Saturdays at the Café

Saturdays at the Café is a weekly feature hosted here to talk about and discuss the books I’ve discovered during the past week, added to my shelf and am excited about reading. They may be new/scheduled releases I’ve seen on NetGalley, at the library, or from publishers or they may be older titles my friends have reviewed and shared on Goodreads or blogs.

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When New York University sophomore Megan Gunther finds personal threats posted to a Web site specializing in campus gossip, she’s taken aback by their menacing tone. Someone knows her daily routine down to the minute and is watching her — but thanks to the anonymity provided by the Internet, the police tell her there’s nothing they can do. Her friends are sure it’s someone’s idea of a joke, but when Megan is murdered in a vicious attack, NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher is convinced that the online threats are more than just empty words.

This is one of the books in the Ellie Hatcher series. I decided not to take any chances that Find Me might be connected.

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Sheriff Bree Taggert is blindsided by a killer’s devious plan in number one Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Melinda Leigh’s novel of escalating shock and suspense.

When Sheriff Bree Taggert discovers the body of a young woman floating near the bank of the Scarlet River, a note in her abandoned car suggests suicide. The autopsy reveals a different story. Holly Thorpe was dead long before she dropped off the bridge and hit the water.

As Bree and her investigator Matt Flynn delve into the case, secrets in Holly’s personal life complicate their efforts to solve the murder. Holly left behind a volatile marriage, an equally divisive relationship with her sister, and an employer whose intimate involvement with Holly was no secret. Each one has a motive for murder.

When Holly’s sister is terrorized by a stalker’s sick prank, and the prime suspect turns up dead, everything Bree was sure of is upended and her case goes off the rails. When the killer strikes close to home, Bree and Matt must race to solve the murders before one of their own becomes the next victim.

This was the only book missing from my collection in the series. Thanks to the Audible $5 sale, my patience paid off.

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From the number one New York Times best-selling author of The Boys in the Boat, a gripping World War II saga of patriotism and resistance, focusing on four Japanese American men and their families, and the contributions and sacrifices that they made for the sake of the nation.

In the days and months after Pearl Harbor, the lives of Japanese Americans across the continent and Hawaii were changed forever. In this unforgettable chronicle of war-time America and the battlefields of Europe, Daniel James Brown portrays the journey of Rudy Tokiwa, Fred Shiosaki, and Kats Miho, who volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, where they were asked to do the near impossible. Brown also tells the story of these soldiers’ parents, immigrants who were forced to submit to life in concentration camps on U.S. soil. Woven throughout is the chronicle of Gordon Hirabayashi, one of a cadre of patriotic resisters who stood up against their government in defense of their own rights. Whether fighting on battlefields or in courtrooms, these were Americans under unprecedented strain, doing what Americans do best – striving, resisting, pushing back, rising up, standing on principle, laying down their lives, and enduring.

A trusted Goodreads friend wrote a compelling review that made me add this quickly. I loved his earlier book so it wasn’t a hard sell. My library came through again with the audiobook.

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Featuring characters from Pamela Clare’s acclaimed I-Team series.

She barely survived.
Sasha Dillon, a five-time world champion climber, moved to Scarlet Springs to join the Rocky Mountain Search & Rescue Team. She loves the tiny mountain town and its quirky residents and finds happiness using her climbing skills to save lives. But her sense of safety is shattered when two unknown attackers in an SUV run her down, destroying her shot at her sixth world championship title. As the town rallies around her and she begins to heal, the sheriff brings in a big-city detective with experience handling celebrity stalkers. As unemotional and cold as he is good-looking, Darius Silva both irritates her and tempts her, tying her in knots. She doesn’t know whether to tell him off—or kiss him.

He’s done with celebrities.
Darius knows firsthand what happens when cops arrest the wrong person. He’ll carry those scars forever. That’s why he’s always careful to remain detached on the job and why he never, ever bends the rules. The last thing he wants is another case involving a demanding, self-centered celebrity. But Sasha makes her mark on him the first time he looks into her beautiful blue eyes. Down-to-earth, genuine, and full of life, she’s nothing like the shallow stars he’s known. Something about her gets under his skin, threatening to unravel his self-control and undermine his focus. And the only way to catch the men who hurt her and get back to his life in the city is to keep his mind—and his hands—off her and on the job.

To claim their future, they must face his past.
As they come closer to exposing her hidden foe, their desire for one another explodes, and Sasha learns that his cold exterior masks deep passion—and terrible pain. Now she will do all she can to heal his jaded heart and show him that the life—and love—he’s secretly longing for is here with her in Scarlet Springs.

A new book from one of my favorite authors! Auto read, auto buy, it’s scheduled for release late next month.

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A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick

In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.

Until Frida has a very bad day.

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.

Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good.

A searing page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic.

I always take a hard look at the Read with Jenna book club selections and this is intriguing. Thanks again to my library for the audiobook.

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The first big novel of 2022: an epic literary thriller set where America is right now, in which a band of unlikely heroes sets out on a quest to save one innocent life – and might end up saving us all.

Something is happening to teenagers across America, spreading through memes only they can parse.

At the Float Anxiety Abatement Center, in a suburb of Chicago, Simon Oliver is trying to recover from his sister’s tragic passing. He breaks out to join a woman named Louise and a man called The Prophet on a quest as urgent as it is enigmatic. Who lies at the end of the road? A man known as The Wizard, whose past encounter with Louise sparked her own collapse. Their quest becomes a rescue mission when they join up with a man whose sister is being held captive by the Wizard, impregnated and imprisoned in a tower.

Noah Hawley’s new novel is an adventure that finds unquenchable lights in dark corners. Unforgettably vivid characters and a plot as fast and bright as pop cinema blend in a Vonnegutian story that is as timeless as a Grimm’s fairy tale. It is a leap into the idiosyncratic pulse of the American heart, written with the bravado, literary power, and feverish foresight that have made Hawley one of our most essential writers.

I loved his previous book and am drawn by the description of this one. I’m in a very short library queue for the audiobook.

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What books did YOU add to your shelves this week?