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 41 - 58 of 58  There are a total of 208 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Save me the plums"
Star rating for Save me the plums
Author:
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"When Condé Nast offered Ruth Reichl the top position at America's oldest epicurean magazine, she declined. She was a writer, not a manager, and had no inclination to be anyone's boss. Yet Reichl had been reading Gourmet since she was eight; it had inspired her career. How could she say no? This is the story of a former Berkeley hippie entering the corporate world and worrying about losing her soul. It is the story of the moment restaurants became...
Book cover for "Sea of Tranquility"
Star rating for Sea of Tranquility
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
The "author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from an island off Vancouver in 1912 to a dark colony of the moon three hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and planets"--
Book cover for "The searcher"
Star rating for The searcher
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
"Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing arm-twists him into investigating, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat, and starts to realize that even small...
Book cover for "Searching for Sylvie Lee"
Star rating for Searching for Sylvie Lee
Author:
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
Sylvie, the beautiful, brilliant, successful older daughter of the Lee family, vanishes. Terrified yet determined, Amy, the sheltered baby of the family, retraces her movements, but instead of simple answers, she discovers something much more valuable: the truth.
Book cover for "Small things like these"
Star rating for Small things like these
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church"--Provided by publisher.
Book cover for "Such a fun age"
Star rating for Such a fun age
Author:
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar....
Book cover for "The survivors"
Star rating for The survivors
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
"Coming home dredges up deeply buried secrets ... Kieran Elliott's life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences. The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home. Kieran's parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn. When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held...
Book cover for "Taste"
Star rating for Taste
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"From award-winning actor and food obsessive Stanley Tucci comes an intimate ... memoir of life in and out of the kitchen"--
Book cover for "Tell me everything"
Star rating for Tell me everything
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"Part memoir and part literary true crime, Tell Me Everything is the mesmerizing story of a landmark sexual assault investigation and the female private investigator who helped crack it open. Erika Krouse has one of those faces. "I don't know why I'm telling you this," people say, spilling confessions. In fall 2002, Erika accepts a new contract job investigating lawsuits as a private investigator. The role seems perfect for her, but she quickly realizes...
Book cover for "Truly devious"
Star rating for Truly devious
Series:
Truly Devious volume 1.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
When Stevie Bell, an amateur detective, begins her first year at a famous private school in Vermont, she plans to solve the cold case involving the kidnapping of the founder's wife and daughter shortly after the school opened.
Book cover for "The turn of the key"
Star rating for The turn of the key
Author:
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
The bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Lying Game, and The Death of Mrs. Westaway delivers her highly anticipated fifth novel. "When she stumbles across the ad, she's looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss--a live-in nannying post, with a staggeringly generous salary. And when Rowan Caine arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten--by the luxurious "smart" home...
Book cover for "Unbroken"
Star rating for Unbroken
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared--Lt. Louis Zamperini. Captured by the Japanese and driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor.
Book cover for "The Windsor knot"
Star rating for The Windsor knot
Average Rating:
3.2 stars
Description:
"The first book in a ... crime series featuring Queen Elizabeth II as an amateur detective who solves crimes in secret and behind the scenes, in between her royal duties"--
Book cover for "Wintering"
Star rating for Wintering
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it...
Book cover for "The woman in the library"
Star rating for The woman in the library
Average Rating:
3.1 stars
Description:
"The beautifully ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is completely silent one weekday morning, until a woman's terrified scream echoes through the room. Security guards immediately appear and instruct everyone inside to stay put until they determine there is no threat. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers who had been sitting in the reading room get to chatting and quickly become friendly. Harriet, Marigold, Whit, and Caine...
Book cover for "A woman is no man"
Star rating for A woman is no man
Author:
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
Three generations of Palestinian-American women in contemporary Brooklyn are torn by individual desire, educational ambitions, a devastating tragedy, and the strict mores of traditional Arab culture.
Book cover for "A world of curiosities"
Star rating for A world of curiosities
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"Chief Inspector Armand Gamache returns in the eighteenth book in Penny's series. It's spring and Three Pines is reemerging after the harsh winter. But not everything buried should come alive again. Not everything lying dormant should reemerge. But something has. As the villagers prepare for a special celebration, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir find themselves increasingly worried. A young man and woman have reappeared in the Sûreté du Québec...
Book cover for "Young Jane Young"
Star rating for Young Jane Young
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
"Aviva Grossman [is] an ambitious Congressional intern in Florida who makes the life-changing mistake of having an affair with her boss, who is beloved, admired, successful, and very married--and blogging about it. When the affair comes to light, the Congressman doesn't take the fall, but Aviva does, and her life is over before it hardly begins. She becomes a late night talk show punchline; she is slut-shamed, labeled as fat and ugly, and considered...