NCW Libraries

"Jess needs a fresh start. She's broke and alone, and she's just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn't sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn't say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up, to find a very nice apartment, (could Ben really have afforded this?) he's not there. The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig...

"The Candy House opens with the staggeringly brilliant Bix Bouton, whose company, Mandala, is so successful that he is "one of those tech demi-gods with whom we're all on a first name basis." Bix is 40, with four kids, restless, desperate for a new idea, when he stumbles into a conversation group, mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or "externalizing" memory. It's 2010. Within a decade, Bix's new technology, "Own...

"A story of summer, secrets, love and lies: in the course of a singular day on Cape Cod, one woman must make a life-changing decision that has been brewing for decades. Set against the summer backwoods and beaches of Cape Cod, The Paper Palace unfolds over 24 hours and across 50 years, as decades of family legacy, love, lies, secrets, and one unspeakable childhood tragedy lead wife and mother Elle Bishop to the precipice of a life-changing decision....

Taken hostage by a failed bank robber while attending an open house, eight anxiety-prone strangers--including a redemption-seeking bank director, two couples who would fix their marriages, and a plucky octogenarian--discover their unexpected common traits. Viewing an apartment normally doesn't turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that: a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage....

"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone and The Family Upstairs comes another riveting work of "gloriously twisted" (Marie Claire) psychological suspense. On a beautiful summer night in a charming English suburb, a young woman and her boyfriend disappear after partying at the massive country estate of a new college friend. One year later, a writer moves into a cottage on the edge of the woods that border the same estate....

"Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he'd like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood. Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are still young--but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about...

"Set against the backdrop of the Malibu surf culture of the 1980s this novel follows the daughter of a famous singer who, once she finds fame, must grapple with the fact that her father abandoned her and her siblings when they were young"-- August 1983. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their baby sister, Kit....

"The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and...

"A sophisticated female-led thriller about a woman whose life starts to unravel as a result of her friendship with an unpredictable single mother, Greenwich Park explores the terrible consequences of guilt, the complexity of female friendships, and the fallibility of the memories we cherish"-- Helen has a handsome architect husband, gorgeous Victorian house, and cherished baby on the way after years of trying, But her life begins to change the day...

Towles delivers a sophisticated and entertaining debut novel about an irresistible young woman with an uncommon sense of purpose. Elegant and captivating, "Rules of Civility" turns a Jamesian eye on how spur of the moment decisions define life for decades to come. 352 pp. 75,000 print. Buyer's Choice