Wolfgram Memorial Library McNaughton Collection

July 2019 - New Arrivals

NOTES: Our McNaughton Collection delivers New York Times bestsellers to our patrons on or before street date, and are shelved by the author’s last name. Fictitious characters, series, or club names are in “quotes” for easy identification.

Author - Title – Subject - Synopsis Frank, Dorothea – Queen Bee – Family Life Fiction, Man-Woman Relationships Fiction - Bestseller Frank shows off her formidable storytelling chops and her gift for creating memorable characters in this quirky and delightful Southern tale. Holly McNee Jensen, a teacher and beekeeper also caring for her demanding hypochondriac mother (whom she refers to as the Queen Bee), is marking time on tiny Sullivan's Island, S.C. She falls hard for her widower neighbor, Archie MacLean, and his two sweet young sons, Tyler and Hunter, and all's seemingly going well until Holly's much-cosseted sister, Leslie, comes home, having left her husband over his penchant for crossdressing. Chaos reigns. Leslie and the Queen Bee travel to Las Vegas, and Holly gets a rude awakening when Archie marries someone else. In the end, Holly learns that happily-ever-after can come in the most unexpected of circumstances. A colorful supporting cast rounds out the story. Full of Low Country flavor and brilliantly imagined characters, this laugh- out-loud-hilarious novel with a wistful edge will satisfy anyone who wants to see flawed people getting second chances. Harris, Thomas – Cari Mora – Psychological Fiction, Suspense/Thriller Fiction - From the creator of Hannibal Lecter and The Silence of the Lambs comes a story of evil, greed, and the consequences of dark obsession. Twenty-five million dollars in cartel gold lies hidden beneath a mansion on the Miami Beach waterfront. Ruthless men have tracked it for years. Leading the pack is Hans-Peter Schneider. Driven by unspeakable appetites, he makes a living fleshing out the violent fantasies of other, richer men. Cari Mora, caretaker of the house, has escaped from the violence in her native country. She stays in Miami on a wobbly Temporary Protected Status, subject to the iron whim of ICE. She works at many jobs to survive. Beautiful, marked by war, Cari catches the eye of Hans-Peter as he closes in on the treasure. But Cari Mora has surprising skills, and her will to survive has been tested before. Monsters lurk in the crevices between male desire and female survival. No other writer in the last century has conjured those monsters with more terrifying brilliance than Thomas Harris. Koontz, Dean – The Night Window – “Jane Hawk Series,” Psychological Fiction, Suspense/Thriller Fiction - Wrongly dishonored FBI agent Jane Hawk faces her worst fear in her lonely fight against an evil male conspiracy embedded in the halls of power: the abduction of her son, Travis. The ruthless enemy, called the Techno Arcadians, have been scrubbing people of their memories and their identities with nanotech implants and turning many of them into robotic servants and sex slaves. To keep Travis safe while she goes after them, doing all she can to evade their sophisticated surveillance systems, Hawk has hidden him with friends in Arizona. Beautiful, brilliant, and supertough, she gains a valuable running partner in lovable pal Vikram Rangnekar, a recently resigned FBI employee who has acquired a pile of government secrets with his "back door" hacking skills. While they pursue the baddies, Jane in her latest disguise, the billionaire behind the conspiracy hunts a young filmmaker he has enticed to his Colorado spread for sport, a la "The Most Dangerous Game," only on snowmobiles. And there are some neat gadgets to ponder, including camera-operated facial recognition eyeglasses. Just when it seemed like Koontz had run out of gas with this quickly knocked-out road series (it debuted with The Silent Corner in 2017, also in our McNaughton Collection), he revs it up with entertaining encounters and offbeat humor. Levin, Mark – Unfreedom of the Press – Journalism Objectivity, Political Aspects - From five-time #1 New York Times bestselling author, FOX News star, and radio host Mark R. Levin comes a groundbreaking and enlightening book that shows how the great tradition of the American free press has degenerated into a standardless profession that has squandered the faith and trust of the American public. Levin shows how those entrusted with news reporting today are destroying freedom of the press from within: "not government oppression or suppression," he writes, but self-censorship, group-think, bias by omission, and passing off opinion, propaganda, pseudo-events, and outright lies as news. With the depth of historical background for which his books are renowned, Levin takes the reader on a journey through the early American patriot press, which proudly promoted the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, followed by the early decades of the Republic during which newspapers around the young country were open and transparent about their fierce allegiance to one political party or the other. It was only at the start of the Progressive Era and the twentieth century that the supposed "objectivity of the press" first surfaced, leaving us where we are today: with a partisan party-press overwhelmingly aligned with a political ideology but hypocritically engaged in a massive untruth as to its real nature. McCullough, David – The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West – American History, Frontier and Pioneer Life - Pulitzer Prize winner McCullough (Wright Brothers) illuminates the lives of early settlers into the Ohio country. The Northwest Territory was acquired from Britain following the American Revolution; the seed of the future Great Lakes states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. McCullough highlights that this region was founded as free-soil territory, a refreshingly positive spin on American history. The story centers on the settling of Marietta, OH, while also touching on developments in other parts of the region. The text presents the hardships of pioneer life, including the daily labors, the dangers of childbirth, and tensions with Native Americans. The work concludes in the mid-19th century. In many ways, one can see this as a continuation of McCullough's 1776, with the young United States now hatching into a large civilization whose ideals migrated west with the settlers. The author's gift for telling history as a story through the lives of those who lived it will engage even casual readers, who will enjoy the accessible style and gentle pace. A must-read for American history buffs, produced by one of today's greatest scholars. Patterson, James and Ellis, David – Unsolved – Mystery/Detective Fiction, Adventure Fiction - The perfect murder always looks like an accident. FBI agent Emmy Dockery is absolutely relentless. She's young and driven, and her unique skill at seeing connections others miss has brought her an impressive string of arrests. But a shocking new case-unfolding across the country-has left her utterly baffled. The victims all appear to have died by accident, and have seemingly nothing in common. But this many deaths can't be coincidence. And the killer is somehow one step ahead of every move Dockery makes. How? To FBI special agent Harrison "Books" Bookman, everyone in the FBI is a suspect-particularly Emmy Dockery (the fact that she's his ex-fiancee doesn't make it easier). But someone else is watching Dockery. Studying, learning, waiting. Until it's the perfect time to strike. Steel, Danielle – Blessings in Disguise – Domestic Fiction, Mother and Daughters Fiction - In Danielle Steel's remarkable new novel, one of her most memorable characters comes to terms with unfinished business and long-buried truths as the mother of three very different daughters with three singular fathers. As a young intern at an art gallery in Paris, Isabelle McAvoy meets Putnam Armstrong, wealthy, gentle, older, and secluded from the world. Isabelle's relationship with Putnam, and her time at his château on the Normandy coast, are the stuff of dreams. But it turns real when she becomes pregnant, for she knows that marriage is out of the question. When Isabelle returns to New York, she enters a new relationship that she hopes will be more stable and traditional. But she soon realizes she has made a terrible mistake and again finds herself a single mother. With two young daughters and no husband, Isabelle finally and unexpectedly finds happiness and a love that gives her a third child, a baby as happy as her beloved father. And yet, once again, life brings dramatic changes. The three girls grow up to be very different women, and Isabelle's relationship with each of them is unique. While raising her girls alone, Isabelle also begins building a career as a successful art consultant. Then one final turn of fate brings a past secret to light, bonds mother and daughters closer, and turns a challenge into a blessing. Stern, Howard – Howard Stern Comes Again – Howard Stern, Radio Program Interviews - The self- described "king of all media" shares personal introspection and favorite celebrity interviews in his first book in two decades. Stern is in top form in this entertaining amalgam of intimate confessional and Q-and-A archive. Opting for an older, wiser perspective this time around, the author strips away the juvenile raunch and sophomoric humor that made his first books runaway bestsellers. The book's introduction, a meaty, contemplative 19-page affair, finds Stern, 65, candidly discussing his struggles with OCD, random regrets (namely his treatment of Robin Williams and Rosie O'Donnell), greatest moments (interviews with Conan O'Brien and Paul McCartney, animal rescue efforts), his move to SiriusXM in 2006, and the day he inexplicably took a rare show-day off to attend to an undisclosed cancer scare. However, it's the intimate, provocative celebrity interviews that make up the bulk of this weighty tome and which the author admits "represent my best work and show my personal evolution." Stern introduces each conversation with his personal perspective on the individual and the impression they made. Throughout the book, the author's personal growth and enduring legacy as a broadcast pioneer and unique profiler are on full display. A surprisingly warm and consistently outspoken retrospective for both fans and celebrity followers.