Hi everyone, here are our recommended titles for the week, consisting entirely of eBooks & downloadable audiobooks available through the Digital Catalog.
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Weekly Suggested Reading postings are published on Tuesdays.
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This week our recommended reads are all the first books in a series – just in case anyone is thinking it would be delightful to binge read in front of the a.c.!
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Along Came A Spider (Alex Cross Series, Book 1) by James Patterson (Format: eBook)
Discover the classic thriller that launched the #1 detective series of the past twenty-five years, now one of PBS’s “100 Great American Reads”
Alex Cross is a homicide detective with a Ph.D. in psychology. He works and lives in the ghettos of D. C. and looks like Muhammad Ali in his prime. He’s a tough guy from a tough part of town who wears Harris Tweed jackets and likes to relax by banging out Gershwin tunes on his baby grand piano. But he also has two adorable kids of his own, and they are his own special vulnerabilities.
Jezzie Flanagan is the first woman ever to hold the highly sensitive job as supervisor of the Secret Service in Washington. Blond, mysterious, seductive, she’s got an outer shell that’s as tough as it is beautiful. She rides her black BMW motorcycle at speeds of no less than 100 mph. What is she running from? What is her secret?
Alex Cross and Jezzie Flanagan are about to have a forbidden love affair-at the worst possible time for both of them. Because Gary Soneji, who wants to commit the “crime of the century,” is playing at the top of his game. Soneji has outsmarted the FBI, the Secret Service, and the police. Who will be his next victim?
Gary Soneji is every parent’s worst nightmare. He has become Alex Cross’s nightmare. And now, reader, he’s about to become yours.
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The City of Bones (Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments Series, Book 1) by Cassandra Clare (Format: eBook)
Discover this first installment of the internationally bestselling Mortal Instruments series and “prepare to be hooked” (Entertainment Weekly).
When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder — much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing — not even a smear of blood — to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?
This is Clary’s first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It’s also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace’s world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know…
Exotic and gritty, exhilarating and utterly gripping, Cassandra Clare’s ferociously entertaining fantasy takes readers on a wild ride that they will never want to end.
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The Cold Dish (Walt Longmire Series, Book 1) by Craig Johnson (Format: eBook)
Introducing Wyoming’s Sheriff Walt Longmire in this riveting first Longmire novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Land of Wolves
Fans of Ace Atkins, Nevada Barr and Robert B. Parker will love this outstanding first novel, in which New York Times bestselling author Craig Johnson introduces Sheriff Walt Longmire of Wyoming’s Absaroka County. Johnson draws on his deep attachment to the American West to produce a literary mystery of stunning authenticity, and full of memorable characters. After twenty-five years as sheriff of Absaroka County, Walt Longmire’s hopes of finishing out his tenure in peace are dashed when Cody Pritchard is found dead near the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Two years earlier, Cody has been one of four high school boys given suspended sentences for raping a local Cheyenne girl. Somebody, it would seem, is seeking vengeance, and Longmire might be the only thing standing between the three remaining boys and a Sharps .45-70 rifle.
With lifelong friend Henry Standing Bear, Deputy Victoria Moretti, and a cast of characters both tragic and humorous enough to fill in the vast emptiness of the high plains, Walt Longmire attempts to see that revenge, a dish best served cold, is never served at all.
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The Fiddler by Beverly Lewis (Format: eBook)
Amelia Devries finds herself living an artistic double life: she’s a talented concert violinist who’s also very good at fiddling. But fiddling doesn’t fit into the plans of her musician boyfriend, her violinist father, or her agent. When a severe thunderstorm strands her in the rural mountains of Pennsylvania, she takes refuge at a cabin inhabited by Michael Hostetler, a young fence-sitting Amish man who can’t decide whether to take the formal vows to join the Amish community. Her chance connection with Michael allows Amelia an opening into his community, while Michael finds himself increasingly attracted to the outsider. Lewis’s presentation of Amish life portrays the advantages and disadvantages of a community with definite rules and a solidarity that can be both enviable and constraining. The musical motifs offer welcome variation on very familiar Amish themes that Lewis renders in virtuoso style. This opens the Home to Hickory Hollow series, but stands alone nicely.
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The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman (Format: eBook)
Collecting books can be a dangerous prospect in this fun, time-traveling, fantasy adventure—the first in the Invisible Library series!
One thing any Librarian will tell you: the truth is much stranger than fiction…
Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, a shadowy organization that collects important works of fiction from all of the different realities. Most recently, she and her enigmatic assistant Kai have been sent to an alternative London. Their mission: Retrieve a particularly dangerous book. The problem: By the time they arrive, it’s already been stolen.
London’s underground factions are prepared to fight to the death to find the tome before Irene and Kai do, a problem compounded by the fact that this world is chaos-infested—the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic to run rampant. To make matters worse, Kai is hiding something—secrets that could be just as volatile as the chaos-filled world itself.
Now Irene is caught in a puzzling web of deadly danger, conflicting clues, and sinister secret societies. And failure is not an option—because it isn’t just Irene’s reputation at stake, it’s the nature of reality itself…
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The Kremlin Conspiracy (Marcus Ryker Series, Book 1) by Joel C. Rosenberg (Format: eBook)
New York Times bestselling author Joel C. Rosenberg returns with a high-stakes political thriller set in Russia.
Everything he learned to protect our president, he must use to take out theirs.
With an American president distracted by growing tensions in North Korea and Iran, an ominous new threat is emerging in Moscow. A czar is rising in the Kremlin, a Russian president feverishly consolidating power, silencing his opposition, and plotting a brazen and lightning-fast military strike that could rupture the NATO alliance and bring Washington and Moscow to the brink of nuclear war. But in his blind spot is former U.S. Secret Service agent Marcus Ryker, trained to protect but ready to kill to save his country.
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The Pillars of the Earth (Pillars of the Earth Series, Book 1) by Ken Follett (Format: eBook)
“Follett risks all and comes out a clear winner,” extolled Publishers Weekly on the release of The Pillars of the Earth. A departure for the bestselling thriller writer, the historical epic stunned readers and critics alike with its ambitious scope and gripping humanity. Today, it stands as a testament to Follett’s unassailable command of the written word and to his universal appeal.
The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known . . . of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect—a man divided in his soul . . . of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame . . . and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state and brother against brother.
A spellbinding epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of twelfth-century England, this is Ken Follett’s historical masterpiece.
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The Quiet Game (Penn Cage Series, Book 1) by Greg Iles (Format: eBook)
INTRODUCING PENN CAGE…
From the author of Mississippi Blood comes the first intelligent, gripping thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling Series.
Natchez, Mississippi. Jewel of the South. City of old money and older sins. And childhood home of Houston prosecutor Penn Cage.
In the aftermath of a personal tragedy, this is where Penn has returned for solitude. This is where he hopes to find peace. What he discovers instead is his own family trapped in a mystery buried for thirty years but never forgotten—the town’s darkest secret, now set to trap and destroy Penn as well.
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Ross Poldark (Poldark Series, Book 1) by Winston Graham (Format: eBook)
In the first novel in Winston Graham’s hit series, a weary Ross Poldark returns to England from war, looking forward to a joyful homecoming with his beloved Elizabeth. But instead he discovers his father has died, his home is overrun by livestock and drunken servants, and Elizabeth—believing Ross to be dead—is now engaged to his cousin. Ross has no choice but to start his life anew.
Thus begins the Poldark series, a heartwarming, gripping saga set in the windswept landscape of 18th Century Cornwall. With an unforgettable cast of characters that spans loves, lives, and generations, this extraordinary masterwork from Winston Graham is a story you will never forget.
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Storm Front (Dresden Files Series, Book 1) written by Jim Butcher & read by James Marsters (Format: Downloadable Audiobook)
The offbeat Dresden Files is an expanding series of detective novels about Harry Dresden, a wizard with a consulting practice in modern-day Chicago. Harry’s profession offers him little money, lots of mockery, the suspicion of his magical colleagues, plenty of danger, and not much income. It offers readers some unconventional detective work, whimsy, humor, and suspense. Here Dresden discovers that mobsters have enlisted occult forces for nefarious purposes. The casting of James Marsters of TV’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to narrate indicates who the intended audience is. Marsters does a nice, low-key job with the first-person narrative, flagging slightly at the home stretch (as does the text), but perking up for the finish. He handles the male and female, and the human and para-human, characters with equal aplomb, even managing some moving pathos out of unpromising moments. – AudioFile Review
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Have a great week!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
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