February’s books include the story of a Harvard archivist who returns home after twenty years to a haunted house in Maine filled with secrets, a woman whose husband disappeared and wasn’t who he said he was, and a fierce friendship between a local and ‘summer’ girl with both inseparable until one turns up dead.
Find out about each one below and remember to email your choice.
The Last House Guest
by Megan Miranda
REESE’S BOOK CLUB x HELLO SUNSHINE AUGUST 2019 PICK!
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Littleport, Maine, has always felt like two separate towns: an ideal vacation enclave for the wealthy, whose summer homes line the coastline; and a simple harbor community for the year-round residents whose livelihoods rely on service to the visitors.
Typically, fierce friendships never develop between a local and a summer girl—but that’s just what happens with visitor Sadie Loman and Littleport resident Avery Greer. Each summer for almost a decade, the girls are inseparable—until Sadie is found dead. While the police rule the death a suicide, Avery can’t help but feel there are those in the community, including a local detective and Sadie’s brother, Parker, who blame her. Someone knows more than they’re saying, and Avery is intent on clearing her name, before the facts get twisted against her.
Another thrilling novel from the bestselling author of All the Missing Girls and The Perfect Stranger, Megan Miranda’s The Last House Guest is a smart, twisty read with a strong female protagonist determined to make her own way in the world.
Amazon: Paperback $17.44, Kindle $3.79
Booktopia: Paperback $22.75, eBook $8.99
Sutherland Library: 4 copies, eBook, eAudiobook
Kmart: Doesn’t stock
Big W: Doesn’t stock
The Cliffs
by J. Courtney Sullivan
REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK – A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the New York Times best-selling author of Friends and Strangers
On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.
Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted–perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers–of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism–is even older than Maine itself.
Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.
Amazon: Hardcover $55.77, Paperback $40.79, Kindle $12.99
Booktopia: Paperback $56.75
Sutherland Library: 9 copies (no holds at time of writing)
Kmart: Doesn’t stock
Big W: Doesn’t stock
The Last Thing He Told Me
by Laura Dave
A gripping mystery about a woman who thinks she’s found the love of her life–until he disappears.
Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers–Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.
As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a US marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity–and why he really disappeared. Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they’re also building a new future–one neither of them could have anticipated. With its breakneck pacing, dizzying plot twists, and evocative family drama, The Last Thing He Told Me is a riveting mystery, certain to shock you with its final, heartbreaking turn.
Amazon: Paperback $23.80, Kindle $7.99
Booktopia: Paperback $19.99
Sutherland Library: 5 copies
Kmart: Doesn’t stock
Big W: Doesn’t stock