Daily Archives: January 11, 2020

The Means That Make Us Strangers by Christine Kindberg

Home is where your people are. But who are your people?
Adelaide has lived her whole life in rural Ethiopia as the white American daughter of an anthropologist. Then her family moves to South Carolina, in 1964.

Adelaide vows to find her way back to Ethiopia, marry Maicaah, and become part of the village for real. But until she turns eighteen, Adelaide must adjust to this strange, white place that everyone tells her is home. Then Adelaide becomes friends with the five African-American students who sued for admission into the white high school. Even as she navigates her family’s expectations and her mother’s depression, Adelaide starts to enjoy her new friendships, the chance to learn new things, and the time she spends with a blond football player. Life in Greenville becomes interesting, and home becomes a much more complex equation.

Adelaide must finally choose where she belongs: the Ethiopian village where she grew up, to which she promised to return? Or this place where she’s become part of something bigger than herself?
From CHAPTER 1:

A tangle of arms reaching toward the fig tree. Among the thicket of deep­-black arms stretching toward the fruit, two arms stood out, pale as a full moon.

I remember thinking how different those arms looked, while waiting for fruit to drop as Maicaah shook the branch. A fig hit the white hands and fell to the ground, and it was with shock that I felt the pain in my hands.

The others scrambled to get the figs that had landed in the grass. I stayed standing, turning my hands over and over in the sunlight that filtered through the leaves.

When Kinci stood up, I pulled her wrist until her arm was elbow-to-elbow with mine. Our arms were the same length, and we both had beaded cuffs of yellow, purple, green, and red beads in the same zig­-zag pattern. Underneath and around her bracelet, the skin of her arm was as dark as a burnt clay pot, with pink scar spots where she’d scratched at bug bites. My arm was the color of dried grass, even paler in the crease of my elbow, against the contrast of the dirt that gathered there.

"I’m white," I said.

When We Were Worthy by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

“Evoking Emmy limited-series winner Big Little Lies, Whalen’s novel is about a Georgia town ripped apart when an outcast boy kills three cheerleaders in a car accident, bringing secrets and simmering tensions to the surface.” —The Hollywood Reporter

When the sound of sirens cuts through a cool fall night, the small town of Worthy, Georgia, hurtles from triumph to tragedy. Just hours before, they’d watched the Wildcats score a winning touchdown. Now, they’re faced with the deaths of three cheerleaders–their promising lives cut short in a fatal crash. And the boy in the other car–the only one to survive–is believed to be at fault. As rumors begin to fly and accusations spin, allegiances form and long-kept secrets emerge.

At the center of the whirlwind are four women, each grappling with loss, regret, shame, and lies: Marglyn, a grieving mother; Darcy, whose son had been behind the wheel; Ava, a substitute teacher with a scandalous secret; and Leah, a cheerleader who should have been in the car with her friends, but wasn’t. If the truth comes out, will it bring redemption–or will it be their downfall?

The Stories She Tellsby LK Chapman

A heartbreaking secret. A lifetime of lies.

When Michael decides to track down ex-girlfriend Rae, who disappeared ten years ago while pregnant with his baby, he knows it could change his life forever. His search for her takes unexpected turns as he unearths multiple changes of identity and a childhood she tried to pretend never happened, but nothing could prepare him for what awaits when he finally finds her.

Rae appears to be happily married with a brand new baby daughter. But she is cagey about what happened to Michael’s child, and starts to say alarming things: that her husband is trying to force her to give up her new baby for adoption, that he’s attempting to undermine the bond between her and her child, and deliberately making her doubt her own sanity.

As Michael is drawn in deeper to her disturbing claims, he begins to doubt the truth of what she is saying. But is she really making it all up, or is there a shocking and heartbreaking secret at the root of the stories she tells?

The Stories She Tells is a powerful psychological novel exploring the lifelong impact of a traumatic childhood.

When She Returned by Lucinda Berry

One woman’s reappearance throws her family into turmoil, exposing dark secrets and the hidden, often devastating truth of family relationships.

Kate Bennett vanished from a parking lot eleven years ago, leaving behind her husband and young daughter. When she shows up at a Montana gas station, clutching an infant and screaming for help, investigators believe she may have been abducted by a cult.

Kate’s return flips her family’s world upside down–her husband is remarried, and her daughter barely remembers her. Kate herself doesn’t look or act like she did before.

While the family tries to help Kate reintegrate into society, they discover truths they’ve been hiding from each other about their own relationships. But they aren’t the only ones with secrets. As the family unravels what happened to Kate, a series of shocking revelations shows that Kate’s return is more sinister than any of them could have imagined.

Parlez-Vous Murder?by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

While American Jules Hooker is on vacation, a bomb explodes over the Riviera, destroying technology and leaving Jules stranded in Provence where she must make a living by solving murders the old-fashioned way—without help from DNA, databases, CSI crime labs or the police.