The Month of May: So Much to Celebrate, Including These Great, New Adult Fiction Titles!

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The month of April honors the poet in all of us, and so we celebrate with National Poetry Month all month long.

The month of May has many holidays and specially designated days to its credit, not the least of which is ‘National Lost Sock Day Memorial Day’ on May 9th.

In honor both of these celebrated events (National Poetry Month AND National Lost Sock Day) here is a little diddy:

I once had some socks, it began with two;

Some socks were white, but these were blue;

They needed some soap, and some water as well;

So they tumbled and tumbled till buzzed the bell;

Removing the clothes from within the abyss;

I realized with horror something was terribly amiss;

There in the washer where there used to be two;

was one lonely sock, and its color was blue;

And so in the end the blue will find it quite shocking;

that it’s forced to be paired with a dazzling white stocking!

One IS the loneliest number when it comes to socks, AND, did I mention books as well? If not, read on for some new adult fiction for a NUMBER of good reads from JCPL!

Daniel Knight has been haunted by the disappearance of little Brigette Berthold since the pair of them escaped the Gestapo, running for their lives from Germany to England where they were separated the moment they arrived. Now an old man, Daniel still believes that he will find Brigette, and enlists the help of journalist, Quenby Vaughn. Though Vaughn is tenacious in her quest for missing people, Daniel doubles up by hiring his lawyer, Lucas Hough, to form a team with the journalist. Delving into the troubled past of a long ago page in history, secrets, deceptions and lies are uncovered, along with a supreme sacrifice that may just be what Daniel needs for true healing in ‘Catching the Wind’ by Melanie Dobson.

The year is 1918; the Great War has begun and many young men have left to fight for their country. Opportunities, however, were open to those who lived in Philadelphia during that era. A fresh start in the busy town led to new jobs and hope for many, including Pauline Bright, her husband, and three daughters, Maggie, Evelyn, and Willa. Settling into a new home and routine, the Bright’s were not in Philadelphia but a few months when the Spanish flu broke out, crippling the city, and claiming more than 12,000 victims in that city alone. Living day by day with loss and very little hope amidst the tragedy surrounding them, this once happy family faces true challenges that many could not survive, but find a glimmer of hope in an orphaned infant that they take in, discovering what is really important in ‘As Bright as Heaven’ by Susan Meissner.

Two gunshot wounds into his career, attorney, Dismas Hardy, is looking forward to working less and playing more, easing into retirement and spending some much needed time with his family. When businessman, Grant Carver, is murdered, Dismas is pulled into the fray by one of his previous clients who is accused of the murder. Abby Jarvis has been the bookkeeper for Carver’s business for a number of years, and when it is discovered that she has been embezzling funds from her boss, she becomes the prime suspect in his murder. Claiming innocence of the crime, Abby appeals to Dismas to defend her. Accepting the challenge, Dismas sets to work, discovering that the Carver’s company has many enemies, not the least of which are gold-digging girlfriends and jealous family members, and as the mudslinging and backstabbing ensues, blackmail is added to the list of crimes, leaving Dismas wide open to become a target himself as he digs ever deeper in ‘Poison,’ book number 17 in the Dismas Hardy series by John Lescroart.

Four individuals with very different backgrounds are faced with the devastation of war in ‘Like a River From its Course’ by Kelli Stuart. In this saga of war, loss and, finally, hope, you’ll meet Maria Ivanovana, fourteen years old when the bombing in her beloved Ukraine begins, while she fights to survive when whisked away by the enemy to a German labor camp. Lined up with 34,000 men, women and children facing a firing squad, Ivan Kyrilovich survives the ordeal, but only just survives, and with harrowing consequences, too. Sixteen years old and pregnant after a German soldier forced himself on her, Luda finds herself alone and scared, abandoned by her father, but finding she must trust in the love of her other family members and friends to get her through her painful ordeal.  With blind faith in the ideals set by the Nazi regime, Frederick Hermann believes in the Reich wholeheartedly, wanting only to succeed in the face of the domination and cruelty surrounding him. This book, rich with love, heartache, the ugliness of war and the beauty of those who rise above it, has fifteen years of research to back up its true to life characters, taking the reader on a course in Ukrainian history unknown to most.

In April we celebrate the written word, in rhyme-time; in May, we celebrate the socks we have known in our lives that have left to go on to the Rainbow Bridge of socks, but we also celebrate the power of reading, the power of checking out a stack of new, adult fiction from our local branch of the Jasper County Public Library, where pairing up with more than one is the only way to go!