New Books From JCPL to Brighten a Dark and Stormy Night!

It was a dark and stormy night...it really WAS, and the satallite had bitten the dust because of the bad weather, so I went in search of something to read. Scary stories are the best for nights like this one, and I thought the perfect book to raise goosebumps would be "Dead After Dark" by Charlaine Harris. Opening it up, I looked forward to the vampire-biting, bloodcurdling thrill I would get from the story, and as I read on, I found myself amused more than scared, but in a surprisingly good way. Sookie Stackhouse, Harris's main character, is a cocktail waitress surrounded by vampires; some who are good-natured in a vampirish way, and some who live up to their reputation as vicious blood-hounds. This book, the first in the "Southern Vampire" series, has me hooked enough to read the next in the series, and here are some other new fiction titles at the Jasper County Library that can entertain during the next dark and stormy night.

Despite the trials that every marriage faces at one time or another, Tim Farnsworth and his wife Jane still share a strong bond. Farnsworth loves his wife, his daughter, his house, even his kitchen, with the copper pots and pans hanging above the kitchen's island. Why, then, does he decide one day to just walk out, and away from all he holds dear? "The Unnamed" by Joshua Ferris explores the ties of marriage and family and the forces of nature that interfere with the best laid plans of Tim Farnsworth.

Mama threw Daddy out of the house, and after she did, she made her two daughters, Lulu and Merry, promise never to let him back into her home again. When Daddy came calling, ten year old Lulu relented and opened up the door to him, only to have him kill her mother and stab her little five year old sister, Merry. "The Murderer's Daughters" by Randy Susan Meyers is the story of two little girls, orphaned by the death and subsequent imprisonment of their father, who grow into women and continue to carry the scars of their past, carving their lives in the shadow of the tragedy that always hovers in the distance.

United States Senator, Ellen Fisher is a Democrat, now in her second term. Going head to head with the Vice President over national security, Ellen and her staff find themselves under attack, the ensuing barrage of threats endangering not only their careers, but their very lives in "Blind Trust," book number 2 in the Senator Ellen Fisher series by Barbara Boxer.

Jack and Joy Griffin have been married for thirty years, and for the most part, the plan that they made on their Cape Cod honeymoon thirty years before has been fulfilled. Now, Jack returns to the Cape, this time for the wedding of his daughter's best friend, Laura. Carrying his father's ashes around in the trunk of his car, and yet another urn makes its way on this trip. Coupled with the fact that Jack and Joy have brought along new dates to the event, "That Old Cape Magic" by Richard Russo offers a comical and surprising look at life during middle age.

It is, yet again, a dark and stormy night, and the satellite has made a repeat performance of going AWOL, so I think I'll pick up my old friend Sookie Stackhouse and see what's happening in the world of vampires these days.