Dear Friends,

There is beauty in winter. It's in the snow on the ground showing the architecture of the the hills in our area. It's in the color of the water in the lakes especially when the sun is shining. It's in the moody clouds and occasional blue skies. It's in the spectacular winter sunrises and sunsets. We've had a lot of snow this month and there's beauty in the snow globe that it creates. We love winter and hope you come and visit soon!



If you are out of town check out our website.

You can keep up with news of Cottage Book Shop and Glen Arbor by following us on Facebook. and Instagram. 

Happy February!

Jenny, Kim, Anne, Amy, Patti, Kelsey

and Sue

The February

Selection of the Month is:

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years

By Shubnum Khan

Penguin $18.99

Akbar Manzil was once a grand estate off the coast of South Africa. Nearly a century later, it stands in ruins: an isolated boardinghouse for eclectic misfits, seeking solely to disappear into the mansion's dark corridors. Except for Sana. Unlike the others, she is curious and questioning and finds herself irresistibly drawn to the history of the mansion: To the eerie and forgotten East Wing, home to a clutter of broken and abandoned objects--and to the door at its end, locked for decades. Behind the door is a bedroom frozen in time and a worn diary that whispers of a dark past: the long-forgotten story of a young woman named Meena, who died there tragically a hundred years ago. Watching Sana from the room's shadows is a besotted, grieving djinn, an invisible spirit who has haunted the mansion since her mysterious death. Obsessed with Meena's story, and unaware of the creature that follows her, Sana digs into the past like fingers into a wound, dredging up old and terrible secrets that will change the lives of everyone living and dead at Akbar Manzil. Sublime, heart-wrenching, and lyrically stunning, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is a haunting, a love story, and a mystery, all twined beautifully into one young girl's search for belonging. ~Recommended by Sue

Join our Monthly Cottage Selection of the Month and automatically receive our monthly paperback selections at 15% off, plus $6.00 shipping.

Sign up yourself, your loved ones or a friend to receive a recommended book each month.

If you would like to receive a copy of our email newsletter please send your email address to info@cottagebooks.com.

Time for Love

Bigfoot’s Big Heart

By Sarah Glenn Marsh

Illustrated by Ishaa Lobo

Viking $18.99

It's lonely being a monster. But having other mythical pen pals helps. When Bigfoot loses the Valentine's Day cards he so tenderly made for his friends around the world, a troop of scouts offers to help. But they will have to get creative to find every mythical creature in time! Sarah Glenn Marsh and Ishaa Lobo team up again for a sweet Valentine's Day tale about the value of friends, both new and old. (Ages 2 and up)

I’ll Love You Until the Crocodiles Smile

By Kathryn Cristaldi

Illustrated by Kristyna Litten

Harper Collins $18.99

Tender and gently humorous, this story of unconditional love will become a household favorite to be read over and over.

I will love you till forever and forever and more, till my love shakes the jungle with a lion-size ROAR, as night blankets the forest near a soothing waterfall and the chimpanzees sleep in trees, two hundred feet tall… (Ages 2 and up)

Mr. Boddington’s How to Say I Love You

By Mr. Boddington’s Studio

Penguin. $17.99

A collection of poems focused on love brought to life by Mr. Boddington's signature art style. This assortment of age-appropriate love poems will be sure to please both parents and young readers looking for a literary way to celebrate the holiday.

(All ages)

Ten-Word Tiny Tales of Love

By Joseph Coelho

Candlewick. $18.99

Is it possible to tell a tale of love using just ten words? The answer is an enthusiastic yes. And when those words are joined by illustrations from twenty top creators, the results can be stunning. In this unique compendium designed to spark the imagination. (All ages)

You Are My Everything

By Kelly Conroy

Tiger Tales $18.99

Following a parent and child elephant on their annual migration to join the herd, this sweet story celebrates all of the ways in which a child is "everything" to their parent, their family, and their community. The pair set off together in the early morning and experience the warm, golden sun, the cool, refreshing water, and finally the cheerful sounds of the rest of the herd when they all join up. (Ages 2 and up)

The Cottage

Children's Book Club

 The perfect gift for all of the little people in your life. Give the gift of a book a month!

Our knowledgeable staff will personally choose a hardcover book for each child. A passion for reading can begin at a young age and this special gift will foster the love of books and reading!

Here's how it works:

~ each month or bi-monthly the child will receive a recently published, age appropriate hardcover book matched with the child's interests.

(we can also choose classic children's books if requested)

~gifts will be wrapped and arrive with a book plate from the giver.

~the cost of the book (less a 15% discount) and shipping (USPS) is less than $22.00 per month. The amount will be charged to your credit card monthly or bimonthly.

Glen Lake Book Club

Meet the 3rd Friday of the month at Glen Lake Community Library at 10:00 a.m

February 21

North Woods

By Daniel Mason

Random $18.00

March 21

The Women

By Kristin Hannah

St. Martins $30.00

April 18

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship

By Alice Munro

Vintage $18.00



Lakeshore Readers

Meet the last Wednesday of the month at Glen Lake Library at 11:00 a.m.

February 26

The Searcher

By Tana French

Penguin $18.00

Wednesday March 26

Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club

By J. Ryan Stradel

Penguin $18.00

Wednesday April 20

Little Monsters

By Adrienne Brodeur

Avid Reader $18.99

Please shop locally!

Books available at Cottage Book Shop

(15% off on book club books)



New Releases

A Forty Year Kiss

By Nikolas Butler

Sourcebooks $27.99

Charlie and Vivian parted ways after just four years of marriage. Too many problems, too many struggles, even though the love didn't quite die. When Charlie returns to Wisconsin forty years later, he's not sure what he'll find. He is sure of one thing -- he must try to reconnect with Vivian to pick up the broken pieces of their past. But forty years is a long time. It's forty years of other relationships, forty years of building new lives, and forty years of long-held regrets, mistakes, and painful secrets. A brave and triumphant exploration of redemption and sunset triumph, A Forty Year Kiss is a once-in-a-lifetime love story, written with dazzling lyricism and remarkable clarity of spirit, from a celebrated author at the top of his game. It's a literary valentine that promises to be a love story for the ages.

~Recommended by Sue

Good Dirt

By Charmaine Wilkerson

Ballantine $30.00

When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well.The crime was never solved--and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England--the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby's high profile romance falls apart without any explanation, that's exactly what they get.So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what's happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago--the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family's history--it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future.

Homeseeking

By Karissa Chen

Penguin $30.00

Haiwen is buying bananas at a 99 Ranch Market in Los Angeles when he looks up and sees Suchi, his Suchi, for the first time in sixty years. To recently widowed Haiwen it feels like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back.Suchi was seven when she first met Haiwen in their Shanghai neighborhood, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossomed into soul-deep love, but when Haiwen secretly enlisted in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, she was left with just his violin and a note: Forgive me. Homeseeking follows the separated lovers through six decades of tumultuous Chinese history as war, famine, and opportunity take them separately to the song halls of Hong Kong, the military encampments of Taiwan, the bustling streets of New York, and sunny California, telling Haiwen's story from the present to the past while tracing Suchi's from her childhood to the present, meeting in the crucible of their lives. Throughout, Haiwen holds his memories close while Suchi forces herself to look only forward, neither losing sight of the home they hold in their hearts. At once epic and intimate, Homeseeking is a story of family, sacrifice, and loyalty, and of the power of love to endure beyond distance, beyond time.

~Recommended by Sue

Junie

By Erin Crosby Eckstine

Ballantine $30.00

Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master's daughter, Violet. When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie's life, she commits a desperate act--one that rouses Minnie's spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her. She enlists the aid of Caleb, the guests' coachman, and their friendship soon becomes something more. Yet as long-held truths begin to crumble, she realizes Bellereine is harboring dark and horrifying secrets that can no longer be ignored.With time ticking down, Junie begins to push against the harsh current that has controlled her entire life. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we cho

~Recommended by Sue

Memorial Days: A Memoir

By Geraldine Brooks

Viking $28.00

Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz - just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy - collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk. After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha's Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness. But all of this ended abruptly when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on a pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony's death.

~Recommended by Sue

Penitence

By Kristin Koval

Celadon $28.99

When their thirteen-year-old daughter Nora kills her terminally ill brother, Angie and David Sheehan struggle to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. They turn to small-town lawyer Martine Dumont for help, but Martine isn't just legal counsel--she's also the mother of Angie's ill-fated first love Julian, a successful criminal defense attorney. Martine promptly draws him into the legal battle against an overreaching district attorney determined to try Nora as an adult. As the families grapple with the lasting strain of blame and the complexities of an often unfair criminal justice system, Julian and Angie must confront their own culpability in a long-ago accident and the guilt they still carry over how their prior life together in New York City ended.

~Recommended by Jenny and Sue

Snowbirds

By Christina Clancy

St. Martin’s $29.00

Kim and Grant are at a turning point. A couple for thirty years, their "separate but together" partnership is running up against the realities of late middle age. Escaping the bitter cold of a Midwestern winter for the hot desert sun of Palm Springs seems as good a solution as any to the more intractable problems they face. When they arrive at Le Desert, a quirky condo community where everyone knows everyone's business, Kim immediately embraces the opportunity to make new friends and explore a more adventurous side of her personality. Meanwhile, Grant struggles to find his footing in this unfamiliar landscape, leaving Kim to wonder if their relationship can survive the snowbird season. But when Grant goes missing on a hike in the Palm Springs mountains, Kim is forced to consider two terrifying outcomes: either Grant is truly lost, or this time, he's really left her.

Recommended by Anne

Too Soon

By Betty Shamieh

Avid Reader $28.99

Arabella gets an unexpected chance at love when she's thrust into a conflict and history she's tried to avoid all her life.Zoya is playing matchmaker for her last unmarried granddaughter and stirring up buried memories.Naya is keeping a secret from her children that will change all their lives.Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic--that might garner international attention--in the West Bank. Her mother, Naya, and grandmother, Zoya, hatch a plot to match her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz, since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster...With biting hilarity, Too Soon introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices.

~Recommended by Jenny

Wild Dark Shore

By Charlotte McConaghy

Flatiron $28.99

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world's largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore. Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again. But Rowan isn't telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it's too late--and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.

~Recommended by Sue