The Steep & Thorny Way

A thrilling reimagining of Shakespeares Hamlet,

The Steep and Thorny Way tells the story of a
murder most foul and the mighty power of love
and acceptance in a state gone terribly rotten.

1920s Oregon is not a welcoming place for

Hanalee Denney, the daughter of a white woman
and an African-American man. She has almost
no rights by law, and the Ku Klux Klan breeds
fear and hatred in even Hanalees oldest
friendships. Plus, her father, Hank Denney, died
a year ago, hit by a drunk-driving teenager. Now
her fathers killer is out of jail and back in town,
and he claims that Hanalees father wasnt killed
by the accident at all but, instead, was poisoned
by the doctor who looked after himwho
happens to be Hanalees new stepfather.
Trouble Is A Friend of Mine
Sherlock meets Veronica Mars meets Ferris Bueller's
Day Off in this story of a wisecracking girl who meets a
weird but brilliant boy and their roller-coaster of a
semester that's one part awkward, three parts thrilling,
and five parts awesome.

When Philip Digby first shows up on her doorstep, Zoe

Webster is not impressed. He's rude and he treats her
like a book he's already read and knows the ending to.
But before she knows it, Digbyannoying, brilliant and
somehow...attractive? Digbyhas dragged her into a
series of hilarious and dangerous situations all related to
an investigation into the kidnapping of a local teenage
girl. A kidnapping that may be connected to the tragic
disappearance of his own sister eight years ago.
Eleanor & Park- Rainbow Rowell
Coming of Age & love story: 336 pages

Eleanor & Park reminded me not just what its like to be young
and in love with a girl, but also what its like to be young and in
love with a book.John Green, The New York Times Book
Review
Bono met his wife in high school, Park says.
So did Jerry Lee Lewis, Eleanor answers.
Im not kidding, he says.
You should be, she says, were 16.
What about Romeo and Juliet?
Shallow, confused, then dead.
I love you, Park says.
Wherefore art thou, Eleanor answers.
Im not kidding, he says.
You should be.
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story
of two star-crossed misfitssmart enough to know that first
love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.
When Eleanor meets Park, youll remember your own first love
and just how hard it pulled you under.
Just Mercy
Just Mercy is every bit as moving as To Kill a
Mockingbird, and in some ways more so. . . . [It]
demonstrates, as powerfully as any book on criminal
justice that Ive ever read, the extent to which brutality,
unfairness, and racial bias continue to infect criminal law
in the United States. But at the same time that [Bryan]
Stevenson tells an utterly damning story of deep-seated
and widespread injustice, he also recounts instances of
human compassion, understanding, mercy, and justice
that offer hope. . . . Just Mercy is a remarkable
amalgam, at once a searing indictment of American
criminal justice and a stirring testament to the salvation
that fighting for the vulnerable sometimes yields.
David Cole, The New York Review of Books
 The Circle
Science Fiction
When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the
worlds most powerful internet company, she feels shes
been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run
out of a sprawling California campus, links users
personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing
with their universal operating system, resulting in one
online identity and a new age of civility and transparency.
As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering
glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who
spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the companys
modernity and activity. There are parties that last through
the night, there are famous musicians playing on the
lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches,
and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the
Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae cant believe her luck,
her great fortune to work for the most influential company
in the world
19 Minutes- Jody Picoult
Contemporary: 480 pages
Can your own child become a mystery to you?
What does it mean to be different in our society?
Is it ever okay for a victim to strike back? And who
-- if anyone -- has the right to judge someone
else? (barnesandnoble.com).

Sterling is an ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing

ever happens-until the day its complacency is shattered by
an act of violence. Josie Cormier, the daughter of the judge
sitting on the case, should be the states best witness, but
she cant remember what happened before her very own
eyes-or can she? As the trial progresses, fault lines
between the high school and the adult community begin to
show-destroying the closest of friendships and families.
Snow Falling on Cedars
Historical Fiction

American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award

San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so

isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make
enemies.But in 1954 a local fisherman is found
suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese American named
Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder.In the course
of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake
is more than a man's guilt. For on San Pedro, memory
grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe
strawberries--memories of a charmed love affair between
a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become
Kabuo's wife; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost.
Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what
happened to its Japanese residents during World War II,
when an entire community was sent into exile while its
neighbors watched.Gripping, tragic, and densely
atmospheric, Snow Falling on Cedars is a masterpiece
of suspense-- one that leaves us shaken and changed.