Local library has some ‘great reads’

As an aspiring novelist and devoted bibliophile, my dream is to have a book on store shelves. With that said, I’m always looking to see what’s new in publishing and when there’s a dry spell of news I get very annoyed and wonder if book reviewers are doing the job they’re paid to do each week. However, the staff at our Maricopa Public Library is up to the task and in this edition of Great Reads there’s enough to please our devoted readers.

So let’s begin.

Nickie Callahan’s modeling career has come to an end and she leaves that world behind and heads to college in Knolls Tennessee in hopes of becoming a writer. In Charlaine Harris’s “A Secret Rage,” Nickie becomes embroiled in some brutal crimes and she must seek justice in order to proceed with her new life. George R.R. Martin’s “A Dance with Dragons” finds the seven kingdoms in peril and facing an uncertain future in this latest edition to his popular series.

Jean Thompson’s “The Year We Left Home” tells the story of an Iowa family’s struggles during the years between the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Marina Singh, a former medical resident working for a pharmaceutical research company, heads to the Amazon jungle to find a colleague’s dead body in Ann Patchett’s “State of Wonder.” James Redfield started a phenomenon with “The Celestine Prophecy” and in “The Twelfth Insight: The Hour of Decision” the story continues. The novel centers on the search for a document that is only available in fragments.

Caleb was a Native American member of the Wampanoag tribe and the first to go to Harvard College in the year 1665. Author Geraldine Brooks tells his story and his lifelong friendship with a minister’s daughter in “Caleb’s Crossing.” Sheila McGann goes back to Boston to defend her brother Art, a popular pastor in the midst of a very public scandal in Jennifer Haigh’s “Faith.” Rounding out new fiction, is Mary Doria Russell’s story of gunfighter Doc Holliday in “Doc.”

Young adult readers will enjoy two novels featuring a young man named Cassel, a curse worker. A curse worker is someone who manipulates people with the touch of his or her hands. Written by Holly Black, the first novel, “The White Cat,” introduces readers to Cassel who thinks he’s the untalented member of his family of curse workers. In the second novel, “Red Glove,” Cassel learns that he’s a powerful curse worker and he seeks to solve his brother’s murder. Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams have written book four in the popular Tunnel series entitled “Closer.” Wil and his dad are reunited but trouble looms in this newest adventure.

For those who love graphic novels, the library has some new titles featuring the Avengers, Batman and Robin, Captain America and a host of other intriguing characters. Fans of young adult fantasy will also enjoy, “Steel,” by Carrie Vaughn. This is a time travel adventure featuring a sixteen year old girl named Jill who finds a corroded blade on a Caribbean beach and is transported back in time to a pirate ship.

Memoirs, real-life adventure and health take center stage in the library’s new nonfiction titles. A WAC, a lieutenant and a severely injured sergeant are the only survivors of a plane crash in the jungles of New Guinea in the closing days of World War II and the race to save them is told in Mitchell Zuckoff’s “Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II.” Peace activist John Prendergast and Michael Mattocks share their story of a lifelong friendship in the memoir “Unlikely Brothers: Our Story of Adventure, Loss and Redemption.”