Tag: The Woman in the Library

QCL Book Club April Wrap-Up

- Brittany Leave a comment

In April, Morgan and I read Someone We Know by Shari Lapena to celebrate National Letter Writing Month. Below is a short synopsis of the book and what I thought of it! 

A teenage boy is breaking into neighbors’ homes hacking into their computers and discovering secrets best hidden. When a woman in the neighborhood’s body is discovered in the trunk of her car in the lake, there are many suspicions as to who did it. Was it her husband, a lover, anything could happen.

I have liked every book that I have read by Lapena, she spins a story with so many twists and turns wrapping up each story with a nice little bow. This story, however, left some room for interpretation.  

Morgan and I have a very exciting lineup of book options for May. Below are our 4 options including our winning title! Feel free to check them out from Davenport Public Library! 

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murders by Jessie Q. Sutanto (In Honor of Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month) 

Vera is a woman of a certain age who enjoys sipping her tea and running her teashop. When she finds a dead man in the middle of her shop, Vera begins to launch an investigation. As she searches for the perpetrator, Vera forms unlikely friendships with her customers. The hardest part, one of her new friends might be the killer. — adapted from back cover   

 

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill (In Honor of Mystery Month) 

The beautifully ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is completely silent one weekday morning, until a woman’s terrified scream echoes through the room. Security guards immediately appear and instruct everyone inside to stay put until they determine there is no threat. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers who had been sitting in the reading room get to chatting and quickly become friendly. Harriet, Marigold, Whit, and Caine each have their own reasons for being in the reading room that morning–and it just happens that one of them may turn out to be a murderer. — adapted from back cover 

 

Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine (In Honor of Brother and Sister Day on May 2nd) 

Merging two multi-generational storylines in Colorado, this is a novel of family love, secrets, and survival. With Fajardo-Anstine’s immense capacity to render characters and paint vivid life, set against the Sange de Cristo mountains, Woman of Light is full of the weight, richness, and complexities of mixed blood and mica clay. It delights like an Old Western, and inspires the hope embedded in histories yet-told. — adapted from back cover 

 

***May QCL Book Club Pick!
Watching You by Lisa Jewell (In honor of National Teachers’ Day on May 7th) 

Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Bristol, England; home to doctors and lawyers and old-money academics. It’s not the sort of place where people are brutally murdered in their own kitchens. But it is the sort of place where everyone has a secret. And everyone is watching you. As the headmaster credited with turning around the local school, Tom Fitzwilliam is beloved by one and all–including Joey Mullen, his new neighbor, who quickly develops an intense infatuation with this thoroughly charming yet unavailable man. Joey thinks her crush is a secret, but Tom’s teenaged son Freddie–a prodigy with aspirations of becoming a spy for MI5–excels in observing people and has witnessed Joey behaving strangely around his father. One of Tom’s students, Jenna Tripp, also lives on the same street, and she’s not convinced her teacher is as squeaky clean as he seems. For one thing, he has taken a particular liking to her best friend and fellow classmate, and Jenna’s mother–whose mental health has admittedly been deteriorating in recent years–is convinced that Mr. Fitzwilliam is stalking her. Meanwhile, twenty years earlier, a schoolgirl writes in her diary, charting her doomed obsession with a handsome young English teacher named Mr. Fitzwilliam… — adapted from back cover 

If you are interested in any of these titles, or have read them, I want to talk about them! Please consider leaving a comment! Want to converse with other QCL Book Club followers? Consider joining our Goodreads Group! 

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“Still, there might be something fitting about a friendship based on a common love of words being founded on an exchange of the same.”
― Sulari Gentill, The Woman in the Library

The Woman in the  Library by Sulari Gentill has been on my to-read list since it was published in June 2022. After listening to this title, I can firmly say that I haven’t read anything like this before. If you decide to read this book, go into it with an open mind. The description of the book barely scratches the surface of what the book is really about, but this review is going to be just as vague because *spoilers* would happen if I didn’t!

The Boston Public Library’s reading room is ornate and quiet. All of that is shattered one morning when a woman’s terrified scream radiates through the room. Four strangers sitting in the reading room reach out to each other, start talking, and become friends. Security guards investigate the noise, instructing everyone to stay put while they look for the source. They find nothing… at first.

Harriet, Marigold, Whit, and Caine are the four strangers brought together by the scream. They all have their own reasons for being in the reading room that day, some with secrets they are reluctant to share. The investigation into the scream casts suspicion upon the four with readers being led to believe that one of the four may be a murderer. Each person in this book has a story to tell, but if they are telling the truth or not is a whole other matter.

“The story of her life etched on her skin… She’s like a walking book. Patterns and portraits and words. Mantras of love and power. I wonder how much of it is fiction.”
― Sulari Gentill, The Woman in the Library

This book is also available in the following formats: