February 2025 - Central Piedmont Library - New Titles - InfoGuides at Central Piedmont Community College

Classification

Leisure Books

Sometimes the world is out to get you.

Meg Russo was behind the wheel when it happened. She and her husband Justin were driving their daughter Lily to Ithaca College, the family celebrating the eighteen-year-old music prodigy’s future. Then a car swerved up beside them, the young men inside it behaving bizarrely—and Meg lost control of her own vehicle. The family road trip turned into a tragedy. Justin didn’t survive the accident.

Four months later, Meg works to distract herself from her grief and guilt, reopening her small local bookstore. But soon after she returns to work, bizarre messages and visitors begin to arrive, with strangers threatening Meg and Lily in increasingly terrifying ways. They are obsessed with a young adult novel titled The Prophesy, which was published thirty years earlier. An online group of believers are convinced that it heralds the apocalypse, and social media posts link the book—and Meg’s reclusive musician father—to Satanism. These conspiracy theorists vow to seek revenge on The Prophesy’s author...Meg.

As the threats turn violent, Meg begins to suspect that Justin’s death may not have been an accident. To find answers and save her daughter, her father, and herself, Meg must get to the root of these dangerous lies—and find a way to face the believers head-on … before it’s too late.

Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine

Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master’s daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, while she spends her nights secretly roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie.

When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie’s life, she commits a desperate act—one that rouses Minnie’s spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her. She enlists the aid of Caleb, the guests’ coachman, and their friendship soon becomes something more. Yet as long-held truths begin to crumble, she realizes Bellereine is harboring dark and horrifying secrets that can no longer be ignored.

With time ticking down, Junie begins to push against the harsh current that has controlled her entire life. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we choose love and liberation, what must we leave behind?

The Woman in the Wallpaper by Lora Jones

After leaving their family home in Marseilles, Sofi and Lara settle in a quiet village near Paris. But life at the factory is far from peaceful. At the heart of the wallpaper’s idyllic vignettes is the haunting image of Madame Justine, the factory owner’s late wife, whose untimely and suspicious death still casts a shadow. As Lara finds herself drawn to Josef Oberst, the enigmatic son of the factory owner, unsettling parallels emerge between her life and the tragic events depicted in the wallpaper. Dreams turn dark, suspicion deepens, and Lara begins to fear that her fate may be inextricably tied to the ill-fated Justine.

You are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego

When renowned anonymous author J. R. Alastor hires former aspiring writer Mila del Angél to host a writing retreat at his private manor off the coast of Maine, she jumps at the chance—particularly since she has an axe to grind with one of the invitees. The guest list? Six thriller authors, all masters of deceit, misdirection, and mayhem.

Confess the crimes, survive the tropes.

Alastor and Mila have masterminded a week of games, trope-fueled riddles, and maybe a jump scare or two—the perfect cover for Mila to plot a murder of her own. But when a guest turns up dead—and it’s not the murder she planned—Mila finds herself trapped in a different narrative altogether.

One by one, you’ll lose your turn.

With a storm isolating the island, and the body count rising, Mila must outwit a killer who knows literally every trick in the book.

Until only one of us remains . . .

Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito

Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze. Compounded with her disdain for the entitled Pounds children, Winifred finds herself struggling at every turn to stifle the violent compulsions of her past. French tutoring and needlework are one way to pass the time, as is admiring the ugly portraits in the gallery . . . and creeping across the moonlit lawns. . . .

Patience. Winifred must have patience, for Christmas is coming, and she has very special gifts planned for the dear souls of Ensor House. Brimming with sardonic wit and culminating in a shocking conclusion, Victorian Psycho plunges readers into the chilling mind of an iconic new literary psychopath.

A Girl Like Us by Anna Sophie McLoughlin

It's 2004 and former reality TV star and party girl Maya Miller has just married the most eligible bachelor on the planet: Colin Sterling, of the globally famous Sterling family whose history of aristocratic titles and land holdings rival a British royal and whose media empire is comparable to the Murdochs. To some, Maya represents the American dream. To others, a gold digger. But when Colin's cousin Arianna, the heiress to the family's immense fortune, is found murdered, Maya is thrust into the spotlight: first as she is revealed to be the next heiress to the fortune, and then as the prime suspect.

Swiftly, the entire Sterling family goes into lockdown at Silver House, the family's ancestral estate in the English countryside. They're told it's for their own safety—but Maya becomes convinced that it's not to keep threats out, but to keep secrets in. Now, she has no choice but to find and expose the truth hidden within the Sterling family, and why Arianna, a girl she had never met, chose her to take her place. But Maya has secrets of her own. And she knows that in order to survive the Sterlings, she'll have to beat them at their own game.

The Other March Sisters by Linda Epstein

Four sisters, each as different as can be. Through the eyes and words of Jo, their characters and destinies became known to millions. Meg, pretty and conventional. Jo, stubborn, tomboyish, and ambitious. Beth, shy and good-natured, a mortal angel readily accepting her fate. And Amy, elegant, frivolous, and shallow. But Jo, for all her insight, could not always know what was in her sisters’ thoughts, or in their hearts.

With Jo away in New York to pursue her literary ambitions, Meg, Beth, and Amy follow their own paths. Meg, newly married with young twins, struggles to find the contentment that Marmee assured her would come with domesticity. Unhappy and unfulfilled, she turns to her garden, finding there not just a hobby but a calling that will allow her to help other women in turn.

Beth knows her time is limited. Still, part of her longs to break out of her suffocating cocoon at home, however briefly. A new acquaintance turns into something more, offering unexpected, quiet joy.

Amy, traveling in Europe while she pursues her goal of becoming an artist, is keenly aware of the expectation that she will save the family by marrying well. Through the course of her journey, she discovers how she can remain true to herself, true to her art, and true to the love that was always meant to be.

Purposefully leaving Jo off the page, authors Liz Parker, Ally Malinenko, and Linda Epstein draw inspiration from Alcott’s real-life sisters, giving the other March women room to reveal themselves through conversations, private correspondence, and intimate moments—coming alive in ways that might surprise even daring, unconventional Jo.

B: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Ethics

BD215 A747 2023 Misbelief : what makes rational people believe irrational things / Dan Ariely

BF637.C45 D858 2024 Supercommunicators : how to unlock the secret language of connection / Charles Duhigg

BM610 .H452 2024 Judaism is about love : recovering the heart of Jewish life / Shai Held

D: World History

DA27.5 .S33 2021 Empireland : how imperialism has shaped modern Britain / Sathnam Sanghera

E & F: American History & Western Hemisphere

E169.Z83 O34 2021 Where the deer and the antelope play : the pastoral observations of one ignorant American who loves to walk outside / Nick Offerman

E178.1 .J35 2017 A history of the United States / Philip Jenkins

E184.S75 A839 2024 Latinoland : a portrait of America's largest and least understood minority / Marie Arana

E185.86 .J332 2024 Black women taught us : an intimate history of Black feminism / Jenn M. Jackson, PhD

G: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation

GE70 .H669 2017 50 fantastic ideas for things to do with mud and clay / Judit Horvath print & online

GF71 .A478 2024 The weight of nature : how a changing climate changes our brains / Clayton Page Aldern

GT736 .R49 2023 Style & society : dressing the Georgians / Anna Reynolds

GV1061.15.K43 A313 2024 I run to make my heart beat / story, Rachel Khan ; art, Aude Massot ; adaptation, Ivanka Hahnenberger ; editors, Kristal Adams & Fabrice Sapolsky