Librarian Book Chat Picks

"Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing. Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn't one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she's the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they're long-stemmed roses, she's a dandelion: an adorable bloom that's actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that...

"A gripping historical mystery based on the real-life diary entries of Martha Ballard, an 18th-century midwife who found herself at the center of a murder trial"--

"A struggling playwright--Holly Sherwin--her musician girlfriend, and a few friends find a creepy old mansion on an isolated hill from which to rehearse Holly's most ambitious play. Ignoring the red flags about the house and setting, the friends soon find themselves fighting each other--and the house itself."--

What happens when two ambitious young women, opposite in every way, join forces in a competitive male-dominated industry? Wren and Thessaly collide when they land coveted jobs at a glamorous New York City boutique wine importer. Hardworking, by-the-book Wren comes from a modest background and has everything to prove while Thessaly hails from a family of prestigious California growers--but she is plagued by self-doubt. Thrown together at work, where...

When Jess Lands a job as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, she's less than thrilled to learn she'll be on the same team as Josh, her old sparring partner from college. Josh loves playing the devil's advocate and is just...the worst. But when Jess finds herself the sole Black woman on the floor, overlooked and underestimated, it's Josh who shows up for her in surprising, if imperfect ways. Before long, an unlikely friendship, one tinged with undeniable...

"Nineteen years old, broke, and effectively an orphan, Magnolia doesn't have much to look forward to. She feels stuck and haunted: by her overdrawn bank account, by her predatory landlord, by the ghost of her late grandmother Mama Brown. One night while working at her dead-end gas station job, a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton walks in and offers to turn Magnolia's luck around. He offers her a lucrative "modeling" job at his family's funeral...

"Fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college, in spite of having a mother more interested in keeping a man than raising a daughter. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright...Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University,...

Three generations of the Desai women--sixty-five-year-old Bindu; her daughter-in-law, Aly; and her granddaughter, Cullie--navigate bad dates, reemerging exes, and secrets that refuse to remain hidden as they embark on a daring shared journey of self-discovery to live their most authentic lives.

"A vivid reimagining of the woman who inspired Hester Prynne, the tragic heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and a journey into the enduring legacy of New England's witchcraft trials. Who is the real Hester Prynne? Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with her husband, Edward. An apothecary who has fallen under the spell of opium, his pile of debts...