Check this out, at the library this week
Howard County Library is excited to present more tablets for kids, the Launchpad Reading Academy tablets are available for check out now. Launchpad Reading Academy is a 5-level guided system that helps kids learn to read with apps, storybooks, and videos. No downloads, and no Wi-fi required. Borrow a tablet at the right level for your child and watch the learning happen right before your eyes. They are available for a 7 day checkout period, no renewals and limited to one tablet per family, only an adult may checkout. Ask for more information at the circulation desk. Join us again this week on Facebook for virtual Babytime on Tuesday, Thursday morning for Storytime and Thursday afternoon for virtual Code Club on Zoom. There is no registration required for any of the virtual programs all information will be posted on our Facebook page.
This week’s reviews are fiction titles.
Nina once bought into the idea that her fancy liberal arts degree would lead to a fulfilling career in “Pretty Things” (F BRO J) by Janelle Brown. When that dream crashed, she turned to stealing from rich kids in LA alongside her wily Irish boyfriend, Lachlan. Nina learned from the best, her mother was the original con artist, hustling to give her daughter a decent childhood despite their wayward life. But when her mom gets sick, Nina puts everything on the line to help her, even if it means running her most audacious, dangerous scam yet. Vanessa is a privileged young heiress who wanted to make her mark in the world. Instead she becomes an Instagram influencer, traveling the globe, receiving free clothes and products, and posing for pictures in exotic locales. But behind the covetable façade is a life marked by tragedy. After a broken engagement, Vanessa retreats to her family’s sprawling mountain estate, Stonehaven, a mansion of dark secrets not just from Vanessa’s past, but from that of a lost and troubled girl named Nina. Nina’s, Vanessa’s, and Lachlan’s paths collide here, on the cold shores of Lake Tahoe, where their intertwined lives give way to a winter of aspiration and desire, duplicity and revenge.
One bright morning in May 1875, Elizabeth Todd Edwards is shocked to learn that her younger sister Mary Lincoln, former First Lady and widow of President Abraham Lincoln, has tried to poison herself in “Mrs. Lincoln’s Sisters” (F CHI J) by Jennifer Chiaverini. Although they have long been estranged, Elizabeth knows how tenuous Mary’s mental health has been after losing three sons and witnessing her husband’s murder. Robert, her eldest and only surviving child, has become convinced that his mother is a danger to herself and has begun legal proceedings to have her committed. Is Mary’s attempt to take her own life truly the impulse of a deranged mind, or the desperate act of a traumatized but sane woman terrified of being locked away in an asylum? Searching for answers, Elizabeth looks back at Mary’s fraught history with her closest sisters; Ann, Frances, Emilie, and herself and the divergent paths of their lives. Jennifer Chiaverini reveals how the fortunes of these sisters, born into wealth and privilege in a genteel Southern family , become forever bound to their husbands’ choices and will be tested by war and the loss of children, husbands, and siblings. The bonds uniting them are frayed by grief, distance, and discord. Is sisterly love powerful enough to save Mary, who had risen higher than any of them but endured far more suffering? Though she may fail, Elizabeth knows for her sister’s sake, and her own, she must try.
It’s 2 A.M. on a Saturday night in the spring of 2001 in “The Lies that Bind” (F GIF E) by Emily Giffin, and twenty-eight-year-old Cecily Gardner sits alone in a dive bar in New York’s East Village, questioning her life. Feeling lonesome and homesick for the Midwest, she wonders if she’ll ever make it as a reporter in the big city and whether she made a terrible mistake in breaking up with her longtime boyfriend, Matthew. As Cecily reaches for the phone to call him, she hears a guy on the barstool next to her say, “Don’t do it—you’ll regret it.” Something tells her to listen, and over the next several hours, and a few shots, she and Grant forge an unlikely connection. That should be it, they both decide the next morning, as Cecily reminds herself of the perils of a rebound relationship. Moreover, their timing couldn’t be worse, Grant is preparing to quit his job and move overseas. Yet despite all their obstacles, they can’t seem to say goodbye, and for the first time in her carefully constructed life, Cecily follows her heart instead of her head. Then Grant disappears in the chaos of 9/11. Fearing the worst, Cecily spots his face on a missingperson poster, and realizes she is not the only one searching for him. Her investigative reporting instincts kick into action as she vows to discover the truth. But the questions pile up fast: How well did she really know Grant? Did he ever really love her? And is it possible to love a man who wasn’t who he seemed to be?
What happens after you've saved the world? Well, if you're Rachel Mariana Morgan, witch-born demon, you quickly discover that something might have gone just a little bit wrong in “American Demon” – The Hollows series #14 (F HAR K) by Kim Harrison. That the very same acts you and your friends took to forge new powers may have released something bound by the old. With a rash of zombies, some strange new murders, and an exceedingly mysterious new demon in town, it will take everything Rachel has to counter this new threat to the world and it may demand the sacrifice of what she holds most dear.
“Even today, when I read, I notice with pleasure when an author has chosen a particular word, a particular place, for the picture it will convey to the reader.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg, My Own Words
Howard County Library is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, for Grab & Go access to the library. Customers have 30 minutes to browse the shelves, checkout items, make copies and send a fax, an appointment is still required to use a computer. Please visit our website at http://howard-county.ploud.net and our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/howardcolibrary for more information. You may reach us at 432-264-2260 and our fax number is 432-264-2263.