July brings a new stack of our staff favorites we hope you’ll add to your TBR pile.
And remember, LibraryReads voting for July titles ends on June 1st, so it’s time to get reading!
Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands
By Chris Bohjalian
Emily Shepard is a homeless girl living in Burlington, VT. Nearly a year ago, a power plant had a meltdown and both of her parents were killed. Her father was in charge of the plant, and it may have been his fault. But Emily can’t outrun her past, can’t escape her grief, so she comes up with the only plan that she can.
“Emily’s story is both heartbreaking and frightening. . . The book rings with poetry and truth.” – Library Journal
Lucky Us: A Novel
By Amy Bloom
From the critically acclaimed author of Away comes a brilliantly written, deeply moving, fantastically funny novel of love, heartbreak, and luck.
Disappointed by their families, Iris, the hopeful star and Eva the sidekick, journey through 1940s America in search of fame and fortune. From small-town Ohio to an unexpected and sensuous Hollywood, and to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island, Iris and Eva stumble and shine though a landscape of big dreams, scandals, betrayals, and war.
“A madcap romp complete with road trips, secret identities, aspiring Hollywood starlets, and a tarot card-reading fake psychic . . . [but] at its core, this is a novel of resilience.” —Library Journal (starred review)
Listen to the Jazz Chapter Titles from the Book.
The Black Hour
By Lori Rader-Day
For Chicago sociology professor Amelia Emmet, violence was a research topic–until a student she’d never met shot her. He also shot himself. Now he’s dead and she’s back on campus, unable to stop wondering why this happened to her?
“An exceptional debut…. An irresistible combination of menace, betrayal, and self-discovery.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“This accomplished debut bears favorable comparison to the work of Gillian Flynn (more Sharp Objects than Gone Girl)…. Amelia Emmet is a sympathetic, yet jaded and darkly witty main character. An unputdownable read.” —Booklist (starred review)
The Girls from Corona Del Mar
By Rufi Thorpe
An astonishing debut about friendships made in youth and how these bonds, challenged by loss, illness, parenthood, and distance, either break or endure.
Mia and Lorrie Ann are lifelong friends. While Mia struggles with a mother who drinks, a pregnancy at fifteen, Lorrie Ann is surrounded by her close-knit family, immune to the mistakes that mar her best friend’s life. Then a sudden loss catapults Lorrie Ann into tragedy: things fall apart, and then fall further—and there is nothing Mia can do to help.
“This literary novel will leave readers questioning the myths and realities of complicated friendships.” —Booklist
A Spy Among Friends
By Ben MacIntyre
Kim Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet mole in history. Agent, double agent, traitor and enigma, he betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians in the early years of the Cold War.
This is a story of intimate duplicity; of loyalty, trust and treachery, class and conscience; of an ideological battle waged by men with cut-glass accents and well-made suits in the comfortable clubs and restaurants of London and Washington; of male friendships forged, and then systematically betrayed.
With access to newly released MI5 files and previously unseen family papers, and with the cooperation of former officers of MI6 and the CIA, this definitive biography unlocks what is perhaps the last great secret of the Cold War.
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