On 10.3.2025 at 8 PM Eastern we will be discussing the book, The widower’s wife: a thriller by Cate Holahan DB128362.

My review:

The widower’s wife: a thriller DB128362 is an intriguing thriller that grabbed hold of me from the start and wouldn’t let me go.

Her body was never recovered.

Was it a tragic accident? A heartbreaking suicide? A cold-blooded murder? Or… Was it something else?

That’s when Ryan steps in. He is an insurance investigator with a sharp eye, and a tough refusal to settle for easy answers. As he investigates, he begins to uncover secrets, lies, and a marriage that may not have been what it appeared. Each chapter leads you closer to the truth, but the truth keeps shifting.

on Friday, September 5, 2025 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time.  Please join us to welcome Tracey back and don’t forget to bring your questions and comments. The BARD annotation is below. Unfortunately, this book is not available on Bookshare.

Our facilitator for this meeting will be Michelle Bernstein, [email protected].

What happened to the McCrays? DB128432

Author: Lange, Tracey

Reading Time: 10 hours, 29 minutes

Read by: Németh-Parker, Stephanie, DeMeritt, William

Subjects: Family, Romance

“When Kyle McCray gets word his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, he returns to his hometown of Potsdam, New York, where he doesn’t expect a warm welcome. Kyle left suddenly two and a half years ago, abandoning people who depended on him: his father, his employees, his friends–not to mention Casey, his wife of sixteen years and a beloved teacher in town. He plans to lie low and help his dad recuperate until he can leave again, especially after Casey makes it clear she wants him gone. The longer he’s home, the more Kyle understands the impact his departure has had on the people he left behind. When he’s presented with an opportunity for redemption as the coach of the floundering middle school hockey team, he begins to find compassion in unexpected places. Kyle even considers staying in Potsdam, but that’s only possible if he and Casey can come to some kind of peace with each other.”– From publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.

New York : Macmillan, 2025.

This book is not available on Bookshare.

Beginning with the October meeting, LeDon has volunteered to facilitate the group.

We will not meet in July due to the July 4th holiday. We will continue this group without a facilitator until we have one and we hope you can join us to informally discuss this book.

Three days in June DB127313

Author: Tyler, Anne

Reading Time: 4 hours, 25 minutes

Read by: Smith-Cameron, J.

Subjects: Human Relations, Family, Women, Romance

“Gail Baines is long divorced from her husband, Max, and not especially close to her grown daughter, Debbie. Today is the day before Debbie’s wedding. To start, Gail loses her job–or quits, depending who you ask. Then, Max arrives unannounced on Gail’s doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay and without even a suit in which to walk their daughter down the aisle. But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband-to-be. It will not only throw the wedding itself into question but also send Gail back into her past and how her own relationship fell apart.”– Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.

New York : Penguin Random House, 2025.

This book can be found on Bookshare at this link:

https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6428188?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRocmVlJTJCZGF5cyUyQmluJTJCSnVuZQ

This group currently does not have a scheduled facilitator and we will continue to pick and discuss books as a group.

No hiding in Boise DB118022

Author: Hooper, Kim

Reading Time: 9 hours, 41 minutes

Read by: Adam Barr, Pete Cross, Madeleine Maby, Stephanie Einstein, Michael Brusasco, Patrick Lawlor, Stephanie Willing, Nick Mondelli, Neil Hellegers, Devon Sorvari, Hillary Huber

Subjects: Suspense Fiction, Mystery and Detective Stories, Women

“Angie is awakened by a midnight call from an officer with the Boise Police Department and thinks there must be a misunderstanding. The officer tells her that her husband was involved in a shooting at a local bar, but how can that be when her husband is sleeping right next to her? But when she turns to wake him, he isn’t there. Tessa is the twenty-three-year-old bartender who escapes to a backroom storage closet during the shooting. When it comes to light that five people were killed, she is burdened with the question of why she survived. Joyce wakes up to a knock at her front door, a knock she assumes is her wayward son, Jed, who must have lost his keys. It’s not Jed though. Two police officers tell her that Jed is dead, shot at a bar. Then they deliver even worse news: “We have reason to believe your son was the shooter.” So begins the story of three women tied together by tragic fate–a wife trying to understand why her now-comatose husband was frequenting a bar in the middle of the night, the young woman whom her husband was apparently pursuing, and a mother who is forced to confront the reality of who her son was and who she is.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.

Holland, OH : Dreamscape Media, [2021]

This book is not available on Bookshare.

This group currently does not have a scheduled facilitator and we will continue to pick and discuss books as a group.

(BARD annotation below). We will continue this group without a facilitator until we have one and we hope you can join us to informally discuss this book.

Here is the NLS annotation:

The Heaven & Earth Grocery store: a novel DB115655

Author: McBride, James

Reading Time: 12 hours, 24 minutes

Read by: Dominic Hoffman

Subjects: Bestsellers, African American Topics, Disability, Historical Fiction

“In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe. As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community–heaven and earth–that sustain us.”– Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller.

New York : Penguin Random House, 2023.

This book can be found on Bookshare at this link:

https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6031568?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPXRoZSUyQmhlYXZlbiUyQiUyNTI2YW1wJTI1M0IlMkJlYXJ0aCUyQmdyb2NlcnklMkJzdG9yZQ

Here is the NLS annotation:

The berry pickers: a novel DB117941

“A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a family, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years. July 1962. Following in the tradition of Indigenous workers from Nova Scotia, a Mi’kmaq family arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.” — Provided by publisher. Strong language and some violence. Commercial audiobook.

[Prince Frederick, Maryland] : Recorded Books, Inc., [2023]

This book can be found on Bookshare at this link:

https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6211068?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRoZSUyQmJlcnJ5JTJCcGlja2Vycw

This group currently does not have a scheduled facilitator and we will continue to pick and discuss books as a group.

Here is the NLS annotation:

The accident: a novel DB74117

Author: Barclay, Linwood

Reading Time: 12 hours, 17 minutes

Read by: Peter Berkrot

Subject: Suspense Fiction

After his wife Sheila is killed in a drunk-driving accident she caused, struggling contractor Glen Garber is angry and confused–Sheila never drank that much. When the mother of his eight-year-old daughter’s best friend also dies mysteriously, Glen’s suspicions deepen. Some strong language and some descriptions of sex. Commercial audiobook. 2011.

This book can be found on Bookshare at this link:

https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/2275615?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPUxpbndvb2QlMkJCYXJjbGF5

This group currently does not have a scheduled facilitator and we will continue to pick and discuss books as a group.

The Fiction Old and New book group again welcomes guest host Sally Rosenthal on Friday, February 7, 2025 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern to discuss The color purple DB58842 by Alice Walker.

(BARD annotation below). We hope that you can join us this Black History Month to discuss this compelling story.

Here is the NLS annotation:

The color purple DB58842

Follows two black sisters–Nettie, a missionary, and Celie, raped by her father and married to a cruel man. Nettie’s letters do not reach Celie, and Celie’s shame is so great that she writes only to God. Anniversary edition includes Walker’s 1992 preface. Strong language and some explicit descriptions of sex. Pulitzer Prize. 1982.

New York : Harcourt, c1982.

This book can be found on Bookshare at this link:

https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/5562748?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPXRoZSUyQmNvbG9yJTJCcHVycGxl

This group currently does not have a scheduled facilitator and we will continue to pick and discuss books as a group.

The Fiction Old and New book group is thrilled to welcome guest host Sally Rosenthal on Friday, January 3, 2025 at 8:00 p.m. to discuss “Crow Lake” by Mary Lawson,

DB 59867 (BARD annotation below). We hope that you can join us to discuss this compelling story.

Here is the NLS annotation:

Crow Lake DB 59867

Lawson, Mary. Reading time 7 hours, 39 minutes.

Read by Martha Harmon Pardee. A production of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.

Subjects: Family; Psychological Fiction

Description: After their parents die, teens Matt and Luke Morrison give up their own university plans to raise two young sisters, Kate and Bo, in the northern Ontario badlands. Twenty years later, Kate, now a professor, returns to resolve past differences at a family reunion. Some strong language. 2002.

This book can be found on Bookshare at this link:

https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/2325140?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPWNyb3clMkJsYWtl

Our facilitator for this group is Michelle Bernstein

([email protected]).

(BARD annotation below). We hope that you can join us to discuss this compelling story.

Here is the NLS annotation:

Help wanted: a novel DB 121085

Waldman, Adelle. Reading time 9 hours, 27 minutes.

Read by Katie Boothe. A production of National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, Library of Congress.

Subjects: Humor; Human Relations; General

Description: “Every day at 3:55 a.m., members of Team Movement clock in for their shift at big-box store Town Square in a small upstate New York town. Under the eyes of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before the store opens and customers arrive. Their lives follow a familiar if grueling routine, but their real problem is that Town Square doesn’t schedule them for enough hours–most of them are barely getting by, even while working second or third jobs. When store manager Big Will announces he is leaving, the members of Movement spot an opportunity. If they play their cards right, one of them just might land a management job, with all the stability and possibility of advancement. The members of Team Movement–including a comedy-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman clinging on to her “cool kid” status from high school, and a college football hopeful trying to find a new path–band together to set a just-so-crazy-it-might-work plot in motion.” — Provided by publisher Strong language.

This book can be found on Bookshare at this link:

https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/5915534?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPUhlbHAlMkJXYW50ZWQ

Our facilitator for this group is Michelle Bernstein

([email protected]).