Bookish Vibes Book Club & Author Visit with Sarah Blake

 *Attention fellow readers and book lovers!* 

Are you an avid reader looking to discuss novels by popular and trending authors with other readers?  If so, our Bookish Vibes book club is for you! Bookish Vibes meets monthly at 7pm via Zoom and is all about “vibing” with a great read.  Our next meeting will be held on Thursday, July 22 at 7pm, where we will be discussing books by best selling author Sarah Blake.  The best part?  Sarah Blake will also be zooming into our discussion! 

If you have read books by Blake before, join us and discuss what you have read.  If you haven’t read books by Blake, a copy of her latest novel, The Guest House, will be available for you to borrow from the Patron Services Desk. You can register for our upcoming Bookish Vibes meeting, here.  The day before the event an email with information on how to access the Zoom meeting will be sent to you. 

Interested in exploring Sarah Blake’s other books?  You can find the below titles in the Library’s digital and print collection!

The Guest House print book | ebook | audiobook 

From the Publisher: “A novel about past mistakes and betrayals that ripple throughout generations, The Guest Book examines not just a privileged American family, but a privileged America. It is a literary triumph. The Guest Book follows three generations of a powerful American family, a family that “used to run the world.” And when the novel begins in 1935, they still do. Kitty and Ogden Milton appear to have everything–perfect children, good looks, a love everyone envies. But after a tragedy befalls them, Ogden tries to bring Kitty back to life by purchasing an island in Maine. That island, and its house, come to define and burnish the Milton family, year after year after year. And it is there that Kitty issues a refusal that will haunt her till the day she dies. In 1959 a young Jewish man, Len Levy, will get a job in Ogden’s bank and earn the admiration of Ogden and one of his daughters, but the scorn of everyone else. Len’s best friend, Reg Pauling, has always been the only black man in the room–at Harvard, at work, and finally at the Miltons’ island in Maine. An island that, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, this last generation doesn’t have the money to keep. When Kitty’s granddaughter hears that she and her cousins might be forced to sell it, and when her husband brings back disturbing evidence about her grandfather’s past, she realizes she is on the verge of finally understanding the silences that seemed to hover just below the surface of her family all her life.”

The Postmistress print book | ebook | audiobook 

From the Publisher: “In 1940, on the eve of the United States’ entrance into World War II, Iris James, the postmistress of Franklin, a small town on Cape Cod, does the unthinkable: she doesn’t deliver a letter.

In London, American radio gal Frankie Bard is working with Edward R. Murrow, reporting on the blitz. One night in a bomb shelter, she meets a doctor from Cape Cod with a letter in his pocket, a letter Frankie vows to deliver when she returns from Germany and France where she is to record the stories of war refugees desperately trying to escape.

The residents of Franklin think the war can’t touch them, but as Frankie’s radio broadcasts air, some know that the war is indeed coming. And when Frankie arrives at their doorstep, the two stories collide in a way no one could have foreseen.

The Postmistress is an unforgettable tale of the secrets we must bear or bury. It is about what happens to love during wartime, when those we cherish leave, and how every story—of love or war—is about looking left when we should have been looking right.”

Grange House print book

From the Publisher: “Maisie Thomas spends every summer with her parents at Grange House, a hotel on an island off the coast of Maine ruled by the elegant but distant Miss Grange. In 1898, when Maisie turns 17, her visit marks a turning point. On the morning after her arrival, local fishermen make a gruesome discovery: two drowned lovers, found clasped in each other’s arms. It’s only the first in a series of events that cast a shadow over Maisie’s summer. As she considers the attentions of two very different young men, one an adventurous writer, the other an ambitious businessman from her father’s company, Maisie also falls under the gaze of Miss Grange, who begins to tell her stories of her past. But which are truth and which are fiction? Another death, a cache of diaries, an exchange of letters–and a ghostly apparition–all play a part in changing Maisie’s life forever.”

We hope to see you at our May book club meeting!

-Jessica, Adult Services & Acquisitions Librarian 

Bookish Vibes Book Club & Author Visit with Susan Wiggs

* Attention fellow readers and book lovers!* 

Are you an avid reader looking to discuss novels by popular and trending authors with other readers?  If so, our Bookish Vibes book club is for you! Bookish Vibes meets monthly at 7pm via Zoom and is all about “vibing” with a great read.  Our next meeting will be held on Thursday, May 6 at 7pm, where we will be discussing books by best selling author Susan Wiggs.  The best part?  Susan Wiggs will also be zooming into our discussion! 

If you have read books by Wiggs before, join us and discuss what you have read.  If you haven’t read books by Wiggs, a copy of her latest novel The Lost and Found Bookshop will be available for you to borrow from the Patron Services Desk. You can register for our upcoming Bookish Vibes meeting, here.  The day before the event an email with information on how to access the Zoom meeting will be sent to you. 

Interested in exploring Susan Wiggs’ work?  You can find the below titles in the Library’s digital collections! You can also stop by the Library during our Browse & Borrow hours to browse the print collection of Wiggs’ work.

The Lost and Found Bookshop ebook | audiobook

From the Publisher: “Somewhere in the vast Library of the Universe, as Natalie thought of it, there was a book that embodied exactly the things she was worrying about. In the wake of a shocking tragedy, Natalie Harper inherits her mother’s charming but financially strapped bookshop in San Francisco. She also becomes caretaker for her ailing grandfather Andrew, her only living relative—not counting her scoundrel father.

But the gruff, deeply kind Andrew has begun displaying signs of decline. Natalie thinks it’s best to move him to an assisted living facility to ensure the care he needs. To pay for it, she plans to close the bookstore and sell the derelict but valuable building on historic Perdita Street, which is in need of constant fixing. There’s only one problem–Grandpa Andrew owns the building and refuses to sell. Natalie adores her grandfather; she’ll do whatever it takes to make his final years happy. Besides, she loves the store and its books provide welcome solace for her overwhelming grief.

After she moves into the small studio apartment above the shop, Natalie carries out her grandfather’s request and hires contractor Peach Gallagher to do the necessary and ongoing repairs. His young daughter, Dorothy, also becomes a regular at the store, and she and Natalie begin reading together while Peach works.  To Natalie’s surprise, her sorrow begins to dissipate as her life becomes an unexpected journey of new connections, discoveries and revelations, from unearthing artifacts hidden in the bookshop’s walls, to discovering the truth about her family, her future, and her own heart.”

The Oysterville Sewing Circle ebook 

From the Publisher: “At the break of dawn, Caroline Shelby rolls into Oysterville, Washington, a tiny hamlet at the edge of the raging Pacific. She’s come home.

Home to a place she thought she’d left forever, home of her heart and memories, but not her future. Ten years ago, Caroline launched a career in the glamorous fashion world of Manhattan. But her success in New York imploded on a wave of scandal and tragedy, forcing her to flee to the only safe place she knows.

And in the backseat of Caroline’s car are two children who were orphaned in a single chilling moment—five-year-old Addie and six-year-old Flick. She’s now their legal guardian—a role she’s not sure she’s ready for…”

Between You & Me audiobook 

From the Publisher: “Deep within the peaceful heart of Amish country, a life-or-death emergency shatters a quiet world to its core. Number-one New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs delivers a riveting story that challenges our deepest-held beliefs.

Caught between two worlds, Caleb Stoltz is bound by a deathbed promise to raise his orphaned niece and nephew in Middle Grove, where life revolves around family, farm, faith—and long-held suspicions about outsiders. When disaster strikes, Caleb is thrust into an urban environment of high-tech medicine and the relentless rush of modern life….”

Map of the Heart ebook | audiobook 

From the Publisher: “Widowed by an unspeakable tragedy, Camille Palmer has made her peace with the past and settled into the quiet safety of life with her teenage daughter Julie in a sleepy coastal town. Then the arrival of a mysterious package breaks open the door to her family’s secret past. In uncovering a hidden history, Camille has no idea that she’s embarking on an adventure that will utterly transform her.”

Family Tree ebook | audiobook 

From the Publisher: “Sometimes the greatest dream starts with the smallest element. A single cell, joining with another. And then dividing. And just like that, the world changes. Annie Harlow knows how lucky she is. The producer of a popular television cooking show, she loves her handsome husband and the beautiful Los Angeles home they share. And now, she’s pregnant with their first child. But in an instant, her life is shattered. And when Annie awakes from a yearlong coma, she discovers that time isn’t the only thing she’s lost.”

The Apple Orchard ebook 

From the Publisher: “Tess Delaney makes a living returning stolen treasures to their rightful owners. She loves illuminating history, filling the spaces in people’s hearts with stories of their family legacies.

But Tess’s own history is filled with gaps: a father she never met, and a mother who spent more time traveling than with her daughter.  Then Dominic Rossi arrives on the doorstep of the San Francisco shop Tess hopes to buy, and he tells her that the grandfather she never knew is in a coma. Tess has been named in his will to inherit half of Bella Vista, a hundred-acre apple orchard in the magical Sonoma town called Archangel.”

The Beekeeper’s Ball ebook 

From the Publisher: “Isabel Johansen, a celebrated chef who grew up in the sleepy Sonoma town of Archangel, is transforming her childhood home into a destination cooking school–a unique place for other dreamers to come and learn the culinary arts. Bella Vista’s rambling mission-style hacienda, with its working apple orchards, bountiful gardens and beehives, is the idyllic venue for Isabel’s project…and the perfect place for her to forget the past.

But Isabel’s carefully ordered plans begin to go awry when swaggering, war-torn journalist Cormac O’Neill arrives to dig up old history. He’s always been better at exposing the lives of others than showing his own closely guarded heart, but the pleasures of small-town life and the searing sensuality of Isabel’s kitchen coax him into revealing a few truths of his own.

The dreamy sweetness of summer is the perfect time of year for a grand family wedding and the enchanting Beekeeper’s Ball, bringing emotions to a head in a story where the past and present collide to create an unexpected new future.”

Just Breathe ebook

From the Publisher: “Sarah Moon tackles life’s issues with a sharp wit in her syndicated comic strip, Just Breathe. With both Sarah and her cartoon heroine undergoing fertility treatments, her fiction often reflects her reality. However, she hadn’t scripted her husband’s infidelity.

In the wake of her shattered marriage, Sarah flees to the coastal town in California where she grew up. There, she revisits her troubling past: an emotionally distant father, the loss of her mother and an unexpected connection with Will Bonner, the high school heartthrob skewered mercilessly in her comics. But he’s been through some changes himself. And just as her heart is about to reawaken, Sarah makes a most startling discovery. She’s pregnant. With her ex’s twins.”

The Lakeshore Chronicles ebook

From the Publisher: “Escape to the tranquil shores of Willow Lake with #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs in this collection of unforgettable tales from her beloved Lakeshore Chronicles series. SUMMER AT WILLOW LAKE Olivia Bellamy reluctantly trades in her Manhattan lifestyle for a summer renovating her family’s old resort camp in the Catskills. Shocked by the unexpected disarray of the resort, she is forced to turn to contractor Connor Davis for help-only to discover that the long-ago passion between them is still very much alive! THE WINTER LODGE When Jenny Majesky loses everything in a devastating house fire, she seeks refuge on the shores of Willow Lake. But as the local police chief, Rourke McKnight, tries to help her unravel the mysteries revealed by the fire, Jenny discovers that she still has something to lose-her heart. DOCKSIDE Nina Romano is ready to embrace the life she never truly had as a single mom-dating, traveling, and chasing dreams. But now that she’s finally on her own, Nina finds herself confronted with the last thing she expects to happen-falling head over heels for single father and inn owner Greg Bellamy!”

You can find even MORE Susan Wiggs novels through the Library’s collection on Overdrive / Libby, Hoopla Digital, and in print inside the library!

We hope to see you at our May book club meeting!

-Jessica, Adult Services & Acquisitions Librarian