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 - 20 of 28  There are a total of 209 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "The 7 1/2 deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle"
Star rating for The 7 1/2 deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"The rules of Blackheath: Evelyn Harcastle will be murdered at 11:00p.m. There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit. We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer. Understood? Then let's begin... Every day Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts...
Book cover for "After the funeral"
Star rating for After the funeral
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
"When Cora Lansquenet is savagely murdered with a hatchet, the extraordinary remark she made the previous day at her brother Richard's funeral suddenly takes on a chilling significance. At the reading of Richard's will, Cora was clearly heard to say, 'It's been hushed up very nicely, hasn't it....But he was murdered, wasn't he?' In desperation, the family solicitor turns to Hercule Poirot to unravel the mystery"--Page 4 of cover.
Book cover for "All the light we cannot see"
Star rating for All the light we cannot see
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six,...
Book cover for "Babel"
Star rating for Babel
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious...
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 book woman of Troublesome Creek"
Star rating for The book woman of Troublesome Creek
Series:
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"Cussy Mary Carter is the last of her kind, her skin the color of a blue damselfly in these dusty hills. But that doesn't mean she's got nothing to offer. As a member of the Pack Horse Library Project, Cussy delivers books to the hill folk of Troublesome, hoping to spread learning in these desperate times. But not everyone is so keen on Cussy's family or the Library Project, and the hardscrabble Kentuckians are quick to blame a Blue for any trouble...
Book cover for "A darker shade of magic"
Star rating for A darker shade of magic
Series:
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"From V.E. Schwab, the critically acclaimed author of Vicious, comes a new universe of daring adventure, thrilling power, and parallel Londons, beginning with A Darker Shade of Magic. Kell is one of the last Travelers--magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes--as such, he can choose where he lands. There's Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, ruled by a mad King George. Then there's Red London, where...
Book cover for "Death Comes to Pemberley"
Star rating for Death Comes to Pemberley
Author:
Average Rating:
2.8 stars
Description:
A rare meeting of literary genius: P. D. James, long among the most admired mystery writers of our time, draws the characters of Jane Austens beloved novel Pride and Prejudice into a tale of murder and emotional mayhem. It is 1803, six years since Elizabeth and Darcy embarked on their life together at Pemberley, Darcys magnificent estate. Their peaceful, orderly world seems almost unassailable. Elizabeth has found her footing as the...
Book cover for "The devil and the dark water"
Star rating for The devil and the dark water
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"Samuel Pipps is the greatest detective of his day--but now he's a prisoner, accused of an unknown crime by one of the world's most powerful men. Along with his faithful sidekick Arent Hayes, they're sailing back to Amsterdam from the East Indies, where he'll stand trial. But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage"--

10. Emma

Book cover for "Emma"
Star rating for Emma
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Content with her life and not interested in marriage, Emma Woodhouse, a rich and beautiful heiress, causes complications with her matchmaking schemes.
Book cover for "The gown"
Star rating for The gown
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
London, 1947: Besieged by the harshest winter in living memory, burdened by onerous shortages and rationing, the people of postwar Britain are enduring lives of quiet desperation despite their nation's recent victory. Among them are Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin, embroiderers at the famed Mayfair fashion house of Norman Hartnell. Together they forge an unlikely friendship, but their nascent hopes for a brighter future are tested when they are chosen...
Book cover for "Hamnet"
Star rating for Hamnet
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
"A thrilling departure: a short, piercing, deeply moving novel about the death of Shakespeare's 11 year old son Hamnet--a name interchangeable with Hamlet in 15th century Britain--and the years leading up to the production of his great play. England, 1580. A young Latin tutor--penniless, bullied by a violent father--falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman--a wild creature who walks her family's estate with a falcon on her shoulder...
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 "Homegoing"
Star rating for Homegoing
Author:
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonial, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising half-caste children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the Empire. Her sister, Esi, will be imprisoned beneath...
Book cover for "The house of silk"
Star rating for The house of silk
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
It is 1890. A year after Holmes's death, Watson--now in a retirement home--narrates a tale of Sherlockian detection that could tear apart the very fabric of society. The story opens with a train robbery in Boston, and moves to the innocuous setting of Wimbledon.
Book cover for "The huntress"
Star rating for The huntress
Author:
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
Stranded behind enemy lines, brave bomber pilot Nina Markova becomes the prey of a lethal Nazi murderess known as the Huntress and joins forces with a Nazi hunter and British war correspondent to find her before she finds them.
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 "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell"
Star rating for Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
Epic tale of nineteenth-century England and the two very different magicians who, as teacher and pupil and then as rivals, emerge to change its history.
Book cover for "The left-handed booksellers of London"
Star rating for The left-handed booksellers of London
Author:
Average Rating:
3.6 stars
Description:
"A girl's quest to find her father leads her to an extended family of magical fighting booksellers who police the mythical Old World of England when it intrudes on the modern world"--Publisher marketing.
Book cover for "The light between oceans"
Star rating for The light between oceans
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"A novel set on a remote Australian island, where a childless couple live quietly running a lighthouse, until a boat carrying a baby washes ashore"--