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 - 20 of 27  There are a total of 50 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "All of us together in the end"
Star rating for All of us together in the end
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"All of Us Together in the End is a lyrical, elegiac affirmation of the awesome, strange, otherworldly ways our loved ones remain alive to us, even when they are out of reach, by a writer the New York Times calls "irresistible" and "utterly convincing." Vollmer's family memoir, shimmering with wonder and enchantment, begins with the death of his mother from early-onset Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Soon after, unexplained phenomena (specifically flashing...
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 "The American roommate experiment"
Star rating for The American roommate experiment
Author:
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"Rosie Graham has a problem. A few, actually. She just quit her well paid job to focus on her secret career as a romance writer. She hasn't told her family and now has terrible writer's block. Then, the ceiling of her New York apartment literally crumbles on her. Luckily she has her best friend Lina's spare key while she's out of town. But Rosie doesn't know that Lina has already lent her apartment to her cousin Lucas, who Rosie has been stalking--for...
Book cover for "Beyond the wand"
Star rating for Beyond the wand
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
From the magical moments on set as Draco Malfoy to the challenges of growing up in the spotlight, get a backstage pass into Tom Felton's life on and off the big screen. Tom Felton's adolescence was anything but ordinary. His early rise to fame in beloved films like The Borrowers catapulted him into the limelight, but nothing could prepare him for what was to come after he landed the iconic role of the Draco Malfoy, the bleached blonde villain of the...
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 "Fairy tale"
Star rating for Fairy tale
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher--for that world or ours." --
Book cover for "Her deadly game"
Star rating for Her deadly game
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Keera Duggan was building a solid reputation as a Seattle prosecutor, until her romantic relationship with a senior colleague ended badly. For the competitive former chess prodigy, returning to her family's failing criminal defense law firm to work for her father is the best shot she has. With the right moves, she hopes to restore the family's reputation, her relationship with her father, and her career. Keera's chance to play in the big leagues...
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 "I kissed Shara Wheeler"
Star rating for I kissed Shara Wheeler
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
After seventeen-year-olds Chole and Shara, Chole's rival for valedictorian, kiss, Shara vanishes leaving Chole and two boys, who are also enamored with Shara, to follow the trail of clues she left behind, but during the search, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to Shara and her small Alabama town than she thought.
Book cover for "An immense world"
Star rating for An immense world
Author:
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world. This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension: the world as it is truly perceived by other animals. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires (and fireworks), songbirds that can see the Earth's magnetic...
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 "Kiss her once for me"
Star rating for Kiss her once for me
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"The author of the "swoon-worthy debut" (Harper's Bazaar) The Charm Offensive returns with a festive romantic comedy about a woman who fakes an engagement with her landlord...only to fall for his sister. One year ago, recent Portland transplant Ellie Oliver had her dream job in animation and a Christmas Eve meet-cute with a woman at a bookstore that led her to fall in love over the course of a single night. But after a betrayal the next morning and...
Book cover for "Lark ascending"
Star rating for Lark ascending
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"With fires devastating much of America, Lark and his family first leave their home in Maryland for Maine. But as the country increasingly falls under the grip of religious nationalism, it becomes clear that nowhere is safe, not just from physical disasters but also persecution. The family secures a place on a crowded boat headed to Ireland, the last place on earth rumored to be accepting American refugees. Upon arrival, it turns out that the safe...
Book cover for "Legends & lattes"
Star rating for Legends & lattes
Series:
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"Come take a load off at Viv's cafe, the first & only coffee shop in Thune. Grand opening! Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv, the orc barbarian, cashes out of the warrior's life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen. However, her dreams of a fresh start filling...
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 "Love on the brain"
Star rating for Love on the brain
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
"When forced to work on a project with your nemesis, it's best to stick to the science. Further research could trigger explosive results. Like an avenging, purple-haired Jedi bringing balance to the mansplained universe, Bee Königswasser lives by a simple code: What would Marie Curie do? If NASA offered her the lead on a neuroengineering project-a literal dream come true after years scraping by on the crumbs of academia-Marie would accept without...
Book cover for "The many deaths of Laila Starr"
Star rating for The many deaths of Laila Starr
Author:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Humanity is on the verge of discovering immortality, which means the avatar of Death is out of a job... or is she? Humanity is on the verge of discovering immortality. As a result, the avatar of Death is cast down to Earth to live a mortal life in Mumbai as twenty-something Laila Starr. Struggling with her newfound mortality, Laila has found a way to be placed in the time and place where the creator of immortality will be born. Will Laila take her...
Book cover for "Monstrilio"
Star rating for Monstrilio
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
Grieving mother Magos cuts out a piece of her deceased eleven-year-old son Santiago's lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her family's decaying Mexico City estate. Eventually, Monstrilio begins to resemble the Santiago he once was, but his innate impulses--though curbed by...
Book cover for "Nora goes off script"
Star rating for Nora goes off script
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
"Nora Hamilton knows the formula for love better than anyone. As a romance channel screenwriter, it's her job. But then her ... husband leaves her and their two kids, and Nora turns her marriage's collapse into cash, writing the best script of her life. When the script is picked up for the big screen and set to film at her ... home with former Sexiest Man Alive Leo Vancecast as her ex-husband, Nora's life will never be the same"--
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"--