I went to the Canal Winchester Branch of the Columbus Public Library System on Saturday for the book tasting. One of the women expressed the feelings for most of us when she said it’s one of her favorite days of the month. Although the library staff always presents four books, and we can choose to read one or more, my favorite part of the event is when we share the books we’ve been reading. Here are the library selections for October. Is there a book here that you’ve read, or want to read?
The Irish Goodbye by Heather Aimee O’Neill. A #ReadWithJenna book club pick following an Irish American family with three adult sisters returning home to Long Island to face tension-filled dinners, ghosts from their pasts, and family secrets in a gripping novel full of biting wit and profound heart. It’s been years since the three Ryan sisters were all together at their beloved family home. Two decades ago, their lives were upended by a fatal accident on their brother Topher’s boat. Now the Ryan women are back and eager to reconnect, but each carries a heavy secret. The eldest, Cait, still holding guilt for the role no one knows she played in the boat accident, rekindles a flame with her high school crush. Middle sister Alice has been thrown a curveball that threatens the career she’s restarting and faces a difficult decision that may doom her marriage. And the youngest, Maggie, is finally taking the risk of bringing the woman she loves home to meet her devoutly Catholic mother.
The Hacienda by Isabel Canas. Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca in this debut supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, a sinister haunting, and the woman pulled into their clutches…During the overthrow of the Mexican government, Beatriz’s father was executed and her home destroyed. When handsome Don Rodolfo Solórzano proposes, Beatriz ignores the rumors surrounding his first wife’s sudden demise, choosing instead to seize the security that his estate in the countryside provides. She will have her own home again, no matter the cost. But Hacienda San Isidro is not the sanctuary she imagined.
My Other Heart by Emma Nanami Stremmer. A missing child, two girls in search of their true identities–a stunning novel of mothers, daughters and best friends In June 1998, Mimi Truang is on her way home to Vietnam when her toddler daughter vanishes in the Philadelphia airport. Seventeen years later, two best friends in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, discuss their summer plans before college. Kit, with the support of her white adoptive parents, will travel to Tokyo to explore her Japanese roots. This dizzying adventure offers her a taste of first love and a new understanding of what it means to belong. Sabrina had hoped to take a similar trip to China, but money is tight. Her disappointment subsides, however, when she meets a bold, uncompromising new mentor who prompts Sabrina to ask questions she’s avoided all her life. Meanwhile, Mimi purchases a plane ticket to Philadelphia. She finally has a lead in her search for her daughter. When Mimi, Kit, and Sabrina come face to face, they will confront the people they truly are, in this tremendously moving novel that is propelled to its astonishing climax in a way you will never forget.
Family of Spies: : A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor by Christine Kuehn. I think this is the first nonfiction title on our library list since I started attending. I’m going with this one, although we all know I don’t always get around to reading the selections.
A propulsive, never-before-told story of one family’s shocking involvement as Nazi and Japanese spies during WWII and the pivotal role they played in the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It began with a letter from a screenwriter, asking about a story. Your family. World War II. Nazi spies. Christine Kuehn was shocked and confused. When she asked her seventy-year-old father, Eberhard, what this could possibly be about, he stalled, deflected, demurred, and then wept. He knew this day would come.
The Kuehns, a prominent Berlin family, saw the rise of the Nazis as a way out of the hard times that had befallen them. When the daughter of the family, Eberhard’s sister, Ruth, met Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels at a party, the two hit it off, and they had an affair. But Ruth had a secret―she was half Jewish―and Goebbels found out. Rather than having Ruth killed, Goebbels instead sent the entire Kuehn family to Hawaii, to work as spies half a world away. There, Ruth and her parents established an intricate spy operation from their home, just a few miles down the road from Pearl Harbor, shielding Eberhard from the truth. They passed secrets to the Japanese, leading to the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. After Eberhard’s father was arrested and tried for his involvement in planning the assault, Eberhard learned the harsh truth about his family and faced a decision that would change the path of the Kuehn family forever.
Do any of these books interest you?
