Categories
Interesting

JURY DUTY IS MURDER

This novel take place in the aftermath of a high-profile trial, as 72-year-old retired teacher Helen Ryder (known to the other jurors as “Schoolmarm”) and other jurors reconnect after a series of suspicious deaths among their peers. Two months before, they voted to convict basketball player Roger “Buck” Dempsey for the murder of his wife, […]

Categories
Interesting

MOTHERS AND SONS

Haslett’s third novel is partly narrated by Peter Fischer, a New York City lawyer working for a nonprofit handling asylum cases. There, and in the rest of his life, he handles things with assurance but little joy—his lover, Cliff, has little more depth than a dating-app hookup, and he avoids conversations with his snarky and […]

Categories
Interesting

THE LIFE OF HEROD THE GREAT

Following on Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), Hurston spent years studying the life of Herod the Great, the famed Jewish leader. Her editor rejected the resulting book, which wound up in a trunk and then, following her death, in flames—the trunk burned by a crew hired to clear out her house—and miraculously rescued by […]

Categories
Interesting

BLOODLINE

DI Joanna Piercy is thrilled that her longtime friend DS Mike Korpanski is returning to work in Staffordshire a year after having been badly injured. On the same day, an elderly man named Joseph Holden opens his door to a stranger with a gun and struggles to understand whether the man wants the valuable objects […]

Categories
Interesting

YOUR YEAR OF WONDERS

The author offers a unique perspective on personal and professional growth. His simple framework asserts that “Change happens. You grow. Then you win”; he blends social science with storytelling to reinforce these theories and offers examples from the careers of leaders such as IBM CEO Ginni Rometty and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Tasler observes that […]

Categories
Interesting

LIES ON THE SERPENT’S TONGUE

Rowan James and her sisters, born with magical gifts, live in Caball Hollow, West Virginia, where the townspeople treat them with a mixture of awe and suspicion. Rowan has a special ability to smell lies, so she becomes confused when she can’t detect dishonesty where she expects to find it. This discovery leads her to […]

Categories
Interesting

IMMORTAL

Tan returns to her Celestial Kingdom in this standalone romantic fantasy. The Lord of Tianxia serves the immortal Queen Caihong of the Golden Desert faithfully until he is forced to choose between her and Liyen, his granddaughter and heir. Liyen has been poisoned by the waters of death in the Wangchuan River in the Netherworld […]

Categories
Interesting

THURSDAY FIRE

In these pages, anecdotes from the author’s life, career, and participation in sports exemplify his teachings, which extol the virtues of integrity, timeliness, humility, discipline, a positive attitude, and continual improvement (Rogers focuses on Thursdays because he emailed his first motivational message to coaching clients on that day in 2019). The author cites his father […]

Categories
Interesting

MAMIACHI & ME

Today will be Rosa’s first time performing onstage with the group, and she’s nervous. But Mamiachi, as she sometimes calls her mother, gives her a pep talk about bravery and strength and reminds her of her namesake, Rosa Quirino, one of the first female mariachis. Donning matching pink trajes de charro, the musicians hit the […]

Categories
Interesting

SAFE CROSSING

In spring, when frost thaws and rain arrives, amphibians such as spring peepers and salamanders begin their journey from woods to the vernal pools where they’ll spawn. That perilous journey involves crossing roads as vehicles whoosh past. Enter the Amphibian Migration Team—volunteers who stand at these crossings at night to monitor traffic and help “our […]