Recommended by Connie. Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Sbilly%20lynn%27s%20long%20halftime%20walk__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=pearl

One of Jo's favorite mysteries of the year. Read her review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/904098038?book_show_action=false&page=1

Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Sdon%27t%20ever%20look%20back%20friedman__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=pearl

Amy Greene has lived all her life in East Tennessee Smoky Mountains and says that “there is an intimacy with the landscape that comes from living here.” She captures the language, expressions, aching beauty and hardscrabble life of families that have lived on the mountaintop for generations.

I’ve always felt that character is what I look for in novels but I think setting is just as important for me. A dramatic setting that informs the unique Appalachian culture and the people who want to live and die there can tell a multitude of stories.

The prospect of change, even electricity which will bring jobs, is threatening to the farms and heritage of the tight-knit community. In Greene’s second book, Long Man, she draws from real events that happened in the summer of 1936, when a government-built dam is going to flood an Appalachian town and a girl disappears.

--Reviewed by Connie

Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Slong%20man%20greene__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=pearl

The conclusion of the Magicians Trilogy by Lev Grossman is recommended by Ellen, Jo and Lindsay. Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Slev%20grossman__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=pearl

Recommended by Andrea. Read her review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1024645906?book_show_action=false&page=1

Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Sbishop%27s%20wife%20harrison__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=pearl

This debut espionage thriller depicts the collision course between two geniuses, one a tortured hero and one a determined terrorist, in a breakneck story reminiscent of John le Carré and Robert Ludlum at their finest.

PILGRIM is the code name for a world class and legendary secret agent who comes out of retirement to help the NYPD investigate a murder of an unidentifiable victim. His adversary is a man known only to the reader as the Saracen. As a young boy, the Saracen is marked for life when his dissident father is beheaded in a Saudi Arabian public square.

Everything in the Saracen’s life from this moment forward will be in service to jihad and move toward unleashing a bioterrorism attack on the U.S. Part police procedural and part international spy thriller, this is a riveting page turner.

Reviewed by Connie.

Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Si%20am%20pilgrim%20hayes__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=pearl

I was immediately drawn into the story of Frances Godwin. It’s 2006 and Frances Godwin’s Latin program is being phased out and forcing her retirement from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. She chooses Do Not Resuscitate before a routine hernia surgery because she feels that her story is over. But, of course, the rest of her life is full of surprises including a desperate act that haunts her.

Each chapter features a significant event in Frances life. For example, as the novel begins, Frances is a college student having an affair with a married professor. She breaks it off and is planning a trip to Rome for a Latin course. Her Catholic mother is distraught that her daughter has a mortal sin on her soul as she crosses the ocean. Frances is an unforgettable and witty narrator struggling to validate her life after committing a crime she fears will define her for the rest of her life.

--Reviewed by Connie R.

Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__SConfessions%20of%20Frances%20Godwin%20Hellenga__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=pearl

Jim Stegner is a man who enjoys his solitary pastimes of painting and fishing. He is a successful artist who finds beauty in his quiet life although he lives with the grief of losing his only daughter to violence. He knows that he has dark impulses that he doesn’t always control.

In Colorado, Jim comes across a man beating a small horse. When he intervenes, the consequences take a violent turn and his quiet life explodes. Jim is tormented by his own conscience as he is chased by men set on retribution. The Painter feels like a novel of Old Western justice set in modern times. Jim is a conflicted soul and the suspense builds to a fitting showdown.

--Reviewed by Connie R.

Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Spainter%20heller__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=pearl

One of Jo's favorite books f 2014. Read her review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1089823525?book_show_action=false&page=1

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One of Haley's favorite books of 2014.

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