets off on a daring mission to convince the hostile mayor to secure housing and healthcare for society's most vulnerable. With broken English and poor health, Cabrini builds an empire of hope unlike anything the world had ever seen. Bring Francesca’s powerful mission into your home when you own Cabrini on DVD and Blu-ray. This cinematic masterpiece stars Cristiana Dell'Anna and John Lithgow.
Set against the backdrop of a 60s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, Marvel’s First Family faces a daunting challenge. Forced to balance being heroes with their family bond, they must defend Earth from a space god and his enigmatic herald.
Levon Cade left behind a decorated military career in the black ops to live a simple life working construction. But when his boss’s daughter, who is like family to him, is taken by human traffickers, his search to bring her home uncovers a world of corruption far greater than he ever could have imagined.
Martial arts superstar Jet Li delivers a break-out performance in the gripping, action-packed story about a man raised from childhood by a ruthless crime boss (Academy Award® nominee Bob Hoskins) and becomes a violent killing machine. When a blind piano tuner (Academy Award® winner Morgan Freeman) takes him in, Danny (Li) tries to start a new life, but his brutal past follows him, forcing him to fight back. Featuring breath-taking fight choreography by Yuen Woo Ping (The Matrix and Kill Bill: Vols. 1 & 2).
It is a bedtime story nearly every kid in the small town of Summerset has heard. A silly story passed down from generation to generation that offers just enough chills to keep the legend alive. This year is different. Seven year old Amanda Drake (Caitlin Carmichael) is swiped from her bedroom window. Rumors swirl. The Witch has returned. Always up for a good fright, and a chance to impress the girls, 18 year old Zach (Justin Deeley) and his friends decide to sneak into the woods and find the mysterious old house where the legendary Witch supposedly lives. Unbeknownst to Zach, his younger brother Max (Devon Werkheiser) and Max's "girlfriend" Sammy (Diana Hopper) sneak along. They all soon discover that folklore isn't always myth and that bedtime stories sometimes come true. The Witch has indeed returned with the intent of casting her magical spells to deceive, hunt and ultimately consume the local children to keep her young, older ones to keep her strong and pretty ones to keep her beautiful. Zach and Max, who can't stand each other, and their teenage friends find themselves trapped in the Witch's lair. They must bury their differences or be buried themselves. There is no escape from "The Wicked" once the spell has been cast.
Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan reprise their roles in this hilarious sequel. Tess?s daughter Anna now has a daughter of her own and soon, a stepdaughter. As they navigate the joys and challenges when two families merge, lightning just may strike twice.
From the world of John Wick, a young female assassin seeks revenge against the people who killed her family.
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