Staff 
Recommendations

by Jess Montgomery

Kinship, Ohio, 1924: When Lily Ross learns that her husband, Daniel Ross, the town’s widely respected sheriff, is killed while transporting a prisoner, she is devastated and vows to avenge his death. Hours after his funeral, a stranger appears at her door. Marvena Whitcomb, a coal miner’s widow, is unaware that Daniel has died, and begs to speak with him about her missing daughter.

by S.A. Crosby

Gritty, fast moving murder mystery with interesting, complex characters. Like Blue Line Down the main characters were complex and flawed. The fathers of a murdered homosexual couple come together to find out who killed them. Explores the complex nature of love, justice, and the importance of accepting ones you love despite their flaws before it’s too late.

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Tells the story of the Buendia family, set against the background of the evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town.

by Ben Montgomery

Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than $200. The next anybody heard from her, this gentleel, warm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. And in September 1955, atop Maine's Mount Karahdin, she san the first verse of "America, the Beautiful" and proclaimed, "I said I'll do it, and I've done it." Grandma Garewood, as the perorates called her, became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone, as well as the first person - man or woman - to walk it twice and three times. The public attention she brought to the little-known footpath was unprecedented. Her vocal criticism of the lousy, difficult stretches led to bolstered maintenance, and very likely saved the trail from extinction.

by Leigh Bardugo

Alex Stern was the sole survivor of an unsolved multiple homicide back in California before she got a scholarship to Yale. She finds she doesn't really fit in there either, but she uses her ability to interact with ghosts to keep an eye on the mysterious secret societies full of the rich and powerful. Then her mentor disappears and a girl is murdered on campus.

by Lynne Truss

For people who both love and hate cats comes the tale of Alec Charlesworth, a librarian who finds himself suddenly alone: he's lost his job, his beloved wife has just died, and to top it all off, his sister has disappeared. Overcome by grief, he stands in his sister's kitchen staring at the only witness to what's happened to her: her cat, Roger. Who then speaks to him.

by Augusten Burroughs

For as long as Augusten Burroughs could remember, he knew things he shouldn't have known. He manifested things that shouldn't have come to pass. And he told exactly no one about this, save one person: his mother. His mother reassured him that it was all perfectly normal, that he was descended from a long line of witches, going back to the days of the early American colonies.

by Dean Koontz

A twist on the legend of Frankenstein - Victor Leben (who was known as Frankenstein), a mad scientist, uses stem cells to create a race of super humans (a perfect combination of flesh and machine). The survival of the human race rests with five people to prove him wrong. The dangers they face are more than they have ever encountered in the past.

by Max Brooks

As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier's eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined, until now. But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town's bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing and too death-shattering in its implications, to be forgotten. Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us, and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.

by Grady Hendrix

In horror movies, the final girl is the one who's left standing when the credits roll. The one who fought back, defeated the killer, and avenged her friends. The one who emerges bloodied but victorious, a victim and a hero. But after the sirens fade and the audience moves on, what happens to her?

by Maris Lawyer

an excellent historical fiction novel set in both VA and SC during prohibition. Having moved a year ago from the mountains of Northwest Virginia to South Carolina, both settings resonated with me. The novel’s strengths include: well-drawn characters; soul searching themes about poverty, love and violence; suspense; and depiction of life during the early 20th century's labor riots and push towards unionization. Being a recent transplant from the mountains of northwestern Virginia to South Carolina the book’s settings were especially relevant to me.

by S.A. Chakraborty

The City of Brass is the first book in the Daevabad trilogy, one of my absolute favorite fantasy series. Nahri is a con-woman in 18th century Cairo who accidentally summons an ancient djinn warrior and is introduced to a world of magic, court politics, and tribal feuds.

by Elizabeth Letts

The triumphant true story of a woman who rode her horse across America in the 1950s, fulfilling her dying wish to see the Pacific Ocean.

by Laurie Woolever

This unique approach to biography is a compilation of people associated with Anthony Bourdain in one form or another (brother, mother, wives, daughter, friends, coworkers, employees, etc.). Their contributions are pieced together in such a way that each chapter gives a voice to many individuals, all with experiences and insights into this charismatic and influential personality.

by Shirley Jackson

The classic supernatural thriller by an author who helped define the genre. First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. The story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers--and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

by Erik Larson

A serial killer is loose during the 1893 Chicago World Exposition.

by Grady Hendrix

A supernatural thriller set in South Carolina in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious stranger who turns out to be a real monster.

by Erik Larson

FDR's ambassador to Berlin, William Dodd, has a front row view of the increasing fear and terror of Nazi rule in Hitler-led Germany of the mid1930s.

by Charlie Donea

Inside the walls of Indiana's elite Westmont Preparatory High School, expectations run high and rules are strictly enforced. But in the woods beyond the manicured campus sits and abandoned boarding house, infamous among Westmont's students as a late-night hangout. Here, only one rule applies: don't let your candle go out-unless you want the Man in the Mirror to find you.

by Mary Roach

In an attempt to find out what happens when people die, the author of "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" brings her tireless curiosity to bear on an array of contemporary and historical soul-searchers: scientist, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that there is an afterlife.