Staff Picks: February 2023
TORI’S PICK: Little Thieves (Little Thieves #1) by Margaret Owen
GENRE: Young Adult Fantasy, Retelling
WHY SHE PICKED IT: I picked this adventurous YA fantasy because it was simply incredible, I could not put it down. The second book comes out later this year, it could be read as a stand alone, but I just can't get enough of the powerful low-gods, hilarious shapeshifter, geeky detective, just so many loveable well-written characters. A magical re-telling of 'The Goose Girl', one of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales told from the maid's perspective instead of the princess'. I loved everything about this book, the characters, the setting, the PLOT. I love when the main character is a cold scheming villain who thaws throughout the book. I can't wait to re-visit this world in May.
THE SYNOPSIS: Once upon a time, there was a horrible girl...
Vanja Schmidt knows that no gift is freely given, not even a mother's love--and she's on the hook for one hell of a debt. Vanja, the adopted goddaughter of Death and Fortune, was Princess Gisele's dutiful servant up until a year ago. That was when Vanja's otherworldly mothers demanded a terrible price for their care, and Vanja decided to steal her future back... by stealing Gisele's life for herself.
The real Gisele is left a penniless nobody while Vanja uses an enchanted string of pearls to take her place. Now, Vanja leads a lonely but lucrative double life as princess and jewel thief, charming nobility while emptying their coffers to fund her great escape. Then, one heist away from freedom, Vanja crosses the wrong god and is cursed to an untimely end: turning into jewels, stone by stone, for her greed.
Vanja has just two weeks to figure out how to break her curse and make her getaway. And with a feral guardian half-god, Gisele's sinister fiancé, and an overeager junior detective on Vanja's tail, she'll have to pull the biggest grift yet to save her own life.
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BROOKE’S PICK: Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris
GENRE: Thriller
WHY SHE PICKED IT: I always love a good, easy-to-read thriller, and I very much enjoyed Behind Closed Doors. Focusing on a "seemingly perfect" marriage, the story is told from Grace's point of view, alternating between the near past and the present. I really enjoyed this aspect, as it revved up the suspense, especially towards the ending. While somethings were easy to predict and it wasn't always the most realistic, I wasn't bothered; I was excited to see the story unfold. I did not want to put this book down until I was finished.
THE SYNOPSIS: The perfect marriage? Or the perfect lie?
Everyone knows a couple like Jack and Grace. He has looks and wealth; she has charm and elegance. He’s a dedicated attorney who has never lost a case; she is a flawless homemaker, a masterful gardener and cook, and dotes on her disabled younger sister. Though they are still newlyweds, they seem to have it all. You might not want to like them, but you do. You’re hopelessly charmed by the ease and comfort of their home, by the graciousness of the dinner parties they throw. You’d like to get to know Grace better.
But it’s difficult, because you realize Jack and Grace are inseparable.
Some might call this true love. Others might wonder why Grace never answers the phone. Or why she can never meet for coffee, even though she doesn’t work. How she can cook such elaborate meals but remain so slim. Or why she never seems to take anything with her when she leaves the house, not even a pen. Or why there are such high-security metal shutters on all the downstairs windows.
Some might wonder what’s really going on once the dinner party is over, and the front door has closed.
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LISA’S PICK: Hold My Girl by Charlene Carr
GENRE: Women’s Fiction
WHY SHE PICKED IT: This book confronts every parent’s worry: that their child will be switched at birth, taking it a step further with the switch happening before conception occurs. As a woman, I felt the pain these two mothers experienced in learning that their embryo’s were switched at implantation, and the aftermath of the fight for the one living child. Who is the rightful mother of a child born from in-vitro fertilization: the one who provided the egg, or the one who grew that egg and birthed the child?
THE SYNOPSIS: Katherine is a woman full of obsessions. Everything clean, everything perfect, all the time. After seven years of trying—and failing—to conceive, she finally gives birth to Rose, her IVF miracle child. But she’s afraid that Rose may not be her daughter; her pale skin doesn’t match Katherine’s own.
Tess never got her happy ending. She took on IVF alongside Katherine and a group of hopeful mothers, but her daughter, Hanna, was stillborn. After a series of poor choices, she’s divorced, broke and stuck in a job that’s below her skill set.
Ten months later, Katherine and Tess get a call from the fertility clinic that reveals shocking news: the two women’s eggs were switched. While Katherine’s perfect life beings to crumble around her, for Tess it’s the glimmer of hope she needs to get her life back on track. But it will take a custody battle to decide who deserves to be Rose’s mother, a battle that will push both women to the brink.
With themes of racial identity, loss and betrayal, this emotional novel centred around a difficult moral question beautifully explores the complexities of motherhood.
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KARI’S PICK: Sign Here by Claudia Lux
GENRE: Horror
WHY SHE PICKED IT: This was a fun take incorporating concepts that we see of hell and demons. Integrating the seven levels in Dante’s Inferno and the contracts in Supernatural, into something refreshing. The plot twists balance the humour wonderfully, and before long you find yourself invested in the futures of each character. It was a great horror novel if you are hoping to avoid the slasher stereotypes as the fear comes from the unknown.
THE SYNOPSIS: Peyote Trip has a pretty good gig in the deals department on the fifth floor of Hell. Sure, none of the pens work, the coffee machine has been out of order for a century, and the only drink on offer is Jägermeister, but Pey has a plan—and all he needs is one last member of the Harrison family to sell their soul.
When the Harrisons retreat to the family lake house for the summer, with their daughter Mickey’s precocious new friend, Ruth, in tow, the opportunity Pey has waited a millennium for might finally be in his grasp. And with the help of his charismatic coworker Calamity, he sets a plan in motion.
But things aren’t always as they seem, on Earth or in Hell. And as old secrets and new dangers scrape away at the Harrisons’ shiny surface, revealing the darkness beneath, everyone must face the consequences of their choices.
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