Shelf-Worthy: September 2022

US President Keegan Barrett has swept into office on his success as Director of the CIA. Six months into his first term, he devises a clandestine power grab with deadly consequences. Barrett personally orders Special Agents Liam Grey and Noa Himel to execute his plan, but their loyalties are divided. The CIA serves at the pleasure of the president, yet they've sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign...

When Colby Mills sees his dreams of a music career derailed by tragedy, he becomes the head of a small family farm in North Carolina, where he finds a new love interest, Morgan Lee, an aspiring musician who hopes to someday move to Nashville and become a star.

"The story of one man's life across generations and historical upheavals: a deeply affecting novel about love, loss, ambition, and resolution"--

"A novel set in Renaissance Italy, and centering on the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de' Medici"--

For fifty years a group of friends have been meeting regularly for reunions on Holy Island, celebrating the school trip where they met, and the friend that they lost to the rising causeway tide five years later. Now, when one of them is found hanged, Vera is called in. Learning that the dead man had recently been fired after misconduct allegations, Vera knows she must discover what the friends are hiding, and whether the events of many years before...

"In this latest installment in the beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Grace Makutsi encounters a pair of quandaries that will require all of her and Mma Ramotswe's cleverness and generosity to resolve. Grace Makutsi's husband, Phuti, is in a bind. An international firm is attempting to undercut his prices in the office furniture market. Phuti has always been concerned with quality and comfort, but this new firm seems interested only in...

"For as long as Lucia Gomez has been the police chief in the city of Highland Isle, near Kindle County, she has known that any woman in law enforcement must walk a precarious line between authority and camaraderie to gain respect. She has maintained a spotless reputation-until now. Three male police officers have accused her of soliciting sex in exchange for promotions to higher ranks. With few people left who she can trust, Chief Gomez turns to an...

"Sara King has nothing, save for her secrets and the baby in her belly, as she boards the bus to Memphis, hoping to outrun her past in Chicago. She is welcomed with open arms by Mama Sugar, a kindly matriarch and owner of the popular boardinghouse The Scarlet Poplar. Like many cities in early 1960s America, Memphis is still segregated, but change is in the air. News spreads of the Freedom Riders. Across the country, people like Martin Luther King...