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

Classification

Leisure Books

The Last Death of the Year by Sophie Hannah

New Year’s Eve, 1932. Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool arrive on the tiny Greek island of Lamperos to celebrate the holiday with what turns out to be a rather odd community of locals living in a dilapidated house. A dark sense of foreboding overshadows the beautiful island getaway when the guests play a New Year’s Resolutions game after dinner and one written resolution gleefully threatens to perform “the last and first death of the year.”

Hours later, one of the home’s residents is found dead on the terrace.

In light of the shocking murder, Poirot reveals to Catchpool the real reason he’s brought him to the island—the life of another community member has been threatened. Now both men resolve to ensure that the first murder will be the last.

With Friends Like These by Alissa Lee

Harvard promised them everything.

Ambitious futures, peers who pushed each other toward their absolute best, and an education that would open doors for the rest of their lives. And though they started out as roommates, Sara, Bee, Dina, Allie, Wesley, and Claudine soon became family. They had their whole bright lives ahead of them—until their senior year, when a shocking tragedy changed everything.

Twenty years later, five of the roommates still indulge in a secret tradition they’ve kept alive since their campus days: the Circus, a harmless elimination-style “killing” game played across the private rooms and hidden alleys of New York City. The game is a nod to their younger selves and a tribute to the sixth roommate they lost too young. But this year, Sara wants out of the game—until she discovers there is a small fortune awaiting the winner of this final round.

As the Circus unfolds, Sara begins to suspect that the others aren’t playing by the rules, and as the danger turns real and the old friends start pointing fingers, she discovers that even those closest to her harbor secrets of their own…secrets that could kill.

Revenge, Served Royal by Celeste Connally

September, 1815. Autumn is in the air as Lady Petra Forsyth and some of the most illustrious members of the ton descend upon Windsor Castle for a week of royal celebrations, with the highlight being Queen Charlotte’s inaugural patisserie contest for the best bakers employed by England’s finest houses. Not only is Lady Petra’s own cook one of the contestants, but Her Majesty has requested that Petra herself serve as one of the judges.

Petra’s happiness at tasting delicious cakes and biscuits only increases at finding her beloved Aunt Ophelia in attendance at Windsor, as well as Sir Rufus Pomeroy. As England’s most famous former royal chef-turned-cookbook author, Sir Rufus is slated to present his best recipes to the Queen during the festivities, with Petra being granted an early viewing in the royal library.

Yet upon arrival, Petra instead encounters a frantic housemaid pointing to a body of one of Her Majesty’s guests―and to the valet still tugging at the silk ribbon used to strangle the victim. What’s more, the valet turns out to be Oliver Beecham, the ne’er-do-well brother of Petra’s own lady’s maid, Annie. But as Oliver is hauled away to the dungeons, he protests his innocence, claiming the late guest argued with several aristocrats, including the Prince Regent and Petra’s Aunt Ophelia, and boasted about hiding a potentially scandalous document within the vastness of Windsor Castle.

When some poisoned tea meant for Petra is consumed by one of her fellow judges, it’s clear the real killer is still walking the castle’s halls. Indeed, in order to prove the innocence of Annie’s brother and find the incriminating document, Petra will need to act like a lady, eat like a chef, and think like one of Her Majesty’s best spies before a murderer can turn the celebrations from sweet to royally deadly.

I, Medusa by Ayana Gray

Meddy has spent her whole life as a footnote in someone else’s story. Out of place next to her beautiful, immortal sisters and her parents—both gods, albeit minor ones—she dreams of leaving her family’s island for a life of adventure. So when she catches the eye of the goddess Athena, who invites her to train as an esteemed priestess in her temple, Meddy leaps at the chance to see the world beyond her home.

In the colorful market streets of Athens and the clandestine chambers of the temple, Meddy flourishes in her role as Athena’s favored acolyte, getting her first tastes of purpose and power. But when she is noticed by another Olympian, Poseidon, the course of Meddy’s promising future is suddenly and irrevocably altered.

When her locs are transformed into snakes as punishment for a crime she did not commit, Medusa must embrace a new identity—not as a victim, but as a vigilante—and with it, the chance to write her own story as mortal, martyr, and myth.

The Perfect Hosts by Heather Gudenkauf

Is it a boy or a girl? They would die to know…

Madeline and Wes Drake have invited two hundred of their closest friends and family to their sprawling horse ranch for the most anticipated event of the year: a “pistols and pearls” gender reveal party so sensational it is sure to make headlines. But the party descends into chaos when the celebratory explosive misfires, leaving one woman dead and a trail of secrets.

As the aftershocks of the bloody party ripple across the small town, Agent Jamie Saldano is brought on the scene to investigate. Battling his own demons from the past, Saldano unearths a web of deceit spun around the Drakes. The appearance of some unexpected houseguests only deepens the mystery. And as tensions mount, it becomes clear that the explosion wasn’t just an unlucky accident. But who was the target, and why? As the shadow of a killer looms, the happy parents-to-be must unravel the truth before it’s too late.

The Burning Library by Gilly Macmillan

A deadly rivalry.

A chilling secret.

One woman who can decipher the truth.

On a frigid, windswept day in Scotland’s Western Isles, Eleanor Bruton’s body is discovered on the shore. To her family Eleanor was an ordinary middle-aged woman. She did flower arrangements and plumped kneeler cushions at church. Little did they know she was harboring a dark and all-consuming secret. A scrap of fraying embroidery that seems worthless at first glance.

For over a century, two rival organizations of women have gone to deadly lengths to secure the valuable artifact in the hopes of finding the original medieval manuscript from which it was torn. The Order of St. Katherine: devoted to the belief that women must pull strings in the shadows to exercise control. And the Fellowship of the Larks, determined to amass as many overt positions of power for women as possible…so long as their methods of doing so never come to light.

When Dr. Anya Brown garners international attention for her translation of the cryptic Folio 9, she is handpicked by Diana Cornish, a professor and high-ranking member of the Fellowship, to join the exclusive Institute of Manuscript Studies in St. Andrews. Unbeknownst to Anya she’s been recruited at great personal danger to translate ancient texts that the Fellowship believes critical to their mission.

Meanwhile at Scotland Yard, Detective Constable Clio Spicer begins a private investigation into the death of Eleanor Bruton.

As all the women grow further entangled in this ancient web, circumstances spin wildly out of control and their lives may be in grave danger.

B: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Ethics

BD373 .R367 2014 Before after / Anne-Margot Ramstein & Matthias ArÃ©gui

BF531 .K76 2025 Shift: managing your emotions--so they don't manage you / Ethan Kross

BF575.G7 L43 2024 Something, not nothing : a story of grief and love / Sarah Leavitt

BF575.N6 B435 2023 Yesterday: a new history of nostalgia / Tobias Becker

BF637.S4 K539 2021 Single. on purpose: redefine everything find yourself first / John Kim

BF723.E6 A43 2022 A little spot: my first emotions / written & illustrated by Diane Alber

BF789.S8 N48 2024 Don't believe everything you think: why your thinking is the beginning & end of suffering / Joseph Nguyen

BJ1611.2 .P27 2025 Who better than you?: the art of healthy arrogance & dreaming big / Will Packer

Shattered grief: how the pandemic transformed the spirituality of death in America / Natasha L. Mikles online

D: World History

D810.S8 O4765 2020 Madame Fourcade's secret war : the daring young woman who led France's largest spy network against Hitler / Lynne Olson

E & F: American History & Western Hemisphere

E176.1 .G555 2025 Presidents at war : how World War II shaped a generation of presidents, from Eisenhower and JFK through Reagan and Bush / Steven M. Gillon

E184.C5 H8596 2024 Feeding ghosts : a graphic memoir / Tessa Hulls

E185.615 .W49156 2025 New prize for these eyes: the rise of America's second civil rights movement / Juan Williams

E77.4 .T743 2023 The heartbeat of Wounded Knee : life in Native America / David Treuer ; adapted by Sheila Keenan

F73.44 .J66 2025 No right to an honest living : the struggles of Boston's Black workers in the Civil War era / Jacqueline Jones

G: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation

GA108.7 .R69 2024 Mapmatics : a mathematician's guide to navigating the world / Paulina RowiÅ„ska

GT2290 .T49 2020 Textures: the history and art of Black hair / [curators, Dr. Tameka N. Ellington, Dr. Joseph L. Underwood ; editors, Joseph L. Underwood and Tameka N. Ellington]