The Book of Gothel
Mary McMyne

This fully imagined version of the witch from Rapunzel is magical and engrossing. Author Mary McMyne's love of the historical period that Gothelf is set in shines through. The characters and the details of this gem are thoroughly researched, but more importantly, the author's love and devotion flow out of the pages with its own magic. Fans of Katherine Arden's Winternight trilogy will eat this up!

Note: this book will be released July 26

The Pillars of the Earth 
Ken Follett

Tom and I finished (again)  listening to the Inheritance Cycle series by Christopher Paolini, which is no small feat.

So in looking for a new epic to dive into, we chose……… The Pillars of the Earth. I’ve never read it before and it sounds like the kind of book we’d both enjoy: a monk, a builder, a cathedral, a beautiful lady with a secret, and of course, a far off battle for a crown. We’re listening to the unabridged version narrated by John Lee, who is an excellent narrator. We’re just getting started on our adventure with Tom the Mason and his family in 12th century Britain.

Swimming Back to Trout River 
Linda Rui Feng

I wasn’t able to participate in the Sister Wolf book group discussion of Swimming Back to Trout River, but since I’d already started the book and was hooked, decided to keep going! I’m listening to the book on Libro.fm.  Protagonist 10-year-old Junie, born in 1976 without fully developed legs, lives with her grandparents in a small Chinese village. Junie’s father has sent word that he will come collect Junie before her 12th birthday. While Junie’s grandparents are aging and not nearly as active/mobile as they once were, they mean home to Junie. The parents of Junie, Momo and Cassia, came of age during the Cultural Revolution. Politics is so pervasive in every day Chinese life that even a visit to the dentist means listening to the dentist compare a tooth extraction to the country’s politics (in a way that proves the dentist’s loyalty to the country’s regime.) Themes about family, freedom, politics, music, and friendship are woven together in this well-written literary novel, which I’m enjoying a great deal.

Libertie
Kaitlyn Greenidge

I recently finished reading Libertie for book group. I can see what all the attention it's been getting is about! The book is set in the years following the abolishment of slavery in the U.S. Libertie Sampson is a free-born black, the daughter of Dr. Catherine Sampson (based on the real-life Susan Smith McKinney Steward, the first black female doctor in New York.) Libertie's mother has plans for Libertie to follow in her footsteps and join her in her medical practice, but that might not be the right path for Libertie. The book is divided into three parts: Libertie's childhood (filled with interesting bits, like her mother and her friends receiving runaway slaves via coffins); Libertie's time at college—where she lives with another family, learns of her love for music and meets two musical friends; and Libertie's life in Haiti when she moves there to marry a student of her mother's. More than anything, this story stood out to me as about a woman who feels like an outsider no matter where she lives. It makes for great book group discussion!

Horse
Geraldine Brooks

Each of Geraldine Brooks’ books inhabits a world completely unlike the others. And within Horse, her latest, several different worlds exist. The stories of each of these worlds are woven together to create an original and spectacular novel. The skeleton of Lexington, America’s greatest thoroughbred racehorse, was haphazardly stored in an attic at the Smithsonian. There, a contemporary Smithsonian scientist studying the skeleton to learn what made Lexington an amazing racer makes a connection with a Nigerian American art historian searching for Black horsemen in art of the 1800s. In the 1850s, a young slave named Jarrett and Lexington formed a powerful bond that changed both of their lives. An art dealer in New York in the 1950s who deals with contemporary art becomes enamored with an equestrian painting from the previous century. Throughout these stories is the racism which defines the history of our country. Horse is a beautifully written book which tells an important story. It will appeal to a variety of readers, both those who are horse people and those who are not. The copies of Horse which we have in the store are signed.

Unsettled Ground
Claire Fuller

What is the legacy of a mother’s lies? 51year-old twins Jeanie and Julius awake one morning to discover their mother has died in the night. (This is not a spoiler as it happens in the opening pages of the book.) They have lived with their mother, Dot, for their entire lives. Their father died in an accident when Jeanie and Julius were children, and life has been difficult. They live in poverty, barely eking out a living. Dot and Jeanie tend a large garden and sell vegetables, while Julius is a day-laborer. They’re always had one another, and the music they’re made together. Now, as they struggle through the shock of their mother’s death and the difficulty of making arrangements for a burial, they slowly learn of the many ways their mother deceived them. Her intentions don’t seem malicious, but her children are adrift, losing their home and nearly losing each other. In their own ways, Jeanie and Julius gradually move forward and begin again.

Last Summer on State Street
Toya Wolfe

This powerful coming of age novel is set in the Robert Taylor Homes, projects in Chicago, during the summer of 1999. The narrator is 12-year-old Felicia (FeFe) Stevens. She, her mother, and older brother live in building 4950, which is slated to be torn down.

That last summer FeFe and three friends, Precious, Stacia, and Tonya, continue to jump rope and play other games with the innocence of children, but soon their lives are upended by gunplay, gangs, their impending relocation, and the realities of racism. FeFe’s brother is pulled out of bed one night by police officers to whom young+black=criminal.

Years later, FeFe reflects on that summer, still trying to make sense of it, and the ways it which it shaped her life.
Last Summer on State Street is relevant and profound, as well as an affecting story. It is one of the books featured on our Indies Introduce display.

It may be on interest to Twins fans that the Robert Taylor Homes were where Twins legend Kirby Puckett grew up.

Something Wicked
David Housewright

A good mystery is a great way to escape daily life. One of my favorite writers of hardboiled mysteries is Minnesota writer David Housewright. The settings in his books are familiar, the characters appealing (at least the good guys), and the snappy dialogue is witty and entertaining. (Why can’t I think of snappy retorts that quickly?)

His main character is Rushmore McKenzie, a former cop and sometimes private investigator. He promised his wife he’d retire (again) after his last case, which was nearly fatal. But an old friend of his wife’s needs help, and soon McKenzie is staying at a castle (yes, in Minnesota!) and trying to sort out the conflicting claims of feuding relatives.

It's sheer bubble gum, and great entertainment!

The Bookshop of Second Chances
Jackie Fraser

Thea Mottram has suddenly lost her job, her marriage, and her home. Fortuitously her great uncle, one she has not been close to, dies and leaves her a little fortune and his house in a small Scottish village. She visits to manage the property and ends up deciding to stay for the summer. To keep busy she gets a job in the town’s bookshop, owned by an irascible man whose ill humors rather amuse her. This is a very pleasant read, one that picks up your mood. I wish all disheartening life events would end in such satisfactory second chances.

Once There Were Wolves
Charlotte McConaghy

Inti Flynn is bringing packs of wolves to a land she’s never visited. She’s leading an effort to reintroduce wolves to Scotland. Deer are making it impossible to reforest as the herds eat young trees, and their natural predator could keep the deer population in check. However, people in the nearby community are used to letting their sheep and cattle roam near the forest: most are very skeptical and worried about their livestock.

That would provide enough drama, but Inti has a rare syndrome that makes her actually feel in her flesh whatever she sees happen to a person or animal. And then there are various subplots around men being violent to women. Inti has an identical twin sister with her, one who has suffered such trauma that she can only speak using sign language. It makes it difficult for Inti to trust men, or to stand by quietly when she suspects domestic abuse.

McConaghy started out writing about ecology but ended up with a novel that works on many levels.

Love in the Time of Bertie
Alexander McCall Smith

This is a charming novel set in modern (pre-pandemic) Edinburgh. It tells the stories of neighbors: Big Lou with her bacon rolls, a painter, a narcissist, a nun, students, the mother of triplets, and more. Bertie is a boy who lives with his father and grandmother. Bertie’s domineering mother has moved to Aberdeen: he doesn’t want to go and conspires with his friend Ranald Braveheart Macpherson to escape. The book is full of warm, intimate relationships and fun events. I learned a lot about foods and customs of Scotland; it’s a pleasant read.

A Distant View of Everything
Alexander McCall Smith

Isabel Dalhousie is a busybody. There is a series of books featuring her: but she isn’t a detective. Isabel is a wife and mother and the editor of a philosophic journal in Edinburgh. She just has a tendency to take on people’s problems because she has an ethical code that says she should help everyone in her proximity since you can’t help everyone in the world. In this book she is asked to discover if a friend’s matchmaking is putting someone in danger. Isabel’s mind is constantly going off on tangents, and we get to go along for the ride. For a long time, I thought it was a charming but pointless novel, but in the end, it makes a very good point about the way she fits into the world.

The Secrets We Kept
Lara Prescott

The Secrets We Kept is the 'novelized' account of the C.I.A.'s involvement in the surreptitious publication and dissemination of Boris Pasternak's Nobel Prize winning masterpiece Doctor Zhivago. Yes, THAT Doctor Zhivago!

In the mid 1950's, Pasternak's manuscript of Doctor Zhivago, was deemed 'subversive and unfit to be published.’ More than that, it was actively suppressed by Stalin's Cold War Soviet Government. 

Prescott's novel tells the story of the Doctor Zhivago manuscript being smuggled out of the Soviet Union, published in the West, and then disseminated, largely to Soviet citizens attending the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels. This action was not without some serious consequences for Pasternak, especially after he put the Soviet authorities in a bind by winning the Nobel Prize for literature. What a great way to learn history!

Black and Blue
Frank F. Weber

Black and Blue is so recently published (June 14, 2022) that it speaks directly to the present troubles we're experiencing here in Minnesota: racial, economic, covid related, political, and social, as well as the troubles we might have in our personal relationships. Frank Weber is a Forensic Psychologist by profession, and brings to his writing the same detailed meticulous observation he uses in his professional life. When I chatted with him briefly, at Beagle's recent Author Fest event, he told me (I hope I've got this right) one of the ways he decompresses and processes the situations, people, and events he encounters in his work is to write. Black and Blue is his sixth book and is set primarily in the Twin Cities. Each of the short chapters is narrated by one of the characters and is a finely crafted stratum of layered meaning and vantage, adding to the story. Layer upon layer until the whole becomes 'solid telling truth.’ This book will repay you ten times over for the effort you give it, if for nothing else than by giving you a long list of regionally brewed beers you'll be dying to try.