Time and Again by Jack Finney

Picked by Tom - May 22nd 2018 Meeting

When advertising artist Si Morley is recruited to join a covert government operation exploring the possibility of time travel, he jumps at the chance to leave his twentieth-century existence and step into New York City in January 1882. Aside from his thirst for experience, he has good reason to return to the past—his friend Kate has a curious, half-burned letter dated from that year, and he wants to trace the mystery.

But when Si begins to fall in love with a woman he meets in the past, he will be forced to choose between two worlds—forever.

Praised as “pure New York fun” by Alice Hoffman, Time and Again is admired for its rich, painstakingly researched descriptions of life in New York City more than a century ago, and for the swift adventure at its core.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan

Picked by Melissa - April 4th 2018 Meeting

Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.
In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.
Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.

Airport by Arthur Hailey

Picked by Barb - March 5th 2018 Meeting

As a raging blizzard wreaks havoc at Lincoln International Airport outside Chicago, airport and airline personnel try to cope with this unstoppable force of nature that is endangering thousands of lives. And in the air, a lone plane struggles to reach its destination.
Over the course of seven pulse-pounding hours, a tense human drama plays out as a brilliant airport manager, an arrogant pilot, a tough maintenance man, and a beautiful stewardess strive to avert disaster.
Featuring a diverse cast of vibrant characters, Airport is both a realistic depiction of the airline industry and a novel of nail-biting suspense.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

Picked by Brenda - January 23rd 2018 Meeting

Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child. So imagine Alice’s surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym (a gym! She HATES the gym) and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the honeymoon is truly over—she’s getting divorced, she has three kids, and she’s actually 39 years old. Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time. She has to figure out why her sister hardly talks to her, and how is it that she’s become one of those super skinny moms with really expensive clothes. Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over...

Kompromat by Stanley Johnson

Picked by Evan - December 12th 2017 Meeting

Stanley Johnson’s Kompromat is a brilliant satirical thriller that tells the story of 2016’s seismic and unexpected political events on both sides of the Atlantic.
The UK referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU was a political showdown the British PM, Jeremy Hartley, thought he couldn’t lose. But the next morning both he and the whole of the rest of the country woke in a state of shock.
America meanwhile has its own unlikely Presidential candidate, the brash showman Ronald Craig, a man that nobody thought could possibly gain office. Throw into the mix the cunning Russian President Igor Popov, with his plans to destabilize the west, and you have a brilliant alternative account of the events that end with Britain’s new PM attempting to seek her own mandate to deal with the Brexit related crisis and America welcoming its own new leader.
Now in development for a major new TV series, Kompromat is a fast-paced thriller from a true political insider, and who knows, it just might all be true!

Redemption Road by John Hart

Picked by Penny - November 7th 2017 Meeting

The winner of history's only consecutive Edgar Awards for Best Novel John Hart delivers his most powerful story yet.
Imagine:
A boy with a gun waits for the man who killed his mother.
A troubled detective confronts her past in the aftermath of a brutal shooting.
After thirteen years in prison, a good cop walks free as deep in the forest, on the altar of an abandoned church, a body cools in pale linen…
This is a town on the brink.
This is Redemption Road.
Brimming with tension, secrets, and betrayal, Redemption Road proves again that John Hart is a master of the literary thriller.

Camino Island by John Grisham

Picked by Dick - September 19th 2017 Meeting

A gang of thieves stage a daring heist from a secure vault deep below Princeton University’s Firestone Library. Their loot is priceless, but Princeton has insured it for twenty-five million dollars.
     Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in the black market of stolen books and manuscripts.
     Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer’s block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, mysterious woman working for an even more mysterious company. A generous offer of money convinces Mercer to go undercover and infiltrate Bruce Cable’s circle of literary friends, ideally getting close enough to him to learn his secrets.
     But eventually Mercer learns far too much, and there’s trouble in paradise as only John Grisham can deliver it.