NCW Libraries

"The wheels are coming off in America. Opioid addictions accelerate unstoppably. Environmental collapse can be read in every weather report. Vigilante bands take over streets at night, wearing clown face makeup. The very idea of government, of citizenship, is challenged daily. And something is happening to teenagers across the country, spreading through memes only they understand. At the Float Anxiety Abatement Center, in a suburb of Chicago, Simon...

"AN ORDINARY LIFE ... Leigh Collier has worked hard to build what looks like a normal life. She has a good job as a defense attorney, a daughter doing well in school, and even her divorce is relatively civilized-her life is just as unremarkable as she'd always hoped it would be. HIDES A DEVASTATING PAST ... But Leigh's ordinary life masks a childhood which was far from average ... a childhood tarnished by secrets, broken by betrayal, and finally torn...

When sixteen-year-old Georgia Avis finds the dead body of thirteen-year-old Ashley James outside the gates of an exclusive resort, she teams up with Ashley's older sister Nora to find the killer. She is thrown into a world of unimaginable wealth and privilege-- and the fight for her life. As Ashley's killer closes in, it may not be a matter of who is guilty, but who is guiltiest. -- adapted from jacket

Kate Elizabeth Russell explores the psychological dynamics of an emotional relationship between a precocious yet naive teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher.

"Ruby McKee is a miracle. Found abandoned on a bridge as a newborn baby by the McKee sisters, she's become the unofficial mascot of Pear Blossom, Oregon, a symbol of hope in the wake of a devastating loss. Ruby has lived a charmed life, and when she returns home after traveling abroad, she's expecting to settle into that charm. But an encounter with the town's black sheep makes her question the truth about her mysterious past. Dahlia McKee knows it's...

"Raw, unflinching, and authentic, Kate McLaughlin's thoughtful What Unbreakable Looks Like carefully crafts a story exposing the vulnerability of underage trafficked girls and what it takes to begin the process of healing from sexual trauma."-Christa Desir, author, advocate, and founding member of The Voices and Faces Project. Lex was taken--trafficked--and now she's Poppy. Kept in a hotel with other girls, her old life is a distant memory. But when...

A mixed-heritage dancer's coming of age within the African diaspora is shaped by abuse at the hands of a cousin, her mother's descent into addiction, and her father's efforts to create a Nigerian-inspired home in America. "Ada" means first daughter, means oldest girl, means most pressure. When Ada leaves home for her freshman year at a historical Black college, it's the first time that she's been able to make her own choices. As she stumbles deeper...

"When legendary R&B artist Korey Fields spots Enchanted Jones at an audition, her dreams of being a famous singer take flight. Until Enchanted wakes up with blood on her hands and zero memory of the previous night. Who killed Korey Fields? Before there was a dead body, Enchanted's dreams had turned into a nightmare. Because behind Korey's charm and star power was a controlling dark side. Now he's dead, the police are at the door, and all signs point...