Melissa's Staff Picks

I'm a librarian at Southeast Regional Library, and these are some of my favorite reads! Feel free to email me at melissa.schultz@wakegov.com if you enjoyed one of these books!

Showing 21 - 40 of 58  There are a total of 208 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "The henna artist"
Star rating for The henna artist
Author:
Series:
Henna artist volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
"Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant 1950s pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist--and confidante--to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own. Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation...
Book cover for "The it girl"
Star rating for The it girl
Author:
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"April Clarke-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford. Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends--Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily--during their first term. By the end of the year, April was dead. Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing...
Book cover for "The Jane Austen Society"
Star rating for The Jane Austen Society
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
""Fans of The Chilbury Ladies' Choir and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society will adore The Jane Austen Society... A charming and memorable debut, which reminds us of the universal language of literature and the power of books to unite and heal." -Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Girls of Paris Just after the Second World War, in the small English village of Chawton, an unusual but like-minded group of people...
Book cover for "Killers of the Flower Moon"
Star rating for Killers of the Flower Moon
Author:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, from the author of The Wager and The Lost City of Z, “one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."—New York Magazine • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST NOW A MARTIN SCORSESE PICTURE
“A shocking whodunit…What
...
Book cover for "The last ranger"
Star rating for The last ranger
Description:
"A lush and vivid mystery set in Yellowstone National Park where a skirmish between a local hunter and a wolf biologist turns violent, and a park ranger, facing his own personal demons, sets out to determine what really happened"--
Book cover for "The last thing he told me"
Star rating for The last thing he told me
Author:
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"When her husband of a year disappears, Hannah quickly learns he is not who he said he was and is left to sort out the truth with just one ally- her husband's teenage daughter, who hates her"--
Book cover for "The library book"
Star rating for The library book
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK

A WASHINGTON POST TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER and NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018

"A constant pleasure to read...Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book." —The Washington Post

"CAPTIVATING...DELIGHTFUL." —Christian Science Monitor...
Book cover for "A line to kill"
Star rating for A line to kill
Series:
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"When Ex-Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, author Anthony Horowitz, are invited to an exclusive literary festival on Alderney, an idyllic island off the south coast of England, they don't expect to find themselves in the middle of murder investigation--or to be trapped with a cold-blooded killer in a remote place with a murky, haunted past. Arriving on Alderney, Hawthorne and Horowitz soon meet the festival's other guests--an...
Book cover for "The lost man"
Star rating for The lost man
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
Brothers Nathan and Bub Bright meet for the first time in months at the remote fence line separating their cattle ranches in the lonely outback. Their third brother, Cameron, lies dead at their feet. In an isolated belt of Australia, their homes a three-hour drive apart, the brothers were one another's nearest neighbors. Cameron was the middle child, the one who ran the family homestead. But something made him head out alone under the unrelenting...
Book cover for "The love of my life"
Star rating for The love of my life
Author:
Average Rating:
3.3 stars
Description:
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Ghosted comes a love story wrapped in a mystery: an up-all-night page-turner with a dark secret at its core I have held you at night for ten years and I didn't even know your name. We have a child together. A dog, a house. Who are you? Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: she'd do anything for them. But almost everything she's told them about herself is a lie. And she might just have...
Book cover for "Magpie murders"
Star rating for Magpie murders
Series:
Magpie murders volume 1.
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway's latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan's traditional formula has proved hugely successful. Conway's latest tale has Atticus Pund investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing...
Book cover for "The marriage portrait"
Star rating for The marriage portrait
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"A novel set in Renaissance Italy, and centering on the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de' Medici"--
Book cover for "News of the world"
Star rating for News of the world
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered novel of historical fiction from the author of Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust. In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers...
Book cover for "The nickel boys"
Star rating for The nickel boys
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Follows the experiences of two African-American teenagers at an abusive reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood's only salvation is his friendship with fellow "delinquent" Turner, which deepens despite Turner's conviction that Elwood is hopelessly...
Book cover for "The nineties"
Star rating for The nineties
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"Essays about 1990s popular culture, politics, sports, literature, music"--
Book cover for "One by one"
Star rating for One by one
Author:
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"The ... author of The Turn of the Key and In a Dark Dark Wood returns with another suspenseful thriller set on a snow-covered mountain"--
Book cover for "The plot"
Star rating for The plot
Series:
Book (Korelitz) volume 1.
Average Rating:
3.4 stars
Description:
"Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he's teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what's left of his self-respect; he hasn't written-let alone published-anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn't need Jake's help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as...
Book cover for "The postscript murders"
Star rating for The postscript murders
Series:
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"Murder leaps off the page when crime novelists begin to turn up dead in this ... novel by ... Elly Griffiths, a literary mystery ... for fans of Anthony Horowitz and Agatha Christie"--
Book cover for "Recursion"
Star rating for Recursion
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Memory makes reality. That's what New York City cop Barry Sutton is learning as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome--a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. Neuroscientist Helena Smith already understands the power of memory. It's why she's dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious moments of our pasts....
Book cover for "The river"
Star rating for The river
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
"A novel about two college friends on a summer wilderness canoe trip"--