New Adult Fiction: Monday, December 1

Happy Monday! Do you need a new book or two to start off this new month? Stop by when you can (we’re open til 8 pm). We have many options! To place a title on hold online, visit https://owwl.org and sign in to your account using your library card number. Pick up your book from the shelves near the circulation desk when you have time.

Here are a few of the new fiction books that have arrived at the library recently. We invite you to check them out.

The Land of Sweet Forever: Stories and Essays

Harper Lee remains a landmark figure in the American canon — thanks to her Pulitzer-winning debut, To Kill a Mockingbird. Less remembered, until now, however, is the dogged young writer, who crafted stories in hopes of magazine publication; Lee the lively New Yorker, Alabamian, and friend to Truman Capote; and the Lee who peppered the pages of McCall’s and Vogue with thoughtful essays in the latter part of the twentieth century. The Land of Sweet Forever combines Lee’s early short fiction and later nonfiction in a volume offering an unprecedented look at the development of her inimitable voice.

The Secret Christmas Library

Mirren Sutherland stumbled into a career as an antiquarian book hunter after finding a priceless antique book in her great aunt’s attic. Now, she’s been hired by Jamie McKinnon, the laird of a Highland clan whose ancestral holdings include a vast crumbling castle. Family lore suggests that the McKinnon family’s collection includes a rare book so valuable that it could save the entire estate—if they only knew where it was. But on the train to the Highlands, Mirren runs into rival book hunter Theo Palliser. Almost as soon as Mirren and Theo arrive at the castle, a deep snow blankets the Highlands, cutting off the outside world. Stuck inside, the three of them plot their search as the wind whistles outside.

Sugar and Spite

When a series of deaths within the small Cotswolds birdwatching community begins to unravel her village, Agatha Raisin and her team at Raisin Investigators are certain there has been foul play involved. Now, they must dig up decades’ worth of tempestuous relationships and simmering secrets among the village’s birdwatching enthusiasts to prevent any further deaths. But with Agatha’s own relationship with John Glass on the rocks after he is called away on his job as a cruise ship dance instructor, and Sir Charles Fraith now attempting to step into John’s shoes as her lover, Agatha has her work cut out for her. Agatha will have to break out her binoculars and embrace her bitter side to solve the murders and wrangle the sickly-sweet temptations in her own life.