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How would a twelve-year old boy survive losing his entire family of origin, mother, father, and older brother, in plane crash? How would he cope with being the only survivor of the crash, which took, in addition to his family, nearly two hundred passengers and crew? How could anyone survive this?

A Burning (2020), Megha Majumdar's debut novel, follows three characters in the wake of a firebomb attack at a railroad station in a Kolkata slum.

The Silent Patient (2019) is an amazing psychological thriller that takes you into the mind of, not only the title patient Alicia, but also into that of a psychotherapist.

I absolutely loved The Rachel Incident (2023) by Caroline O'Donoghue, set in Ireland during the aftermath of the global economic crisis of 2008. As an elder Millennial, I really identified with the main character Rachel, and her struggles as a college student during that economically depressing time.

This is a really cute romance. If you like cheese and cheesy love stories you will love this book. In order to be independent and maintain her wealth after the death of her father, Lady Camembert must pretend to be Count Camembert.

It’s impossible to do justice to The Water Dancer (2019) in a book review. The story is powerful and haunting, the characters are expertly and thoughtfully portrayed throughout, and the time period and settings are drawn such that I felt that I was viewing the horrors of slavery on a Virginia plantation and experiencing the terrifying dangers of the flight to freedom.

She did it again: with her latest novel, Tom Lake (2023), Ann Patchett has created a story that is accessible, believable, meaningful, and moving, a down-to-earth tale about a family of five, trying to keep their cherry farm in northern Michigan afloat during the global pandemic, the horrors of which are kept at a relatively safe remove.

Lone Women (2023) by Victor LaValle is a historical slow burn horror set in 1915 Montana. After losing her parents, Adelaide Henry travels alone from California to settle a claim of land in Montana supplied with very little - namely the heavy burden she has carried all her life.

This is a great book for anyone who loved Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu. The main character Margot Mertz is funny, and headstrong. Margot runs a business that cleans up after other people’s digital presence in order to save money to go to Stanford.

One morning an elevator in a New York skyscraper plunges to the ground, killing four people. The next morning, in a different building, another person dies in an elevator incident. By the third day, when another elevator crashes in a different building, it's clear that these are not accidents. Are these attacks targeted or random? Who is behind these attacks and why and how are they happening? With so much of the city only accessible by elevator, New York City comes to a standstill.

October is Family History Month, which means now is the perfect time to start researching your family tree. If you ever feel overwhelmed or get stuck during the process Gretchen, WPL’s Genealogy & Local History Specialist, can help! Get to know Gretchen a little better below, and don’t forget to explore our Genealogy page and explore our Local History page to learn about the many ways the library can assist you with your research.

Due to the encouragement of Kazuo Ishiguro, author of such contemporary works as The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, I spent some days in August reading R.C.