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 1 - 15 of 15  There are a total of 209 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Bel canto"
Star rating for Bel canto
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening -- until a band of gun-wielding terrorists breaks in through the air-conditioning vents and takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked,...
Book cover for "The guest list"
Star rating for The guest list
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
"On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one... The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed. But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes....
Book cover for "The it girl"
Star rating for The it girl
Author:
Average Rating:
3.8 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 last flight"
Star rating for The last flight
Average Rating:
3.6 stars
Description:
"[This novel focuses] on two women who meet in an airport, both alone, both scared, and both urgently needing an escape from their lives. Claire Cook has a husband whose temper burns as bright as his promising political career, and she has worked for months on a plan to get out. A chance meeting in an airport bar brings her together with a stranger equally as desperate. Together they hatch a plan to switch tickets--Claire taking Eva's flight to Oakland,...
Book cover for "The lying game"
Star rating for The lying game
Author:
Average Rating:
3.6 stars
Description:
The text message arrives in the small hours of the night. It's just three words: I need you. Isa drops everything, takes her baby daughter and heads straight to Salten. She spent the most significant days of her life at boarding school on the marshes there, days which still cast their shadow over her. At school Isa and her three best friends used to play the Lying Game They competed to convince people of the most outrageous stories. Now, after seventeen...
Book cover for "Midnight at the Bright Ideas bookstore"
Star rating for Midnight at the Bright Ideas bookstore
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs--the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store's overwhelmed shelves. But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore's upper room, Lydia's life comes unglued. Always Joey's favorite bookseller, Lydia...
Book cover for "Nine perfect strangers"
Star rating for Nine perfect strangers
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
Nine people gather at a remote health resort. Some are here to lose weight, some are here to get a reboot on life, some are here for reasons they can't even admit to themselves. Amidst all of the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten days might involve some real work. But none of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be. Frances Welty, the formerly best-selling romantic novelist,...
Book cover for "Persuasion"
Star rating for Persuasion
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
The romance between Captain Wentworth and Anne, the daughter of Sir Walter Elliot, seems doomed because of the young man's family connections and lack of wealth.
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 storied life of A.J. Fikry"
Star rating for The storied life of A.J. Fikry
Average Rating:
3.9 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 "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 "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 "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...
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...