A Few of Our Favorite Things 2023

Wake County Public Libraries wishes you a joyous holiday season and a Happy New Year. Our Adult Services Librarians have created our annual gift to you - this list featuring some of our favorite recent books. From novels of all genres to nonfiction and biographies, you are sure to find some books to love among these librarian favorites.

Showing 1 - 13 of 13  There are a total of 50 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "All that is mine I carry with me"
Star rating for All that is mine I carry with me
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Three grown siblings confront their father's role in their mother's disappearance in this arresting novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob. Jane Larkin disappeared without a trace in November 1976. When ten-year-old Miranda arrives home from school that autumn afternoon, finding her mother's pocketbook in its usual spot in the front hall, she assumes her mother will be back any minute. But as the hours tick by, alone...
Book cover for "Atalanta"
Star rating for Atalanta
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"From the beloved, bestselling author of Elektra and Ariadne, a reimagining of the myth of Atalanta, a fierce huntress raised by bears and the only woman in the world's most famous band of heroes, the Argonauts. Princess, Warrior, Lover, Hero. When Princess Atalanta is born, a daughter rather than the son her parents hoped for, she is left on a mountainside to die. But even then, she is a survivor. Raised by a mother bear under the protective eye...
Book cover for "City under one roof"
Star rating for City under one roof
Average Rating:
2.3 stars
Description:
"A stranded detective tries to solve a murder in a tiny Alaskan town where everyone winters in the same high-rise building, in this gripping debut by Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Iris Yamashita. When a local teenager discovers a severed hand and foot washed up on the shore of the small town of Point Mettier, Alaska, Cara Kennedy is on the case. A detective from Anchorage, she has her own reasons for investigating the possible murder in this...
Book cover for "Cold people"
Star rating for Cold people
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
A mysterious force captures Earth and gives humanity thirty days to move to Antarctica, where they will be allowed to exist and survive in the planet's most extreme environment.
Book cover for "The house of Eve"
Star rating for The house of Eve
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"Fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college, in spite of having a mother more interested in keeping a man than raising her daughter. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed onto her like a birthright. Eleanor Quarles arrived in Washington, DC with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University,...
Book cover for "Ink blood sister scribe"
Star rating for Ink blood sister scribe
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"Two estranged half-sisters tasked with guarding their family's library of magical books must work together to unravel a deadly secret at the heart of their collection--a tale of familial loyalty and betrayal, and the pursuit of magic and power."--
Book cover for "Killers of a certain age"
Star rating for Killers of a certain age
Series:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Older women often feel invisible, but sometimes that's their secret weapon. They've spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they're sixty years old, four women friends can't just retire - it's kill or be killed in this action-packed thriller by New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-nominated author Deanna Raybourn. Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum,...
Book cover for "The lonely hearts book club"
Star rating for The lonely hearts book club
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Sloane Parker lives a small, contained life as a librarian in her small, contained town. She never thinks of herself as lonely...but still she looks forward to that time every day when old curmudgeon Arthur McLachlan comes to browse the shelves and cheerfully insult her. Their sparring is such a highlight of Sloane's day that when Arthur doesn't show up one morning, she's instantly concerned. And then another day passes, and another. Anxious, Sloane...
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 "Small mercies"
Star rating for Small mercies
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"One night Mary Pat's teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn't come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched--asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who...
Book cover for "The spite house"
Star rating for The spite house
Average Rating:
2.3 stars
Description:
"A terrifying Gothic thriller about grief and death and the depths of a father's love, Johnny Compton's The Spite House is a stunning debut by a horror master in the making--The Babadook meets A Headful of Ghosts in Texas Hill Country. Eric Ross is on the run from a mysterious past with his two daughters in tow. Having left his wife, his house, his whole life behind in Maryland, he's desperate for money--it's not easy to find steady, safe work when...
Book cover for "The St. Ambrose School for Girls"
Star rating for The St. Ambrose School for Girls
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
"When Sarah Taylor arrives at the exclusive St. Ambrose School, she's carrying more baggage than just what fits in her suitcase. She knows she's not like the other girls-if the shabby, all-black, non-designer clothes don't give that away, the bottle of lithium hidden in her desk drawer sure does. St. Ambrose's queen bee, Greta Stanhope, picks Sarah as a target from day one-the most popular, powerful, horrible girl at school is relentless in making...
Book cover for "This time tomorrow"
Star rating for This time tomorrow
Author:
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice's life isn't terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn't exactly the one she expected. She's happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But something is missing. Her father, the single parent who raised her, is ailing and out of reach. How did they get here so fast? Did she take too much for granted along the way? When Alice wakes up the next morning...