New on the Shelves at Albert Wisner Public Library: Bestsellers

For generations, the Winston women have possessed an unspoken magical gift: they can heal with the touch of a hand. It's a tradition they've always had to practice in secret, in the moonlight hours, when the fireflies dance and the whippoorwill birds sing. But not every healer has rightfully passed on this knowledge to her descendants, and for young Louise Winston, the discovery of her abilities comes in less-than-ideal circumstances: she brings her best friend back from death following an accident, the day after he professed his long-held feelings for her, five days before she's supposed to move away. Desperate for answers, and to avoid this new reality between them, Louise escapes to her grandmother's lush Appalachian orchard. There, she uncovers her family's hidden history in a tattered journal, stemming back to her brave great-grandmother who illicitly healed Allied soldiers in war-torn France. But just as Louise begins to embrace her unique legacy, she learns that it can also come with a mysterious cost. And with a life hanging in the balance, she'll be forced to make the most impossible of choices. Spanning eighty years, “The Moonlight Healers” is a deeply empathetic, heartfelt novel about mothers and daughters, life and death, and the beautiful resilience of love.

The heartfelt story of a woman determined to reunite a lost ring with its owner, who ends up finding herself along the way. Mira Salvi has the perfect life - a job she loves, a fiancé everyone adores, and the secure future she's always imagined for herself. Really, she hasn't a thing to complain about, not even when she has to go on her engagement trip to New York alone. While playing tourist in the city, Mira chances upon a lost ring, and her social media post to locate its owner goes viral. With everyone trying to claim the ring, only one person seems to want to find its owner as badly as Mira does: journalist Krish Hale. Brooding and arrogant, he will do anything to get to write this story. As Krish and Mira reluctantly join forces and jump into the adventure of tracing the ring back to where it belongs, Mira begins to wonder if she is in the right place in her own life. She had to have found this ring for a reason ... right? Maybe, like the owner of the lost ring, her happy ending hasn't been written yet either.

Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess - she'll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate's dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family: Mr. Pounds can't keep his eyes off Winifred's chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband's wandering gaze. Compounded with her disdain for the entitled Pounds children, Winifred finds herself struggling at every turn to stifle the violent compulsions of her past. French tutoring and needlework are one way to pass the time, as is admiring the ugly portraits in the gallery - and creeping across the moonlit lawns. Patience. Winifred must have patience, for Christmas is coming, and she has very special gifts planned for the dear souls of Ensor House. Brimming with sardonic wit and culminating in a shocking conclusion, “Victorian Psycho” plunges readers into the chilling mind of an iconic new literary psychopath.

It's 1999, and best friends Sal and Charo are striving to hold on to their dreams in a New York determined to grind them down. Sal is a book-loving science nerd trying to grow beyond his dead-end job in a new city, but he's held back by tragic memories from his past in Santo Domingo. Free-spirited Charo is surprised to find herself a mother at twenty-five, partnered with a controlling man, working at the same supermarket for years, her world shrunk to the very domesticity she thought she'd escaped in her old country. When Sal finds love at a gay club one night, both his and Charo's worlds unexpectedly open up to a vibrant social circle that pushes them to reckon with what they owe to their own selves, pasts, futures, and, always, each other. “Loca” follows one daring year in the lives of young people living at the edge of their own patience and desires. With expansive grace, it reveals both the grueling conditions that force people to migrate and the possibility of friendship as home when family, nations, and identity groups fall short.

Birdie's keeping it together; so she's a little hungover, sometimes, and she has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, but she's getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature. Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie, he represents everything she's ever longed for. She finds herself falling for Arthur. Against the warnings of those who care about them, Birdie and Emaleen move to his isolated cabin in the mountains, on the far side of the Wolverine River. It's just the three of them in the vast black woods, far from roads, telephones, electricity, and outside contact, but Birdie believes she has come prepared. At first, it's idyllic and she can picture a happily ever after: Together they catch salmon, pick berries, and climb mountains so tall it's as if they could touch the bright blue sky. But soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she could have ever imagined, and that like the Alaska wilderness, a fairy tale can be as dark as it is beautiful.

This heartwarming Korean bestseller tells the story of a mysterious diary left in a laundromat brings together patrons from all walks of life. Yeonnam-Dong's “Smiley Laundromat” is a place where the extraordinary stories of ordinary people unfold. Situated at the heart of rapidly gentrifying district of Seoul, the laundromat is a haven of peace and reflection for many locals. And when a notebook is left behind there, it becomes a place that brings people together. One by one, customers start jotting down candid diary entries, opening their hearts and inviting acts of kindness from neighbors who were once just faces in the crowd. But there is a darker story behind the notebook, and before long the laundromat's regulars are teaming up to solve the mystery and put the world to rights. Instantly capturing the hearts of readers around the world, this is a novel about the preciousness of human relationships and the power of solidarity in a world that is increasingly cold, fast-paced, and virtual.

When it comes to love, substitute teacher Farzan Alavi is a disaster. Newly heartbroken – again - he's drowning his sorrows at Kansas City's newest wine bar. Only instead of being crowded between strangers, he's escorted to a VIP table for one. There, the hot sommelier does more than treat him to the meal of his life. The way he flirts with Farzan ignites instant sparks. There's just one problem: David Curtis thinks Farzan is Kansas City's most influential food critic. The truth only comes out after the two spend an unforgettably hot night together. Good news - both think the mix-up is hilarious. Bad news - David is studying to become a master sommelier and has no interest in a relationship. Neither expects their paths to cross again . . . until Farzan inherits his family's bistro. The two agree that to a friends-sans-benefits exchange: David will share his industry knowledge, and Farzan will help David study. Yet neither can ignore the attraction still sizzling between them. But with David set on moving cross-country after his test, and Farzan committed to his family's restaurant, how can their relationship last past the expiration date?

“Penitence” is a poignant exploration of love and forgiveness. When a shocking murder occurs in the home of Angie and David Sheehan, their lives are shattered. Desperate to defend their family, they turn to small-town lawyer Martine Dumont for help, but Martine isn't just legal counsel - she's also the mother of Angie's first love, Julian, a now-successful New York City criminal defense attorney. As Julian and Angie confront their shared past and long-buried guilt from a tragic accident years ago, they must navigate their own culpability and the unresolved feelings between them. Spanning decades, from the ski slopes of rural Colorado to the streets of pre-9/11 New York City and back again, Kristin Koval's debut novel is an examination of the complexities of familial loyalty, the journey of redemption, and the profound experience of true forgiveness.

On the peaceful Japanese island of Teshima there is a library of heartbeats, a place where the heartbeats of visitors from all around the world are collected. In this small, isolated building, the heartbeats of people who are still alive or have already passed away continue to echo. Several miles away, in the ancient city of Kamakura, two lonely souls meet: Shuichi, a 40-year-old illustrator, who returns to his hometown to fix up the house of his recently deceased mother, and eight-year-old Kenta, a child who wanders like a shadow around Shuichi's house. Day by day, the trust between Shuichi and Kenta grows, until they discover they share a bond that will tie them together for life. Their journey will lead them to Teshima and to the library of heartbeats . . . Inspired by Les Archives du Coeur, an art installation in Japan that permanently houses recordings of the heartbeats of people throughout the world, “The Heartbeat Library” is a story about loss and hope, pain and joy, reality and imagination, and the promise of healing and overcoming the odds thanks to the relationships we build and rediscover.

In 1919, a high school teacher from Washington, D.C arrives in Harlem excited to realize her lifelong dream. Jessie Redmon Fauset has been named the literary editor of “The Crisis.” The first Black woman to hold this position at a preeminent Negro magazine, Jessie is poised to achieve literary greatness. But she holds a secret that jeopardizes it all. W. E. B. Du Bois, the founder of “The Crisis,” is not only Jessie's boss, but he’s her lover. And neither his wife, nor their fourteen-year-age difference can keep the two apart. Amidst rumors of their tumultuous affair, Jessie is determined to prove herself. She attacks the challenge of discovering young writers with fervor, finding sixteen-year-old Countee Cullen, seventeen-year-old Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends. Under Jessie's leadership, “The Crisis” thrives, and every African American writer in the country wants their work published there. When her first novel is released to great acclaim, it's clear that Jessie is at the heart of a renaissance in Black music, theater, and the arts. She has shaped a generation of literary legends, but as she strives to preserve her legacy, she'll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success.

In 1964, Stanislavo, a zealous young man devoted to his ideals, turns his back on his privilege to join the leftist movement in the jungles of Venezuela. There, as he trains, he meets Emiliana, a nurse and fellow revolutionary. Though their intense connection seems to be love at first sight, their romance is upended by a decision with consequences that will echo down through the generations. Almost forty years later, in a poor barrio of Caracas, María, a single mother, ekes out a precarious existence as a housekeeper, pouring her love into Eloy, her young son. Her devotion will not be enough, however, to keep them from disaster. On the eve of the attempted coup against President Chávez, Eloy is wounded by a stray bullet, fracturing her world. Amid the chaos at the hospital, María encounters Stanislavo, now a newspaper editor. Even as the country itself is convulsed by waves of unrest, this twist of fate forces a belated reckoning for Stanislavo, who may yet earn a chance to atone for old missteps before it's too late. With its epic scope, gripping narrative, and unflinching intimacy, “Freedom Is a Feast” announces a major new talent - Alejandro Puyana.

In September of 1890, the academic year begins at the Carlisle school - a military-style boarding school for Indians run by Captain Richard Henry Pratt. Pratt's motto, 'Kill the Indian, Save the Man' is enforced in the classroom as well as the dorm rooms: speak English, forget your own language and customs, learn to be white. While the students navigate survival, they hear rumors of a sweeping tribal lands reservations in the west - the 'ghost dance,' whereby desperate Native Americans engaged in frenzied dancing and chanting hoping it will cause the buffalo to return, the Indian dead to rise, and the white people to disappear. Local whites panic, and the government sends in troops to keep the reservations under control. When legendary medicine man Sitting Bull is killed by native police working for the government troops, each Carlisle resident is faced with the question: Whose side are you on? And what will you risk to gain your freedom?

From a literary master, a moving and genre-bending story about our era-spanning search for meaning and knowing: an uncertain near-future. A story of new boundaries drawn between people daily. A not-very brave new world. Add two children. And a horse. From a Scottish word meaning a transient moment, a shock, a faint glimpse, “Gliff” explores how and why we endeavor to make a mark on the world. In a time when western industry wants to reduce us to algorithms and data - something easily categorizable and predictable - Smith shows us why our humanity, our individual complexities, matter more than ever.

The city of Bulwark is aptly named: a walled city built to protect and preserve the people who managed to survive a series of great cataclysms, Bulwark was founded on a system where sacrifice is rewarded by the AI that runs the city. Over generations, an elite class has evolved from the descendants of those who gave up the most to found mankind's last stronghold, called the Sainted. Saint Enita Malovis, long accustomed to luxury, feels the end of her life and decades of work as a bio-prosthetist approaching. The lone practitioner of her art, Enita is determined to preserve her legacy and decides to create a physical being, called Nix, filled with her knowledge and experience. In the midst of her project, a fellow Sainted is brutally murdered and the city AI inexplicably erases the event from its data. Soon, Enita and Nix are drawn into the growing war that could change everything between Bulwark's hidden underclass and the programs that impose and maintain order. “ We Lived on the Horizon” grapples with concepts as varied as the human desire for utopia, body horror, and what the future holds for humanity and machine alike.

In this breathtaking debut novel, a daring dancer must take her twin brother's place as a riveter high atop the in-progress Empire State Building to save her family from ruin. After the death of their father, it's up to Grace O'Connell and her twin brother Patrick to support their family as the Great Depression takes its toll on New York City. When Grace is laid off from her dancing gig and Patrick is injured at work on the construction of the Empire State Building, desperation leaves them only one solution: Grace must disguise herself as Patrick and take his place on the half-built skyscraper. She soon proves herself as capable as any man on the steel, and her affection for the loyal men around her - especially Italian immigrant Joe - grows by the day. But when a terrible accident happens high above the city and Grace is the only one capable of saving her stranded colleague, she must make a split-second decision to risk everything or live with her conscience forever. Set against the backdrop of a city at a crossroads, this electrifying story is full of heart and hope, family and friendship, and the sacrifices we make for those we love.