On the shelves — Mar. 1

The following books are available for checkout:

Clovis-Carver Public Library

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson presents a lawyer’s view of the extent to which brutality, unfairness, and racial bias continue to infect criminal law in the U.S., and at the same time, recounts instances of human compassion, understanding, mercy, and justice that offer hope to the poor, the vulnerable, and the voiceless.

Designated Daughters by Margaret Maron takes place in a small town where Southern charm meets murder as Judge Deborah Knott’s beloved Aunt Rachel is smothered on her deathbed shortly after her mysterious and mixed-up ramblings threaten to reveal a secret worth killing for.

The New Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook by Ellen Brown puts America’s favorite pan through its paces with an outstanding collection of recipes ranging from traditional favorites to unexpected variations that prove how versatile the cherished black iron skillet can be.

Edge of Eternity: Book Three of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett follows the fortunes of five intertwined families as they make their way through the tumultuous era of the 1960s through the 1980s that encompassed civil rights, assassinations, Vietnam, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, and rock and roll.

Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival by Lawrence Gonzales reconstructs the 1989 crash of a fully loaded jumbo jet in which 184 of 296 passengers survived, capturing the harrowing journey of pilots flying without controls, flight attendants keeping their calm in the face of certain death, and passengers who sacrificed themselves to save others.

Night of the White Buffalo: A Wind River Mystery by Margaret Coel reunites Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden with Father John O’Malley after a man in the confessional says he murdered someone, a rancher is found shot in his truck, and three cowboys disappear from his ranch.

Defiant: The POWs Who Endured Vietnam’s Most Infamous Prison, the Women Who Fought for Them, and the One Who Never Returned by Alvin Townley provides a powerful story of survival and triumph that will inspire anyone wondering how courage, faith, and brotherhood can endure even in the darkest of situations.

The following books are available for checkout:

Portales

Public Library

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Rachel, depressed and mourning the loss of her former life after her divorce, lives in a state of constant drunkenness, and although she has recently lost her job, she continues to take the train every day, pretending that she still has somewhere to be.

During her daily commute she begins to watch a happy-looking couple as the train passes their backyard, calling them Jess and Jason and making up an elaborate imaginary life for them for her own amusement, to the point that she begins to feel like she knows them. Then one day Rachel is horrified to see Jess kissing another man, and then the next day, Jess — whose real name is Megan and just happens to be the neighbor of Rachel’s ex-husband and his new wife Anna — goes missing.

Rachel wants to help, and tells the police what she knows and what she has seen, but because Rachel herself often blacks out due to drinking too much, and because she was seen in the neighborhood the night that Megan disappeared, Rachel becomes a suspect in the investigation. Rachel can’t remember what happened during her blackout, and begins to wonder whether she has done more harm than good by involving herself in other people’s lives.

The Girls of Mischief Bay by Susan Mallery

Nicole Lord, Shannon Rigg and Pam Eiland are three friends living in Mischief Bay, South Carolina, each of a different age and dealing with different situations in their lives. Thirty-something Nicole’s husband Eric has just quit his job with the intention of staying home to work on a screenplay, and although she loves Eric, she struggles with being supportive of his new goal when she is left to deal with the housework, and their son, on her own, while also supporting the family financially with her own small business, working full-time hours on top of everything else. Shannon has never made settling down a priority, choosing instead to focus on her career, now the VP at a billion dollar company, but as she nears 40 she wonders whether she made the right choice, especially when she meets Adam, a widower and father of two children.

Pam, almost 50, begins to feel self-conscious about her age and her body and feels restless now that her children are all grown up. Hoping to bring renewed romance to her marriage with her husband , she books a vacation for the two of them at a spa, and thinks about getting Botox. As each woman navigates her own routines, problems and love life, they rely on each other and find that for all of them, life offers possibilities and outcomes that they never expected.

Hush, Hush by Laura Lippman

When former reporter and private investigator Tess Monaghan is asked to help a woman named Melissandre Harris Dawes, Tess has no interest. Years ago on a hot summer day, Melisandre left her 2-month-old daughter in her car by herself while she sat outside on the shores of the Patapsco River, but when she was tried in court for her daughter’s resulting death, she was charged with criminal insanity and was found not guilty.

After the trial, Melisandre left her husband and two remaining daughters, moving out of the country. Now, Melisandre has come back home to Baltimore and wants to film her reunion with her two teenage daughters, wanting to include the footage in a documentary she is working on, and Tyner Gray, Melisandre’s lawyer and Tess’s good friend, wants Tess and her new partner, retired homicide detective Sandy Sanchez, to keep an eye on Melisandre, who may or may not still be mentally unstable.

Tess doesn’t trust a woman who killed her own child, and as she gets to know Melisandre and sees how manipulative she can be, she begins to doubt that she was ever truly insane. Then Melisandre becomes a suspect in a murder, and as Tess and Sandy investigate the woman they were hired to assist, Tess realizes that they may be in danger of someone other than Melisandre.

— Summaries

by library staff