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  Fellowship Point Dark     Alice Elliott     (Maine Fiction)

     This novel, set on a majestic coastal Maine peninsula, is the story of a decades-long 

     friendship between two vastly different women who find their friendship being tested in the 

     twilight of their lives.

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  Fox Creek Krueger     William Kent     (Fiction)

     Cork O'Connor, the retired sheriff of Aurora, Minnesota, is in a race against time to save the       people he loves from ruthless mercenaries.

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  Penobscot Man     Speck, Frank G.     (Non-fiction donated by a patron)

     This book is ethnographic classic, written by an anthropologist trained to reconstruct 

     traditional Native American lifeways. The author attempts to reconstruct the lifestyles, or 

     cultures, of the native American before the arrival of Europeans upon the continent. 

     Penobscot Man deserves credit for information not found elsewhere. It gives insight into

     aboriginal life and an unusually good account of making a canoe, with other valuable   

     information.  Penobscot Man gives more authentic information about the Penobscot tribe

     than can be found in any other book.

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  Gluskabe and the Four Wishes     Bruchac, Joseph     (Picture book)

 

Four Abenaki men set out on a difficult journey to ask the great hero Gluskabe to

grant each his fondest wish.

   

  Stone Prayers: Native American Constructions for the Eastern Seaboard     Hoffman, Curtiss                                                                      (Non-fiction)

     Scattered throughout the woodlands and fields of the eastern seaboard of the United States

     and Canada are tens of thousands of stone monuments. These stone constructions have

     been the subject of debate among archaeologists and antiquarians for the past seventy-five

     years. Prominent among the competing hypotheses have been the allegations that all of

     these structures were built by colonial farmers removing rocks from their fields; or that they

     were built by pre-Columbian transatlantic voyagers; or that they are the result of natural

     deposition by glaciers or downslope erosion; or that they were constructed as sacred

     places by the indigenous peoples of the region.  The latter hypothesis has gained

     significant attention over the past decade, as the result of strong and vocal support from

     the regional descendant indigenous communities for the preservation of these monuments,

     called by them "stone prayers," from encroachment and desecration by development

     interests. The purpose of this book is to provide quantitative support for the indigenous

     construction hypothesis, by providing a framework firmly and explicitly situated in the

     scientific method to test the four hypotheses above against a robust set of data--a total of

     5,550 sites from the entire region.

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October

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding 
that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack. 
 
New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.
 
Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse—one studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.
 
Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.

 

Treasure State by C J Box

Private Investigator Cassie Dewell’s business is thriving, and her latest case puts her on the hunt for a slippery con man who’s disappeared somewhere in the “treasure state”. A wealthy Florida widow has accused him of absconding with her fortune, and wants Cassie to find him and get it back. The trail takes Cassieto Anaconda, Montana, a quirky former copper mining town that’s the perfect place to reinvent yourself. As the case develops, Cassie begins to wonder if her
client is telling her everything.

On top of that, Cassie is also working what's;s easily one of her strangest assignments ever. A poem that promises buried treasure to one lucky adventurer has led to a cutthroat competition and five deaths among treasure-hunters. But Cassie’s client doesn’t want the treasure. Instead, he claims to be the one who hid the gold and wrote the poem. And he’s hired Cassie to try to find him.
 

Between the two cases, Cassie has her hands full.  In Montana, a killer view can mean more than just the scenery, and Cassie knows much darker things hide behind the picturesque landscape of Big Sky Country.

 

Treasure State, C. J. Box's highly anticipated follow-up to The Bitterroots, is full of more twists and turns than the switchbacks through the Anaconda Range.

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The Winners by Frederick Backman

Over the course of two weeks, everything in Beartown will change.  Maya Andersson and Benji Ovich, two young people who left in search of a life far from the forest town, come home and joyfully reunite with their closest childhood friends. There is a new sense of optimism and purpose in the town, embodied in the impressive new ice rink that has been built down by the lake.

Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about.  Everyone has tried to move on, but there’s something about this place that prevents it. The destruction caused by a ferocious late-summer storm reignites the old rivalry between Beartown and the neighboring town of Hed, a rivalry which has always been fought through their ice hockey teams.
 

Maya’s parents, Peter and Kira, are caught up in an investigation of the hockey club’s murky finances, and Amat—once the star of the Beartown team—has lost his way after an injury and a failed attempt to get drafted into the NHL.  Simmering tensions between the two towns turn into acts of intimidation and then violence. All the while, a fourteen-year-old boy grows increasingly alienated from this hockey-obsessed community and is determined to take revenge on the
people he holds responsible for his beloved sister’s death. He has a pistol and a plan that will leave Beartown with a loss that is almost more that it can stand.

As it beautifully captures all the complexities of daily life and explores questions of friendship, loyalty, loss, and identity, this emotion-packed novel asks us to reconsider what it means to win, what it means to lose, and what it means to forgive.

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November

Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Instructions for Living a Spirit Based Change. By Sherri Mitchell.  Non Fiction

A narrative of Indigenous wisdom that provides a road map for the spirit and a compass of compassion for humanity.  Drawing from ancestral knowledge, as well as her experience as an attorney and activist, Sherri Mitchell addresses some of the most crucial issues of our say, such as environmental protection and human rights.

 

For those seeking change, this book offers a set of cultural values that will preserve our collective survival for future generations.

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A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny (Fiction)

It’s spring and Three Pines is reemerging after the harsh winter. But not everything buried should come alive again. Not everything lying dormant should reemerge.  But something has.

As the villagers prepare for a special celebration, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir find themselves increasingly worried. A young man and womanhave reappeared in the Sûreté du Québec investigators’ lives after many years.The two were young children when their troubled mother was murdered, leaving
them damaged, shattered. Now they’ve arrived in the village of Three Pines.  But to what end?
 

Gamache and Beauvoir’s memories of that tragic case, the one that first brought them together, come rushing back. Did their mother’s murder hurt them beyond repair? Have those terrible wounds, buried for decades, festered and are now about to erupt?

As Chief Inspector Gamache works to uncover answers, his alarm grows when a letter written by a long dead stone mason is discovered. In it the man describes his terror when bricking up an attic room somewhere in the village. Every word of the 160-year-old letter is filled with dread. When the room is found, the villagers decide to open it up.

As the bricks are removed, Gamache, Beauvoir and the villagers discover a world of curiosities. But the head of homicide soon realizes there’s more in that room than meets the eye. There are puzzles within puzzles, and hidden messages warning of mayhem and revenge.  

 

In unsealing that room, an old enemy is released into their world. Into their lives. And into the very heart of Armand Gamache’s home.

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Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout ( Fiction)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout comes a poignant, pitch-perfect novel about a divorced couple stuck together during lockdown—and the love, loss, despair, and hope that animate us even as the world seems to be falling apart.
 

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Trouble the Water by Rebecca Dwight Bruff ( Fiction – Historical) Amazon

Deeply moving and illuminating, Trouble the Water reveals the little-known real-
life story of Robert Smalls. Born enslaved before the Civil War, Smalls witnesses
great privilege and immense suffering alongside his owner's daughter and the
dangerous son of a firebrand secessionist. When he's only twelve, he's put to
work in Charleston, where he loads ships and learns to pilot a cotton steamer.
When the war erupts and his cotton steamer becomes a confederate warship,
Robert attempts a harrowing escape to freedom for himself and the people he
loves.

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December

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

– John Meacham Non Fiction

A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, AbrahamLincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity, and faith. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations.

At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen as the greatest of American presidents—a
remote icon—or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This illuminating
new portrait gives us a very human Lincoln—an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment, essential to the story of justice in America, began as he grew up in an antislavery Baptist community; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him to see the right.

This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership
during the Civil War to his tragic assassination in 1865: his rise, his self-education, his loves, his
bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that
slavery must end. In a nation shaped by the courage of the enslaved of the era and by the brave witness of Black Americans, Lincoln’s story illustrates the ways and means of politics in a democracy, the roots and durability of racism, and the capacity of conscience to shape events.

 

The It Girl – Ruth Ware Fiction 

Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her
dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh,
Ryan, and Emily—during their first term. By the end of the year, April was dead.

Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide…including a murder.

 

 

Robbed Blind – Gerry Boyle Fiction

In Robbed Blind, Gerry Boyle's signature character Jack McMorrow returns in a fourteenth novel,
beginning a two-book arc that will see the acclaimed series come to an end thirty years after
McMorrow first appeared in the now-classic, Deadline. This time around, freelance investigative
reporter McMorrow finds himself in the tattered Maine mill city of Clarkston, immersed in an
overnight world of store clerks, shelf stockers, and eccentrics as he chases the details of a
zombie-masked robber taunting the down-and-out city. But when The New York Times pulls the
story and McMorrow can't bring himself to leave, his wife questions why yet another story has
gone from assignment to unpaid mission to find a killer.

 

Northeaster by Cathie Pelletier Non Fiction

For many, the past few years have been defined by climate disaster. Stories about once-in-a-lifetime hurricanes, floods, fires, droughts and even snowstorms are now commonplace. But dramatic weather events are not new and Northeaster, Cathie Pelletier’s breathtaking account of the 1952 snowstorm that blanketed New England, offers a valuable reminder about nature’s capacity for destruction as well as insight into the human instinct for preservation. 

 

Northeaster weaves together a rich cast of characters whose lives were uprooted and endangered by the storm. Housewives and lobstermen, loggers and soldiers were all trapped as snow piled in drifts twenty feet high. The storm smothered hundreds of travelers in their cars, covered entire towns, and broke ships in half. In the midst of the blizzard’s chaos, there were remarkable acts of heroism and courageous generosities. Doctors braved the storm to help deliver babies. Ordinary people kept their wits while buried in their cars, and others made their way out of forests to find kind-hearted strangers willing to take them in. 

It’s likely that none of us know how we would handle a confrontation with a blizzard or other
natural disaster. But Northeaster shows that we have it inside to fight for survival in some of the
harshest conditions that nature has to offer.

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