Rachel Baack

Lorrie Moore’s collection of short stories is a series of tales that explore the messiness of relationships and melancholy of adult life. My favorite stories in this collection are “Wings” and “Thank You for Having Me.”

Summary: This graphic novel follows a young Chinese-American boy named Jin Wang who struggles with fitting in and with his cultural identity. It also includes two other creative sub-plots with related themes.

Summary: A governess begins caring for two children at a house in the country. At first, she is charmed by the children, but she soon notices that somethings is not quite right about them, and she realizes that something supernatural and frightening is happening at the house.

Summary: Laurie starts getting reports from her friends and family that they have seen her in places that she wasn’t. She eventually figures out the supernatural secret that explains these occurrences, but that secret might just be darker than it first seems.

Summary: Nore’s father has recently married, about a year after her mother’s death. When she meets her new step-mother, step-brother, and step-sister, she notices that something is a little off about them. As she tries to figure out what’s up with her new family, she begins to uncover a strange and dangerous secret.

Summary: In this reimagining of Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice, seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Bennet dreams of one day becoming a barrister. The only problem is that women, while not being explicitly prohibited from arguing in court (within the world of the book), are generally seen as unfit for the job. In pursuit of her seemingly impossible dream, Lizzie sets out to solve a case and prove to her father, who has his own law firm, that she has what it takes to work for him. The case she takes on, however, proves to be more challenging and complicated than she might have hoped: Charles Bingley, owner of Netherfield Shipping Co., has been accused of a murder that has no other suspects, and he has hired as his solicitor Mr. Darcy, who is not exactly keen on having Lizzie consult on the case.

Summary: In this exciting series, Aiden and Meg Falconer escape from a juvenile detention center, where they have been held because the government has nowhere else to place them after their parents’ imprisonment. The two kids dodge the authorities and others who want to harm them while attempting to clear their parents’ names.

Summary: When a man is murdered in his own home, a retired private detective, accompanied by his new sidekick and the book’s narrator, Dr. Sheppard, untangles a web of clues to discover who among the man’s associates is responsible.

Summary: After suffering rape and becoming pregnant at the hands of her father, Grace Mae ends up in a horrifying 1800s insane asylum. Soon, however, she is recognized for her intelligence and powers of observation, and a visiting doctor takes moves her to a more ethical asylum in Ohio, where she must feign muteness in order to become the doctor’s assistant and help him solve a series of murders.

Summary: Four teenagers receive a threatening note that reads, “I know what you did last summer.” These teens have a dark secret that they thought only they knew, but now, they realize that they have been found out. They don’t know who the note-writer is or what he or she is planning to do with the information. All they can do is wait and prepare for the worst.