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Category: –Staff Picks

--Staff Picks General

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab follows the lives of three women over the span of centuries. Our story starts in Spain 1532 with Maria. Maria is a wild, free spirit who is forced into an arranged marriage with an older Viscount. She is miserable. Trapped in a house, often alone, […]

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“Swordheart” by T. Kingfisher

You’d think that inheriting a substantial estate would be good news, but Halla finds it rather intolerable.  She would be happy just going about her duties as a housekeeper and being ignored by everyone, but now that she’s inherited the coveted money, her extended family has plans for her: plans that include locking her in […]

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Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann

Leonie Swann’s debut novel is cozy, clever, and unconventional. If you’ve ever wondered what a murder mystery would look like if solved by a flock of sheep, Three Bags Full should be your next read. Yes, sheep. It sounds silly, I know, but somehow, it works. When their beloved shepherd is found dead, the flock […]

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“Jane Austen’s Bookshelf” by Rebecca Romney

Rare book dealer Rebecca Romney loves Jane Austen, and books in general. After purchasing the 18th century novel “Evelina” by Frances Burney as part of a lot of old books, Romney starts to realize that many of the female authors and works explicitly referenced in the novels and letters of Jane Austen are unknown, or […]

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“The Undocumented Americans” by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was born in Ecuador and was one of the first undocumented students to attend Harvard.  With the book set in six main sections–Staten Island, Ground Zero, Miami, Flint, Cleveland, and New Haven—Cornejo Villavicencio traveled throughout the United States to report on the diverse, sometimes lesser-known but nonetheless important and valuable stories […]

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“Where He Can’t Find You” by Darcy Coates

“DON’T WALK ALONE, OR THE STITCHER WILL FIND YOU. DON’T STAY OUT LATE, OR THE STITCHER WILL TAKE YOU. DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES, OR THE STITCHER WILL REMAKE YOU.” These are the rules that Abby Ward and her sister live by. People in their town have been known to go missing and then reappear later […]

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“Check, Please!” by  Ngozi Ukazu

Eric Bittle, former Junior Figure Skating Champion and amateur baker, is starting college this year. Instead of figure skating, he’s joining up with the Samwell University hockey team, a big group of talented sports jocks led by Jack, the stoic team Captain who isn’t in the NFL solely because he skipped drafts for his mental […]

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Dream On, Ramona Riley

Ramona Riley had her first kiss on the 4th of July when she was 14 with a mysterious girl she just met and who was leaving the next day. She never got her name and never saw her again…until she did. You see the girl was Dylan Monroe, the daughter of very famous rock stars, […]

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“Is Love The Answer?” by Uta Isaki

Chika does not understand love. At least not in the sense other high schoolers seem to. She has never been in love or had a crush, and has no desire for any kind of romantic intimacy. Everyone tells her she just hasn’t met “the one,” but Chika isn’t sure that will ever happen. When Chika […]

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“Smoke and Ashes” by Amitav Ghosh

Are you mad right now? Want to feel more mad? Good! Step right up. Amitav Ghosh’s nonfiction book about the opium trade, which he researched while writing his historic fiction Ibis trilogy, is a doozy. The Portuguese Catherine of Braganza married Charles II and became the queen of England in the late 1600s. She is […]