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WATER IN THE DESERT: A Pilgrimage - by Gary Paul Nabhan - Spotlight

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  From acclaimed agrarian activist and ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan, WATER IN THE DESERT (MilkweedEditions)  is a profoundly inspiring account of interspecies belonging, collaborative conservation, and the sacred work of caring for the earth. “I went looking for water in the desert and found that the world was teaching me how to listen.” Celebrated as a “world visionary” ( Utne Reader ) and our “lyrical poet of biodiversity” ( Mother Jones ), Gary Paul Nabhan has authored dozens of books and been awarded a MacArthur “genius grant.” In Water in the Desert , he traces the fascinating story of his life, offering in the process a vision for cultural renewal. As a Lebanese-American boy growing up in the dunes along Lake Michigan’s southern shore, where school is excruciating and symptoms of neurodivergence are diagnosed as disabilities, Nabhan finds refuge and revelation in the natural world. In college, he gravitates to the thinkers now associated with the dawn of ecology as a d...
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SUMMER'S NEVER OVER by Darby Bozeman - Spotlight

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  Brimming with nostalgia, but also mysteries and lies, Darby Bozeman's  SUMMER’S NEVER OVER (Berkley)  finds a young woman haunted by the events of a catastrophic summer at her family’s remote Southern camp. Now, she is forced to confront her past—and dig up the truth—to determine whether the tragic death of her fellow counselor was truly an accident.   Dread’s Cove is a summer camp nestled in the Georgia mountains, beside a gorgeous lake. It’s full of the expected things: friendship, sneaking out late, drama, angst, and romance. But at this camp, there are also sinister, long-buried secrets.   Five years ago, Greer left Dread’s Cove and vowed she’d never return. A summer of new friendships, campfire stories, and young love devolved into terror when dangerous and threatening acts were committed by a mysterious presence. The campers dubbed the culprit “The Phantom”—based on an old ghost story, taking on a new life. And The Phantom’s perilous string of tricks end...
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THE WINDSOR AFFAIR by Melanie Benjamin - Spotlight

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  A scandalous affair. A power struggle for the throne. A sensational rivalry between an English queen and an American social climber. In this electrifying novel, THE WINDSOR WOMEN(Ballantine/RandomHouseBooks), tells the story of the Abdication of Edward VIII—and the two women at the center of it all. Feuding Windsor brothers and their wives—some things, it seems, never change.  The Men : Edward David Windsor, heir to the British throne, and younger brother Albert, aka Bertie, “the spare.”  The Women : Edward’s wife, Wallis, an American divorcée, and Bertie's wife,b Elizabeth, daughter of Scottish nobility.  The Feud : a rivalry that will last all their lives, make headlines, and still fuel gossip pages a century later. The Windsor Affair  recreates the cataclysmic events that nearly toppled the monarchy and incited the power struggle between Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the queen-to-be, and Wallis Simpson, aka “That Woman," who fell into a calculated love affair ...
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THE SUMMER SHARE by Jenn McKinlay - Spotlight

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  When two misfits discover they’ve inherited the same beach house, sparks fly in the most unexpected ways, in this hilarious and heartfelt rom-com, THE SUMMER SHARE (Berkley) by Jenn McKinley from the  New York Times  bestselling author of  Summer Reading . Free-spirited travel influencer Hannah Spencer has spent five years touring the country in her vintage van, alone save for her hulking Great Dane, Dude. Until an unexpected inheritance from her pops has Hannah thinking about putting down roots in Cape Split, North Carolina, where she’s the new owner of a worse-for-wear seaside beach house. Or, rather, fifty percent of one. Turns out Simon O’Malley inherited the other half from his gramps. As Simon and Hannah spend the summer tag-teaming repairs on the crumbling cottage, they discover it was once home to a timeless love story. As their own relationship shifts from enemies to friends to lovers, they begin to wonder if the house’s romantic past might be a good omen ...
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MEET THE NEWMANS by Jennifer Niven - Review

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  Have you ever read a book that made you smile from page one until the end? That was my experience with Jennifer Niven's MEET THE NEWMANS (Flatiron Books). The cover colors are delicious. 1950s: The Newmans have been America's favorite TV family for twelve years on CBS. Their real life is exactly what viewers see on the air, with a few make-believe moments. The mother can't cook or clean, and one of the brothers isn't into girls.  1964:  But now their nearly perfect apple-pie show feels out of touch, a bit dated. Mothers are going to work wearing mini skirts, and women aren't jumping at any man's commands. Ratings are plummeting, and writer/creator/DAD's luck may have run out. There are many family secrets, and an accident threatens to cancel the show before the network has a chance. MEET THE NEWMANS is a funny, rich story with plot twists and drama. Jennifer Niven has written a clever, unique novel. JENNIFER NIVEN is the #1 New York Times and international...
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THE CASE STUDY by Nicole Lundrigan - Spotlight

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  The shocking new psychological thriller from the bestselling author Nicole Lundrigan, THE CASE STUDY (Viking) is a twisty, unsettling, and masterfully plotted game of magnetic push-and-pull between two women whose secrets threaten to collide. When Mia was a young woman, she read a magazine article about a murderous teenage girl with a rare and disturbing psychiatric delusion. Fascinated by the details, she sought out the doctor who’d treated the girl, and eventually married him. Twenty years later, Mia’s curiosity is piqued once again when her husband announces that his famous case study will be republished—and that he will be reconnecting with his former patient.      Lainey has never felt that her feet are fully on the ground—not since she was released from a psychiatric institution at the age of twenty-one. When her former doctor reaches out, she decides to tell him the truth about what happened all those years ago. Perhaps she can ...
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THE LAST STRAIGHT WOMAN by Phoebo Maltz Bovy - Spotlightb

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    The Last Straight Woman (Signal)  is a call to set aside the baggage of what female heterosexuality evokes, in favour of a definition of what it actually entails: women liking men. No more, no less. That a woman is straight implies nothing about how conventional or submissive she is. It does not mean she wants to be accommodating to men generally.      Using that simple definition as its launching point, the book moves to the history of women’s desire for men and how it is ultimately separate from much of the history of marriage. Phoebe then turns to the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, and to second-wave feminist critiques of heterosexuality—a pattern that repeated itself when early-2000s sex positivity gave way to post-#MeToo reticence. One sees men’s desires pitted against women’s need for safety, with women’s own lusts all but forgotten. She examines the ways everyone from queer theorists to evolutionary psychologists has cast doubt on...
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