Bookend

On the worst of many bad days, Nora Seed decides to kill herself.  Her cat died. She was fired from the music store where she worked. Her last piano student is quitting. Her brother won't forgive her for backing out of the band they were in when a music label wanted to sign them. She realizes she has no friends. After swallowing a large quantity of pills and alcohol, she finds she isn't dead. She's in a library facing Mrs. Elm, her grade school librarian. "Between life and death there is a library,’ Mrs. Elm tells her. ‘And within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be different if you had made other choices . . ." But first, Nora needs to read THE BOOK OF REGRETS, all the things she wished she'd done differently during her life: pursued swimming, making her father happy, and possibly going to the Olympics; becoming a glaciologist; marrying the man she'd aba...

By Kate Quinn Kate Quinn's latest World War II novel is set in Bletchley Park, Britain's famed code-breaking center. For Osla Kendall, Mab Churt and Beth Finch, Bletchley offers a way to contribute to the war effort using talents previously rarely appreciated.  Osla is a debutante who wants to be recognized for her brains as well as her beauty. With a finishing school education and an excellent command of German, she translates previously coded messages.  Mab wants to rise above her impoverished Shoreditch background. She taught herself to speak and dress properly and earned her way through secretarial school. She does clerical and administrative functions at Bletchley Park.  Beth is a town girl, born and raised in Bletchley. Held tightly under her controlling mother's thumb, she never imagined she could be a code-breaker until Osla recognizes her talent for crossword- and puzzle- solving and recommends her for a job at Bletchley.  But in time, Bletchley's world of s...

This is Andrea Wilson Woods' heart-wrenching memoir of her 15-year-old sister's, Adrienne Wilson's, battle against late stage liver cancer. Specifically, Adrienne was diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a rare condition in teenagers and usually associated with chronic hepatitis B and C infections. As the two sisters come to realize, their drug-using mother, a nurse, probably had at least hepatitis B when she gave birth to Adrienne. At the time (1986), pregnant women and newborns weren't regularly tested for hepatitis. When their mother discovered later that she had hepatitis, Andrea wasn't informed enough to realize that Adrienne should be tested as well. While much of this story deals with the battle that Adrienne waged against the cancer and Andrea waged as an advocate for her sister with the health care system, insurance companies and the Burbank school system, it is also a deeply touching story about the relationship between the two sisters. Andrea an...

By Elly Griffiths A 90-year-old woman with a pair of binoculars, a notebook and an extensive library of detective fiction is found dead by her caregiver. A heart attack?  Her doctor says yes. Her friends think of Peggy Smith's regular beach walks, insistence on taking the stairs instead of the elevator and her lively energy.  And then they find the business card saying "Peggy Smith. Murder Consultant" and so many murder mysteries on her bookshelves dedicated to Peggy. Her caregiver Natalka Kolisnyk, her neighbor Edwin Fitzgerald and the owner of a nearby coffee stand Benedict Cole decide to search for more evidence to support their suspicion that Peggy's death was not natural. They find a plain postcard with the words, "We are coming for you" tucked into a Dex Challoner mystery book that Peggy was reading when she died. A masked, gunman with keys to Peggy's apartment enters while they are going through her books looking for clues.  The gunman picks up an...