August's Recommended Reads | |
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All books mentioned in this edition of the Great Reads Newsletter are available in the Ocean County Library's OverDrive/Libby Collection and/or in our catalog.
On mobile devices you can download the Libby App from the device's app store to browse the OverDrive Collection.
For help and support visit the library's help page and click on the Libby by OverDrive tab.
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Blood & Ink: The Scandalous Jazz Age Double Murder that Hooked America on True Crime
by Joe Pompeo
On September 16, 1922, the bodies of Reverend Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills were found beneath a crabapple tree on an abandoned farm outside of New Brunswick, New Jersey. The story shocked locals and sent the scandal ricocheting around the country, fueling the nascent tabloid industry. This double murder on a lonely lover's lane would soon become one of the most famous killings in American history—a veritable crime of the century.
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Murder on the Mountain: Crime, Passion, and Punishment in Gilded Age New Jersey
by Peter J. Wosh & Patricia L. Schall
Murder on the Mountain tells the story of Margaret Meierhofer, the last woman executed by the State of New Jersey, who was hung - along with a farmhand drifter named Frank Lammens -- in Newark at the Essex County Jail in January 1881 for murdering her husband John.
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Are you a True Crime fan? Be sure to attend our day long event at the
Toms River Branch on September 9th from 10 am - 4 pm!
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Pretty Dead Queens
by Alexa Donne
After the death of her mom, seventeen-year-old Cecelia Ellis goes to live with her estranged grandmother, a celebrated author whose Victorian mansion is as creepy as the murder mysteries she writes. On the surface, life is utterly ordinary in the California coastal town . . . until the homecoming queen is murdered. And she’s not Seaview’s first pretty dead queen.
With a copycat killer on the loose, Cecelia throws herself into the investigation, determined to crack the case like the heroines in her grandmother’s books.
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A Long Stretch of Bad Days
by Mindy McGinnis
A lifetime of hard work has put Lydia Chass on track to attend a prestigious journalism program and leave Henley behind—until a school error leaves her a credit short of graduating. Bristal Jamison has a bad reputation and a foul mouth, but she also needs one more credit to graduate. An unexpected partnership forms as the two remake Lydia's town history podcast to investigate the Long Stretch of Bad Days—a week when Henley was hit by a tornado, a flash flood, as well as its first and only unsolved murder.
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What We Saw
by Mary Downing Hahn
When best friends Abbi and Skylar witness a clandestine meeting between a mysterious woman and someone in a dark van, they're thrilled. Finally, a mystery to spice up the summer!
Who could these people be? Why are they meeting? Are they spies? Criminals? The two girls are determined to find out. But then a local woman goes missing and is found dead in the woods. Abbi and Skylar realize that their detective work could hold the keys to solving her murder. Suddenly, sleuthing isn't so fun anymore.
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To Catch a Thief
by Martha Brockenbrough
Urchin Beach isn't the sort of place where bad things happen. The little seaside town is too lucky for that. But then one day, a thief steals something precious—the town's dragonfly staff, which is the source of all its good fortune and the most important part of the upcoming Dragonfly Day Festival.
Amelia MacGuffin is no detective. She's eleven, quiet, and unlike her four younger siblings, she has no special talents. But Amelia loves her town. Unless she cracks the case, Amelia's family will lose everything—including the adorable stray dog they've fallen in love with.
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Gustav Is Missing
by Andrea Zuill
Oh, no! When mushroom boy Little Cap's pet slug, Gustav, goes missing, Little Cap is beside himself. How can he summon the courage to leave his cozy home to find him? But summon he does. There are many suspicious characters just outside his door and—gasp!—he has to talk to his neighbors, but Little Cap can't be stopped.
After much perilous searching—up sheer cliffs and into deep canyons and even stepping in something really, really gross—Little Cap finally finds his very best friend, and he's changed for the better along the way.
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Gilly's Monster Trap
by Cyndi Marko
Gilly loves to flap her flippers in Lighthouse Bay...until a mysterious monster starts menacing the market! It swipes Gilly's flippers, snatches fish, and nabs nets. So Gilly hatches a plan: she is going to catch the sneaky, rotten monster! With the help of her goldfish, Finnegan, and the townspeople, she builds a trap. But when things go awry, Gilly discovers she and the monster may have been after the same thing all along—a friend.
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One Book OCL: Online Book Discussion | | |
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Sold on a Monday
by Kristina McMorris
Now - October 6
The scrawled sign, peddling young siblings on a farmhouse porch, captures the desperation sweeping the country in 1931. For struggling reporter Ellis Reed, the gut-wrenching scene evokes memories of his family’s dark past. He snaps a photograph of the children, not meant for publication. When the image leads to his big break, the consequences are devastating in ways he never imagined. Haunted by secrets of her own, secretary Lillian Palmer sees more in the picture than a good story and is soon drawn into the fray.
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