Books & Banter

This month’s pick was chosen over the winning vote, not just because it topped most of our TBR lists, but also due to "Mad Mabel" by Hepworth having long waitlists at libraries. (Hint, that book is already earmarked for a future event.)

Summer Camp is supposed to be fun. Especially if your family owns it.

Some said it was tragic, what happened to the Van Laars.
Some said the Van Laars deserved it. That they never even thanked the searchers who stayed out for five nights in the freezing Adirondack forest by their summer camp, trying to help find their missing son.

Some said there was a reason it took the family so long to call for help.

Now, fifteen years later, the daughter the Hamiltons had in their grief has gone missing in the same woods as her brother.

Some say the two disappearances aren’t connected.
Some say they are.

448 pgs

• Book of the Month Book of the Year Award Winner (2024)
• Goodreads Choice Award Winner Mystery/Thriller (2024)
• Nominated/Shortlisted for Several Awards: Edgar Allen Poe/British Book of the Year/Libby/Barnes & Noble Book of the Year (2024)

A forgotten goddess tells her side of the story. Let's see if Odysseus comes out looking like the hero this time.

Even the gods feared her power.

A story of one of the most misunderstood woman in Olympus. Exiled to a remote island by a father who fears her power, Circe doesn't wither in solitude. She sharpens. From the anger and violence directed at her by the gods, monsters, and mortals. Who underestimate her. Over centuries, she forges herself into something no deity saw coming . . .

A witch who answers to no one.

But there is danger for any woman who refuses to kneel. Drawing the kind of fury that makes oceans boil and skies crack open, Circe finds herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians.

Now, Circe must make a choice that will define her existence. Does she belong with the gods, or with the mortals she has come to love?

393 pgs
fiction/mythology