aired the week of April 10, 2023

The Newcomer by Mary Kay Andrews is a fun beach read.  Letty is on the run with her 4-year-old niece Maya.  Letty finds her sister Tanya murdered in her New York City apartment and takes her niece and heads to Florida where they hope to disappear.  Letty heads toward Florida where she ends up at a quaint motel called The Murmuring Surf.  A little bit mystery a little bit romance and a lot of fun!

 aired the week of April 3, 2023

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore tells the story of the female factory workers who contracted radium poisoning through painting watch dials with luminous paint in the early 1920s. No one at the time realized how dangerous an element radium is.  When the girls at the factory started to become ill their employer said it was not because of their work.  This this is the story of their  fight for compensation and their lives.

 aired the week of March 27, 2023

The Sorority Murder by Allison Brennan is the first title in the Regan Merritt series.  Regan has left the U.S. Marshals service after her 10-year-old son was killed by a man she helped put in prison. She has returned home to Flagstaff, Arizona and has been asked to help a college senior with his cold case podcast as he tries to solve the murder of a sorority girl from three years prior.

Regan Merritt Series

1. The Sorority Murder

2. Don't Open the Door

 aired the week of March 20, 2023

Pretty Little Wife by Darby Kane is a domestic thriller.  Lila Ridgefield has planned for every possible situation except this.  Her husband has disappeared.  She knows that he is dead in his SUV parked on the high school's back property because she left his body there.  Now Adam and his SUV have disappeared without a trace.  With close police scrutiny she isn't sure what the next step should be. If only everyone knew what Adam was really like.  For fans of Erica Spindler, A.J. Finn and Fiona Barton.

 aired the week of March 13, 2023

Alias Emma by Ava Glass.  Emma Makepeace works for The Agency which is similar to MI6 but deals with Russian assets who have escaped from Russia.  Recently many of these individuals are being killed in and around London.  Emma has been sent to bring in a young doctor named Michael Primalov and keep him safe.  But when her agency is compromised it is a race across London for Emma and Michael.  

1. Alias Emma (2022)

2. Game of Spies (2023)

 aired the week of March 6, 2023

The Silenced Women by Frederick Weisel introduces the Violent Crimes Investigation team of the Santa Rosa, California police department  who has a new case.  A young woman has been found murdered, wrapped in a red blanket on a park bench in a local park.  It is the same park where two other young women were murdered several years ago.  Could the cases be related or is there a new killer in town?

1. The Silenced Women (2021)

2. The Day He Left (2022)

aired the week of February 27, 2023

Vanishing in the Haight by Max Tomlinson introduces Colleen Hayes who is trying to get started as a PI in San Francisco.  The year is 1978 and she has been hired to look into the murder of 18-year-old socialite Margaret Copeland.  Her brutal murder was never solved and finally attributed to the Zodiac killer, but her father isn't convinced that is what happened.

Colleen Hayes mystery series

1. Vanishing in the Haight (2019)

2. Tie Die (2020)

3. Bad Scene (2021)

4. Line of Darkness (2022)

5. Night Candy (2023)

 aired the week of February 20, 2023

The Canteen: Sacrifice and Community During World War II by Eric Groce gives a wonderful overview of the generosity shown to soldiers by the residents of North Platte, Nebraska as they were on their way to fight overseas during World War II.  The Canteen welcomed soldiers during their 10 minute break on the train by serving homemade goodies and providing music, magazines and a friendly welcome.  During the 5 years it operated 55,000 volunteers served over 5,000 soldiers a day.  This slim volume is full of photographs and primary documents.

 aired the week of February 13, 2023

The Invisible Husband of Frick Island by Colleen Oakley tells the story of Anders Caldwell who dreams of being an investigative journalist.  However he is stuck covering cake walks and the like.  When he is on Frick Island Anders meets Piper who believes that her husband Tom is with her even though he was lost at sea.  Anders may have stumbled across the story of his life.

 aired the week of February 6, 2023

The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare is set in Nigeria.  Adunni is 14-years-old and loves school and wants to become a teacher.  However her father needs money and marries Adunni off to an old man who drives the taxi in their village.  Things are rough as Adunni is the third wife and she ends up running away trying to follow her dream of getting an education.

 aired the week of January 30, 2023

The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1939.  It is about young Jody Baxter who is growing up in rural Florida in the years after the Civil War.  Jody has no siblings as all the other babies have died in infancy.  He wants a critter to love and gets his wish when he and his pa find an orphaned fawn.  However raising Flag is more difficult than Jody bargained.

 aired the week of January 23, 2023

Aunti Poldi and the Sicilian Lion by Mario Giordano is a mystery translated into English from the Italian.  Aunti Poldi has moved from Munich, Germany to Sicily to finish out her life with a view of the sea.  When her young handyman goes missing she decides to investigate.  When she finds his body on the beach she promises to hunt down his killer and in the process gets more than she bargained for.

1. Aunti Poldi and the Sicilian Lion

2. Aunti Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna

3. Aunti Poldi and the Handsome Antonio

4. Aunti Poldi and the Lost Madonna

 aired the week of January 16, 2023

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr was published in 1977 but still is popular today.  It tells the story of 11-year-old Sadako who finds out that she has leukemia from the radiation of the atomic bomb that was dropped on her home city of Hiroshima.  If she can fold 1,000 paper cranes she will live for 1,000 years.  This legend gives her hope in the hospital as she folds and folds as many paper cranes as she can. 

 aired the week of January 9, 2023

Making Numbers Count: the Art and Science of Communicating Numbers by Chip Heath & Karla Starr is a clear practical guide to turning cold, clinical data into a story that will be remembered by your audience. A great book to look at if you have a presentation coming up and you want to make sure your listeners get the point and remember your words.

 aired the week of January 2, 2023

Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara follows Aki Ito after she and her family are relocated from the Manzanar Relocation Camp in California to Chicago.  When Aki and her parents arrive in Chicago they find out that Aki's older sister Rose is dead.  Aki decides to investigate to find out what happened to her sister.

 Carrie's Top 10 for 2022

These are listed in the order I read them.

1. The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts - nonfiction / historical

2. Deep into the Dark by P.J. Tracy - mystery / thriller (first in a series of 2)

3. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig - fiction

4. My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni - mystery / thriller (first in a series of 10)

5. Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig - historical fiction

6. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles - historical fiction

7. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman - mystery /thriller (first in a series of 3)

8. The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood - mystery / thriller (first in a series of 2)

9. The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb - mystery / thriller

10. The Maid by Nita Prose -fiction

 aired the week of December 19, 2022

Mr. Nicholas: a Magical Christmas Tale by Christopher De Vinck.  There is something strange about Mr. Nicholas who owns the town hardware store but Jim who is a reporter doesn't realize the story that is right under his nose until his 10-year-old son with Down Syndrome points it out to him.  A feel good Christmas story.

 aired the week of December 12, 2022

The Christmas Swap by Melody Carlson is a Christmas novella about a young woman who finds the love of her life when she joins a friend's family on a Christmas house swap.  But, there is a lot of lies and half truths to negotiate on the way to happily ever after.

 aired the week of December 5, 2022

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara.  Children are disappearing from the basti, which is a slum settlement in an unnamed city in India.  Jai who is 9-years-old is in class with two of the missing boys.  Jai loves police detective shows on TV and he and his friends decide to do a little detecting on their own since the local police are uninterested in what happens in their basti.  Will the friends find what has happened to the missing children or do they run the risk of being snatched themselves?  Based on true events.

 aired the week of November 28, 2022

Ted Kooser is the former Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry and a retired professor of English at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.  He writes a conversational style of poetry that is accessible to the nonliterary public.  His work titled Blizzard Voices is a haunting reminder of what families endured on the prairie during the blizzard on January 12, 1888 that became known as the Children's Blizzard.  The library has the following works by Ted Kooser:

Blizzard Voices - 1986

Delights & Shadows - 2004

The Wheeling Year - 2014

Splitting an Order - 2014

Cotton Candy: Poems Dipped out of the Air - 2022

Lights on a Ground of Darkness - 2005 (an autobiography/memoir)

 aired the week of November 21, 2022

Forgiving What You Can't Forget by Lysa Terkeurst gives practical Biblically based ways to forgive others and start the healing process in your own life.  A difficult but important read for anyone who is having trouble letting go of hurt, anger and unforgiveness.