January 2025

Book Club Meeting              Saturday January 4th at 12:30 PM

Coming Soon to the Gibsonville Library

Generated on: 1-20-2025

Beautiful Ugly

Authors: Alice Feeney

“Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life. Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared. A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible – a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife. Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t. Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do”–

Bellevue

Authors: Robin Cook

From the bestselling author and “master of the medical thriller” (The New York Times), Robin Cook, comes a new tale of suspense-horror about a first-year resident whose life-shattering visions reveal the truth behind some of the greatest medical advances in the history of medicine. Twenty-three-year-old Michael “Mitt” Fuller starts his surgical residency with great anticipation at the nearly three-hundred-year-old, iconic Bellevue Hospital, following in the footsteps of four previous, celebrated Fuller generations. The pressure is on for this newly minted doctor, and to his advantage he’s always had a secret sixth sense, a sensitivity to the nonphysical. But quickly one patient after another assigned to his care begin to die from mysterious causes. As he tries to juggle these inexplicable deaths with the demands of being a first-year resident, things rapidly spiral out of control. Visions begin to plague Mitt—visions of a little girl in a bloodstained dress, bloodcurdling screams in the distance, and worse. As bodies mount and Mitt’s stress level rises, he finds himself drawn to the monumental, abandoned Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital building, which to his astonishment has somehow defied the wrecking-ball and still stands a few doors north of the modern Bellevue Hospital high-rise. Forcing an unauthorized entry into this storied but foreboding structure, Mitt discovers he’s more closely tied to the sins of the past than he ever thought possible.

The Big Empty

Authors: Robert Crais

Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner, Joe Pike, race to find a terrifying, unidentified killer in this twisting, unpredictable thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Crais. Traci Beller was thirteen when her father disappeared in the sleepy town of Rancha, not far from Los Angeles. The evidence says Tommy Beller abandoned his family, but Traci never believed it. Now, ten years later, Traci is a high-profile influencer with millions of followers and the money to hire the best detective she can find: Elvis Cole. Elvis heads to Rancha where an ex-con named Sadie Givens and her daughter, Anya, might have a line on the missing man. But when Elvis finds himself shadowed by a gang of vicious criminals, the missing persons cold case becomes far more sinister. Elvis calls his ex-Marine friend, Joe Pike, for help, and they follow Tommy Beller’s trail into the depths of a monstrous, hidden evil. The case flips on its head, victims become predators, predators become prey, and the question becomes: Can Elvis Cole save them all from this nightmare?

The Business Trip

Authors: Jessie Garcia

“A stunning and accomplished debut, with hugely relatable characters and an addictive storyline that kept me turning the pages well into the night. Bravo!” –BA Paris, NYT bestselling author “Wow, The Business Trip was nonstop twists and turns. I loved the unusual way that the story was told, and I kept reading all day long because I couldn’t wait to see how it ended!” — Freida McFadden, NYT bestselling author THE BUSINESS TRIP is the gripping, page-turning debut from author Jessie Garcia. Stephanie Monroe is anything but spontaneous. As a high-powered newsroom director based in Madison, Wisconsin, Stephanie is known for her unwavering commitment to her job. So when she boards a plane to California to attend a conference, the last thing anyone in her life expects is a text from her that she’s fallen for fellow news director, Trent Miholic. She’s going back to Atlanta with him, but don’t worry, he’ll take care of her. Jasmine Veronica is vulnerable. After enlisting her friend Joanie to help her escape an abusive relationship in the middle of the night, Jasmine is resigned to a life of running away and looking over her shoulder. So Joanie is relieved to hear that her friend has met a man in California who makes her feel safe. His name is Trent, he has a fancy job at a news station, and he’s going to take care of her from now on. As the people in the women’s lives receive increasingly strange and erratic messages, red flags go up and panic sets in. When Stephanie and Jasmine are each declared missing and in danger, it begs the questions: who is Trent Miholic? What did he do to these women—or what did they do to him?

Colored Television (A GMA Book Club Pick)

Authors: Danzy Senna

AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK “A laugh-out-loud cultural comedy… This is the New Great American Novel, and Danzy Senna has set the standard.” –LA Times “Funny, foxy and fleet…The jokes are good, the punches land, the dialogue is tart.” –Dwight Garner, The New York Times A brilliant take on love and ambition, failure and reinvention, and the racial-identity-industrial complex from the bestselling author of Caucasia Jane has high hopes that her life is about to turn around. After a long, precarious stretch bouncing among sketchy rentals and sublets, she and her family are living in luxury for a year, house-sitting in the hills above Los Angeles. The gig magically coincides with Jane’s sabbatical, giving her the time and space she needs to finish her second novel—a centuries-spanning epic her artist husband, Lenny, dubs her “mulatto War and Peace.” Finally, some semblance of stability and success seems to be within her grasp. But things don’t work out quite as hoped. Desperate for a plan B, like countless writers before her Jane turns her gaze to Hollywood. When she finagles a meeting with Hampton Ford, a hot producer with a major development deal at a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a “real writer,” and together they begin to develop “the Jackie Robinson of biracial comedies.” Things finally seem to be going right for Jane—until they go terribly wrong. Funny, piercing, and page turning, Colored Television is Senna’s most on-the-pulse, ambitious, and rewarding novel yet.

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus: A Read with Jenna Pick

Authors: Emma Knight

READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY “Undeniably delicious.” —The New York Times “A spellbinding debut about friendship, motherhood, first love, and the choices that bind us. . . I couldn’t put it down!” —Carley Fortune, #1 New York Times bestselling author of This Summer Will Be Different A witty, atmospheric, and brilliantly told novel that offers compelling portraits of womanhood, motherhood and female friendship, along with the irresistible intrigue surrounding an extraordinary British family Arriving at the University of Edinburgh for her first term, Pen knows her divorced parents back in Canada are hiding something from her. She believes she’ll find the answer here in Scotland, where an old friend of her father’s—now a famous writer known as Lord Lennox—lives. When she is invited to spend the weekend at Lord Lennox’s centuries-old estate with his enveloping, fascinating family, Pen begins to unravel her parents’ secret, just as she’s falling in love for the first time . . . As Pen experiences the sharp shock of adulthood, she comes to rely on herself for the first time in her life. A rich and rewarding novel of campus life, of sexual awakening, and ultimately, of the many ways women can become mothers in this world, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus asks to what extent we need to look back in order to move forward.

Night and Day

Authors: John Connolly

New York Times bestselling author John Connolly, “one of the best thriller writers we have” (Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author), returns with a shivery collection of supernatural tales. Filled with eerie surprises and dark delights, Night and Day takes us from the dusty shelves of an uncanny library filled with fictional characters to a bunker deep beneath the earth where scientists seek revenge on old Nazis; from an English marsh haunted by a mother and her son to a country house where a grieving widower finds comfort from a most unlikely source. Concluding with the author’s account of how an obscure horror film brought him closer to his lost father, and how nostalgia can help to keep us sane, this is a collection that will move, entertain, and keep you reading late into the night.

The Off-Limits Rule

Authors: Sarah Adams

From the New York Times bestselling author of Practice Makes Perfect comes an expanded edition of The Off-Limits Rule—a heartwarming romance about new love and fresh beginnings, with a never-before-seen chapter. Rules are made to be broken—especially for love, right? Lucy Marshall has hit rock bottom. After failing to succeed as a single mom in Atlanta, she’s back home and moving in with her older brother, Drew. Reconnecting with her support system is the right thing to do, but Lucy can’t help but feel like a failure. Her four-year-old son deserves the world, and all she can give him is a spare bedroom. But Drew is the sweetest uncle, and some quality time might be exactly what they both need to start fresh. That is until she meets Cooper, her brother’s incredibly hot best friend. When Drew senses something between the two of them, he puts his foot down on any shenanigans. According to him, Cooper is everything Lucy should stay away from: flirtatious, adventurous, and especially noncommittal. But Lucy has been getting the opposite impression so far; Cooper is a genuinely great guy, and she’s starting to catch real feelings. Her whole life, Lucy has tried to do everything right, and look where that’s gotten her—so what if she were to try something wrong?

Stuart Woods’ Golden Hour

Authors: Brett Battles

Former CIA operative Teddy Fay returns for another heart-pounding Hollywood-fueled adventure in this latest installment in the New York Times bestselling series. Teddy Fay is ready to embark on the European press tour of Peter Barrington’s latest film Storm’s Eye, when he receives an unexpected visit from Lance Cabot, director of the CIA. Several CIA agents have been turning up dead. The commonality? They were all part of a mission Teddy was involved in: Golden Hour. Lance wants Teddy to use his trip as a cover to investigate who is behind these killings. From Venice and Budapest to their last stop at a film festival in Berlin, Teddy must dodge excited fans, enamored women, and a few too many assassins who seem dead set on tracking down Golden Hour agents. And if Teddy doesn’t work fast enough, his identity—and life—might just be the next target in the killer’s ruthless plot for revenge.

Stuntboy, In-Between Time

Authors: Jason Reynolds

From Newbery Medal honoree and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds comes the sequel to the hilarious, hopeful, and action-packed middle grade novel Stuntboy, in the Meantime about the greatest young superhero you’ve never heard of, jam packed with illustrations by Raúl the Third! Portico Reeves is the greatest superhero a lot of people have never heard of. He likes it that way—then no one can get in the way of him from keeping other other people safe. Super safe. He’s Stuntboy. He’s got the moves. And the saves. Except. There’s been one major fail. He couldn’t save his parents from becoming Xs. Which is a word that sounds like coughing up a hairball. But don’t talk to him about the divorce, because of the hairball thing, and also, it gives Portico the frets. What’s also giving him frets is his parents living on two separate floors in their apartment building. He’s never fully with one parent or the other. He’s in-between, all the time. The in-between time. And the elevator is busted, so to get between floors means getting past the bullies who hang in the stairwells. So when Portico and new friend, Herbert, and best best friend, Zola, discover an empty apartment, unlocked, they are psyched. It’s a perfect hideout, and hangout, and it’s not half anyone’s…it’s all theirs. So they decide to make it their own…let’s say with stunts of the drawing kind. Problem is, that gives some Grown Up People the frets, which leads to double frets for Portico. And he’s not sure his arsenal of stunts can combat that.

Stuntboy, in the Meantime

Authors: Jason Reynolds

Portico Reeves’ secret identity as Stuntboy allows him to use his superpower keep everybody safe, but when his superhero parents start fighting a lot he feels the responsibility to save them.

The Three Lives of Cate Kay

Authors: Kate Fagan

REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK! “This story swept me away with its big dreams, love, and unexpected twists.” —Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club January ’25 Pick) The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets First Lie Wins in this electric, voice-driven debut novel about an elusive bestselling author who decides to finally confess her true identity after years of hiding from her past. Cate Kay knows how to craft a story. As the creator of a bestselling book trilogy that struck box office gold as a film series, she’s one of the most successful authors of her generation. The thing is, Cate Kay doesn’t really exist. She’s never attended author events or granted any interviews. Her real identity had been a closely guarded secret, until now. As a young adult, she and her best friend Amanda dreamed of escaping their difficult homes and moving to California to become movie stars. But the day before their grand adventure, a tragedy shattered their dreams and Cate has been on the run ever since, taking on different names and charting a new future. But after a shocking revelation, Cate understands that returning home is the only way she’ll be a whole person again.

Too Bright to See

Authors: Kyle Lukoff

A Newbery Honor Book • Winner of the Stonewall Book Award • A National Book Award Finalist “A gentle, glowing wonder, full of love and understanding.” –The New York Times Book Review It’s the summer before middle school and eleven-year-old Bug’s best friend Moira has decided the two of them need to use the next few months to prepare. For Moira, this means figuring out the right clothes to wear, learning how to put on makeup, and deciding which boys are cuter in their yearbook photos than in real life. But none of this is all that appealing to Bug, who doesn’t particularly want to spend more time trying to understand how to be a girl. Besides, there’s something more important to worry about: A ghost is haunting Bug’s eerie old house in rural Vermont…and maybe haunting Bug in particular. As Bug begins to untangle the mystery of who this ghost is and what they’re trying to say, an altogether different truth comes to light–Bug is transgender.

Where the Creek Bends

Authors: Linda Lael Miller

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller comes a brand-new story about the ties that bind a family, the power of friendship and the love that can sustain us. Madison Bettencourt has always wanted to be part of a bustling family. When she was growing up, it was just her and Coralee, the grandmother who cared for her. And now that Coralee needs her, there’s nowhere else Madison would rather be. But as Madison rattles around the massive family home, she remembers living there as a child and meeting a girl named Bliss. Irreverent with eyes that had seen too much at her tender age, Bliss was Madison’s first friend. They’d lost touch when Bliss suddenly stopped coming around, and Madison is determined to find her. For the more time she spends at her grandmother’s home, the more alive the past feels. How can Madison embrace her future if she can’t unravel the past? Liam McKettrick could be her future. A single dad trying to repair his relationship with his two kids, he has his hands full. But the more time they spend together, the more Madison imagines the family she’s always dreamed of with Liam and his kids. She was only supposed to be in town for a short while, but she can’t deny the lure of the place where the creek bends.

Witch Hat Atelier 13

Authors: Kamome Shirahama

A beautifully-illustrated story about a girl who longs for magic in her life and learns that, on the inside, she already is what she wishes she could be. This lushly-drawn story has won an Eisner Award and a Harvey Award, and was voted one of the top 10 manga of the year in 2018 by the Japanese manga industry. THE PRICE OF KNOWLEDGE As the new trial comes to an end, one of Coco’s rewards from Beldaruit the Wise is the story of Qifrey’s past and how he came to desire the mysteries of magic. Feeling a connection with her own desire to save her mother, Coco departs for the source of all answers: the Tower of Tomes. But it is a perilous journey to make on her own, and the secrets held within could sway even the most virtuous of witches…