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 61 - 80 of 83  There are a total of 208 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "The pillars of the earth"
Star rating for The pillars of the earth
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
Set in twelfth-century England, this epic of kings and peasants juxtaposes the building of a magnificent church with the violence and treachery that often characterized the Middle Ages.
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 "Pride and prejudice"
Star rating for Pride and prejudice
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:
When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In the sparkling comedy of manners that follows, Jane Austen shows the folly of judging by first...
Book cover for "The reading list"
Star rating for The reading list
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
Working at the local library, Aleisha reads every book on a secret list she found, which transports her from the painful realities she's facing at home, and decides to pass the list on to a lonely widower desperate to connect with his bookworm granddaughter.

65. Rebecca

Book cover for "Rebecca"
Star rating for Rebecca
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
A young girl becomes the second Mrs. Max de Winter, only to find that she is not the mistress of Manderley. Instead the house and its occupants are dominated by the memory of Rebecca, her predecessor.
Book cover for "Remarkably bright creatures"
Star rating for Remarkably bright creatures
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"For fans of A Man Called Ove, a ... debut novel about a widow's unlikely friendship with a giant Pacific octopus reluctantly residing at the local aquarium--and the truths she finally uncovers about her son's disappearance 30 years ago"--
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"--
Book cover for "The royal we"
Star rating for The royal we
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"In their first adult novel, authors Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan take on a story of romance and rivalries inspired by today's most talked-about royal couple: Will and Kate. "If I'm Cinderella today, I dread who they'll think I am tomorrow. I guess it depends on what I do next." American Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy-tales. Her twin sister Lacey was always the romantic, the one who daydreamed of being a princess. But it's adventure-seeking...
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:
4.1 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 "Sourdough"
Star rating for Sourdough
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"A new novel about an underground food community by the author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore"--
Book cover for "The storied life of A.J. Fikry"
Star rating for The storied life of A.J. Fikry
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
When his most prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, is stolen, bookstore owner A. J. Fikry begins isolating himself from his friends, family and associates before receiving a mysterious package that compels him to remake his life. Bookstore owner A. J. Fikry is offered the chance to make his life over when a mysterious and unexpected package arrives on the heels of the theft of his most prized possession, a rare collection of Edgar Allan...
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 thirteenth tale"
Star rating for The thirteenth tale
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
When her health begins failing, the mysterious author Vida Winter decides to let Margaret Lea, a biographer, write the truth about her life, but Margaret needs to verify the facts since Vida has a history of telling outlandish tales.
Book cover for "This must be the place"
Star rating for This must be the place
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Daniel Sullivan, a young American professor reeling from a failed marriage and a brutal custody battle, is on holiday in Ireland when he falls in love with Claudette, a world famous sexual icon and actress who fled fame for a reclusive life in a rural village. Together, they make an idyllic life in the country, raising two more children in blissful seclusion until a secret from Daniel's past threatens to destroy their meticulously constructed and...
Book cover for "A tree grows in Brooklyn"
Star rating for A tree grows in Brooklyn
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
An autobiographical novel concerning a young daughter of German immigrants growing up in the slums of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in the early 20th century.
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 "The underground railroad"
Star rating for The underground railroad
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
A magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.
Book cover for "What Alice forgot"
Star rating for What Alice forgot
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
Suffering an accident that causes her to forget the last ten years of her life, Alice is astonished to discover that she is thirty-nine years old, a mother of three children, and in the midst of an acrimonious divorce from a man she dearly loves.
Book cover for "Who is Maud Dixon?"
Star rating for Who is Maud Dixon?
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Florence Darrow is a low-level publishing employee who believes that she's destined to be a famous writer. When she stumbles into a job the assistant to the brilliant, enigmatic novelist known as Maud Dixon -- whose true identity is a secret -- it appears that the universe is finally providing Florence's big chance. The arrangement seems perfect. Maud Dixon (whose real name, Florence discovers, is Helen Wilcox) can be prickly, but she is full of pointed...