More from the Summer Reading Program

Welcome to Summer Reading 2011!  This week 237 people signed up for the program and received a nifty book bag.  There are still some left, so hurry in to sign up while supplies last! This week, 45 people read 103 books!

The Dante Club By Pearl, Matthew 2004-02 - Random House Trade 9780812971040 Check Our Catalog The New York Times Bestseller Boston, 1865. A series of murders, all of them inspired by scenes in Dante's Inferno. Only an elite group of America's first Dante scholars--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J. T. Fields--can solve the mystery. With the police baffled, more lives endangered, and Dante's literary future at stake, the Dante Club must shed its sheltered literary existence and find the killer. …More

Oddball Illinois: A Guide to Some Really Strange Places By Pohlen, Jerome 2000-03 - Chicago Review Press 9781556523717 Check Our Catalog This offbeat travel guide is a mix of Fodor's( and News of the Weird. Behind all the odd sights is some wonderfully interesting history and a chance to see some under-appreciated sites throughout the state. Photos. …More

Illinois Off the Beaten Path By Puhala, Bob Revised by Henderson, Lyndee Jobe 2007-07 - Globe Pequot Press 9780762744138 Check Our Catalog This Illinois guide is jam packed with hundreds of fresh ideas for travelers seeking budget friendly excursions suitable for all ages. Readers will hit the road armed to explore the Land of Lincoln's landmarks, well-known and not so well-known, the historical to the quirky, from day trips to week long adventures. A handy list of community festivals, statewide museums, and places to stay and eat are also contained in this comprehensive book. …More

Witching Hour By Rice, Anne Author Rice, Jenny 1990-10 - Knopf Publishing Group 9780394587868 Check Our Catalog From the author of the extraordinary Vampire Chronicles comes a huge, hypnotic novel of witchcraft and the occult through four centuries. Demonstrating, once again, her gift for spellbinding storytelling and the creation of legend, Anne Rice makes real for us a great dynasty of witches--a family given to poetry and to incest, to murder and to philosophy; a family that, over the ages, is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous, and seductive being. On the veranda of a great New Orleans house, now faded, a mute and fragile woman sits rocking . . . and The Witching Hour begins. It begins in our time with a rescue at sea. Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery--aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches--finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life. He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him. As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and--in passionate alliance--set out to solve the mystery of "her past and "his unwelcome gift, the novel moves backward and forward in time from today's New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and a chateau in the France of Louis XIV. An intricate tale of evil unfolds--an evil unleashed in seventeenth-century Scotland, where the first "witch," Suzanne of the Mayfair, conjures up the spirit she names Lasher . . . a creation that spells her own destruction and torments each of her descendants in turn. From the coffee plantations of Port au Prince, where the great Mayfair fortune is made and the legacy of their dark power is almost destroyed, to Civil War New Orleans, as Julien--the clan's only male to be endowed with occult powers--provides for the dynasty its foothold in America, the dark, luminous story encompasses dramas of seduction and death, episodes of tenderness and healing. And always--through peril and escape, tension and release--there swirl around us the echoes of eternal war: innocence versus the corruption of the spirit, sanity against madness, life against death. With a dreamlike power, the novel draws us, through circuitous, twilight paths, to the present and Rowan's increasingly inspired and risky moves in the merciless game that binds her to her heritage. And in New Orleans, on Christmas Eve, this strangest of family sagas is brought to its startling climax. HPL patron:  I love anything of Anne Rice.  She is great. …More

And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road By Roach, Margaret 2011-02 - Grand Central Publishing 9780446556095 Check Our Catalog Roach worked at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for 15 years, serving as editorial director for the last six. Despite the rewards of her job, Roach felt unfulfilled, so she moved to her weekend house in an effort to lead a more authentic life by connecting with her garden and with nature. …More

Chasing Fire By Roberts, Nora 2011-04 - Putnam Adult 9780399157448 Check Our Catalog Number-one "New York Times"-bestselling author Nora Roberts--America's favorite writer ("The New Yorker")--delves into the world of elite firefighters who thrive on danger and adrenaline--men and women who wouldn't know how to live life if it wasn't on the edge. …More

Instruments of Darkness By Robertson, Imogen 2011-02 - Pamela Dorman Books 9780670022427 Check Our Catalog Combining the brooding atmosphere of Anne Perry with the complex, compelling detail of Tess Gerritsen, Robertson presents an intricate historical page-turner about a forbidding country estate and the unlikely forensic duo that sets out to uncover its deadly secrets. …More

Murder at the God's Gate By Robinson, Lynda S. 1995-02 - Walker & Company 9780802731982 Check Our Catalog In year five of his reign, fourteen-year-old Pharaoh Tutankhamun is beset by problems: The Hittites are encroaching, and several of Egypt's vassal states have fallen because of the neglect of his late brother, the heretic Akhenaten. The priests of Amun, whose power rivals that of the pharaoh, are bitter, filled with resentment against the young king whose dead brother tried to destroy them. For Lord Meren, the pharaoh's confidential inquiry agent, the unrest and whispering are clear threats to Tutankhamun's life. When Meren's spy at the temple at Thebes dies in a spectacular accident, the threat takes on new force. While Meren's son, Kysen, leads the temple investigation, the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh embarks on a dangerous enterprise, not only challenging the priests but protecting Tutankhamun from the traitors scheming within the walls of his own court. …More

Doc By Russell, Mary Doria 2011-05 - Random House 9781400068043 Check Our Catalog Violence is random and routine in Dodge City, Kansas, in 1878, but when the burned body of a mixed-blood boy named Johnnie Sanders is discovered, his death shocks a part-time policeman named Wyatt Earp and is a matter of strangely personal importance to Doc Holliday. HPL patron:  A really good book.  I really liked it. …More

The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes By Sakey, Marcus 2011-06 - Dutton Books 9780525952114 Check Our Catalog Sakey ("The Blade Itself, Good People") returns with his most ambitious novel, a captivating story of love and memory, where the only thing more frightening than the questions are the answers. HPL patron:  First book I read by author and loved it.  Will now read more. …More

Dead Watch By Sandford, John 2006-05 - Putnam Publishing Group 9780399153549 Check Our Catalog From the author of the #1 bestselling Prey novels comes an extraordinary story of murder, passion, and deadly ambition--a political thriller like no other. HPL patron:  A slow start but keep going.  This is a good, fast moving "drama" with political overtones that embellish the plot.  Enjoy! …More

Storm Prey By Sandford, John 2010-05 - Putnam Adult 9780399156496 Check Our Catalog Three men burst through the door of a hospital pharmacy and clean the place out, killing one of the workers. The robbers find themselves face to face with Weather Karkinnen, surgeon, and wife of investigator Lucas Davenport. Gnawing it over later, it seems to them there is only one thing they can do: find out who she is, and eliminate the only possible witness. …More

Push By Sapphire 1997-04 - Vintage Books USA 9780679766759 Check Our Catalog Relentless, remorseless, and inspirational, this "horrific, hope-filled story" (Newsday) is certain to haunt a generation of readers. Precious Jones, 16 years old and pregnant by her father with her second child, meets a determined and highly radical teacher who takes her on a journey of transformation and redemption. …More

The Warlock By Scott, Michael 2011-05 - Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers 9780385735339 Check Our Catalog In the fifth installment of this bestselling series, the twins of prophesy have been divided, and the end is finally beginning. With Scatty, Joan of Arc, Saint Germain, Palamedes, and Shakespeare all in Danu Talis, Sophie is on her own with the ever-weakening Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel. …More

Peony in Love By See, Lisa 2007-06 - Random House Large Print Publishing 9780739327296 Check Our Catalog "I finally understand what the poets have written. In spring, moved to passion; in autumn only regret." For young Peony, betrothed to a suitor she has never met, these lyrics from The Peony Pavilion mirror her own longings. In the garden of the Chen Family Villa, amid the scent of ginger, green tea, and jasmine, a small theatrical troupe is performing scenes from this epic opera, a live spectacle few females have ever seen. Like the heroine in the drama, Peony is the cloistered daughter of a wealthy family, trapped like a good-luck cricket in a bamboo-and-lacquer cage. Though raised to be obedient, Peony has dreams of her own. Peony's mother is against her daughter's attending the production: "Unmarried girls should not be seen in public." But Peony's father assures his wife that proprieties will be maintained, and that the women will watch the opera from behind a screen. Yet through its cracks, Peony catches sight of an elegant, handsome man with hair as black as a cave-and is immediately overcome with emotion. So begins Peony's unforgettable journey of love and destiny, desire and sorrow-as Lisa See's haunting new novel, based on actual historical events, takes readers back to seventeenth-century China, after the Manchus seize power and the Ming dynasty is crushed. Steeped in traditions and ritual, this story brings to life another time and place-even the intricate realm of the afterworld, with its protocols, pathways, and stages of existence, a vividly imagined place where one's soul is divided into three, ancestors offer guidance, misdeeds are punished, and hungry ghosts wander the earth. Immersed in the richness and magic of the Chinese vision of the afterlife, transcending even death, "Peony in Love" explores, beautifully, the many manifestations of love. Ultimately, Lisa See's new novel addresses universal themes: the bonds of friendship, the power of words, and the age-old desire of women to be heard. HPL patron:  Imaginative and creative.  A story about a girl who dies of lovesickness in a time where love was not allowed. …More

The Grimm Legacy By Shulman, Polly 2010-07 - Putnam Publishing Group 9780399250965 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title Shulman has created a contemporary fantasy with a fascinating setting and premise, starring an ordinary girl whose after-school job is far from ordinary--and leads to a world of excitement, romance, and magical intrigue. HPL patron:  It was a really good read. …More

Black and Ugly By Styles, T. 2007-01 - Triple Crown Publications 9780977880416 Check Our Catalog Black and Ugly is a tale of four totally different friends from the same block, whose friendship is tested during a seemingly innocent game of Truth or Dare. When fatal secrets begin to surface, will Parade give up the friend whose shadow she has walked in all her life? And will Miss Wayne and Daphne abandon their friends to save themselves? …More

Labyrinth By Sullivan, Mark T. 2002-08 - Atria Books 9780743439800 Check Our Catalog The "New York Times" Notable novelist and Pulitzer-nominated journalist spins a crackling tale of thrills and sophisticated intrigue that takes readers from the peaks of the Moon down into the very bowels of the Earth. Soon to be a major motion picture from Paramount, produced by Scott Rudin ("The Addams Family, Sleepy Hollow"). HPL patron:  A thriller set in a huge cave system where a mad scientist and escaped convicts pursue a mysterious moon rock.  Throw in an earthquake and a flood and you have constant peril for the protaganists. …More

Playing Dirty By Swinson, Kiki 2009-04 - Dafina Books 9780758228352 Check Our Catalog From "Essence"-bestselling author Swinson--one of the reigning stars of urban lit--comes a scintillating drama-filled tale about life on the streets. HPL patron:  Great author. …More

The Color of Night: A Young Mother, a Missing Child, and a Cold-Blooded Killer By Timmerman, L. C. Author Timmerman, John H. 2011-01 - New Horizon Press 9780882823225 Check Our Catalog "The Color of Night" is a skillfully woven true crime account of a horrendous crime, a family's quest for answers, and the landmark case that tested the Federal Death Penalty Act. Nineteen-year-old Rachel Timmerman, who was about to testify against the man who had raped her, disappeared with her toddler daughter, Shannon. A month later, Rachel's body was discovered in a lake chained to cinder blocks and with her eyes and mouth covered in duct tape. Soon a trail of bodies begins to emerge. Is a serial killer at large? Written by Rachel's father and uncle, "The Color of Night" is a shocking story of violence, murder, and the search for justice. HPL patron:  A true crime story set in Newago, MI.  Tells of the brutal murder-engrossing, though parts are difficult to read. …More

Heartbreak of a Hustler's Wife By Turner, Nikki 2011-04 - One World 9780345511089 Check Our Catalog Yarni Taylor wants nothing more than for her husband, Des, to commit to his life as a pastor--especially after someone tries to kill him. Before he or Yarni can regain their footing, a young woman shows up on their doorstep--Desember Day, the 18-year-old daughter Des never knew he had. With their lives on the line, Yarni must sacrifice everything to save her husband and her family. …More

Relapse By Turner, Nikki 2010-04 - One World 9780345511058 Check Our Catalog The Queen of Hip-Hop Lit returns with this scintillating tale of a woman withthree very different sides--all of which can't seem to beat an addiction to aman who's all-powerful and all wrong. …More

Backstage: Street Chronicles By Turner, Nikki With Dane, Dana Featuring Turley, Harold L., II 2009-09 - One World 9780345504296 Check Our Catalog Turner, a "New York Times"-bestselling author and hip-hop aficionado, has selected four authors to join her in the latest installment of the Street Chronicles series. …More

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