We have more BWG Library Picks of the Week that were recommended during the Library’s Virtual Book Club. Local readers and librarians gathered online to recommend their favourite titles and authors, and we have the best listed below. Share your book recommendations with [email protected] today.
The long call by Anne Cleves
This is the first of the Detective Matthew Venn “Two Rivers” series. In North Devon, where two rivers converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father's funeral takes place. Once loved and cherished, the day Matthew left the strict evangelical community he grew up in, he lost his family too. Now, as he turns and walks away again, he receives a call from one of his team. A body has been found on the beach nearby: a man with a tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death. The case calls Matthew back into the community he thought he had left behind, as deadly secrets hidden at its heart are revealed, and his past and present collide. An astonishing new novel told with compassion and searing insight, The Long Call will captivate fans of Vera and Shetland, as well as new readers.
Before I go to sleep by S.J. Watson
S. J. Watson makes his powerful debut with this compelling, fast-paced psychological thriller, reminiscent of Shutter Island and Memento, in which an amnesiac who, following a mysterious accident, cannot remember her past or form new memories, desperately tries to uncover the truth about who she is—and who she can trust.
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey--with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake--through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.
Curious charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick
Arthur Pepper gets up every day at 7.30am. He eats his breakfast, waters his plant, Frederica and does not speak to anyone unless it is absolutely necessary. Until something disrupts his routine. On the first anniversary of his beloved wife Miriam’s death, he finally sorts through her wardrobe and finds a glistening gold charm bracelet that he has never seen before. Upon examination, Arthur finds a telephone number on the underside of a gold elephant. Uncharacteristically, he picks up the phone. And so begins Arthur’s quest – charm by charm, from York to Paris to India – as he seeks to uncover Miriam’s secret life. And along the way, find out more about himself.
The book of speculation by Erika Swiller
Simon Watson, a young librarian, lives alone in a house that is slowly crumbling toward the Long Island Sound. His parents are long dead. His mother, a circus mermaid who made her living by holding her breath, drowned in the very water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, ran off six years ago and now reads tarot cards for a traveling carnival.
One June day, an old book arrives on Simon's doorstep, sent by an antiquarian bookseller who purchased it on speculation. Fragile and water damaged, the book is a log from the owner of a traveling carnival in the 1700s, who reports strange and magical things, including the drowning death of a circus mermaid. Since then, generations of "mermaids" in Simon's family have drowned--always on July 24, which is only weeks away.
As his friend Alice looks on with alarm, Simon becomes increasingly worried about his sister. Could there be a curse on Simon's family? What does it have to do with the book, and can he get to the heart of the mystery in time to save Enola?
Everybody’s Fool by Richard Russo
