Looking for your next great read? See what the Newfields librarians are reading and loving this month…
The Husbands by Chandler Baker
Nora Spangler is a successful attorney but when it comes to domestic life, she packs the lunches, schedules the doctor appointments, knows where the extra paper towel rolls are, and designs and orders the holiday cards. Her husband works hard, too… but why does it seem like she is always working so much harder?
When the Spanglers go house hunting in Dynasty Ranch, an exclusive suburban neighborhood, Nora meets a group of high-powered women—a tech CEO, a neurosurgeon, an award-winning therapist, a bestselling author—with enviably supportive husbands. When she agrees to help with a resident’s wrongful death case, she is pulled into the lives of the women there. She finds the air is different in Dynasty Ranch. The women aren’t hanging on by a thread.
But as the case unravels, Nora uncovers a plot that may explain the secret to having-it-all. One that’s worth killing for. Calling to mind a Stepford Wives gender-swap, The Husbands imagines a world where the burden of the “second shift” is equally shared—and what it may take to get there. -Goodreads
I hear “gender-swapped Stepford Wives” and I’m IN.
I just had a ton of fun listening to this one. Even if knowing the premise takes some of the mystery out of it, for me, that actually enhanced my enjoyment as I tried to figure out how the ladies did it and waited to see how it would all shake out.
Baker writes a propelling psychological/family thriller that was both suspenseful and fun. Our main character Nora was relatable and realistic—smart enough to notice when things feel off but, with such a wild premise, no way for her to really guess at what’s actually going on, so she keeps talking herself into moving forward with her plans to join the Dynasty Ranch neighborhood and its clique of women.
The pacing was excellent, the characters interesting and convincing, and the ending wickedly satisfying.
This is my first by Chandler Baker and it won’t be my last.
🎧This book is available to check out via audiobook on the Libby app.
-Brittney T.
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
For anyone who grew up (or even lived in for a winter or two) in New England will feel right at home in the setting of Hallowell, Maine. Based on the diary of our heroine, Martha Ballard, this tale takes you into her life during a tumultuous year for the town. Part historical fiction, part murder mystery, the story is told from Martha’s perspective as a midwife in a post-revolution America.
You can tell that the author, Ariel Lawhon, did extensive research into not only the culture of Maine in the late 1700s but what being a midwife was all about. You’ll even get to join her in a few of the delivery rooms as well during the course of your read!
When a body is found in the Kennebec River, Marth is called on to lend her expertise to who or what may have caused this. You’ll find that being a midwife in this town demands more than delivering babies (as if that’s not enough in itself). Travel through the riggers of political
scheming, social life, health care, and being a woman in 1789 America. Lawhon does a
masterful job of writing characters you will root for and ones that you will despise.
Content Warning: the book includes detailed discussions of rape from multiple perspectives.
After the book is over, be sure to read the afterword where author, Ariel Lawhon, takes you into her thought process in terms of adapting the diary of a real person into a fiction novel. Not only does it help you separate fact and fiction but it also gives you a view into how passionate Lawhon was with this project.
This book is available in our collection and is also available to check out via audiobook and ebook on the Libby app.
–Andy S.
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Canadian author Margaret Atwood often writes what she calls “speculative fiction,” which, according to Atwood, is not “science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians…. it invents nothing we haven’t already invented or started to invent. Every novel begins with a what if, and then sets forth its axioms…What if we continue down the road we’re already on? How slippery is the slope? What are our saving graces? Who’s got the will to stop us?”
Her most famous work is The Handmaid’s Tale, published in 1984, which portrays a dystopian United States turned oppressive theocracy. However, in 2003, she published another dystopian novel, Oryx and Crake, this time taking on consumerism, genetic engineering, and science, imagining a world run entirely on neoliberal ideals of free market economy with no government regulation whatsoever.
The story of Oryx and Crake is told from the point of view of a man formerly known as Jimmy, who now calls himself Snowman. Snowman lives in a world that has been decimated by a plague that wiped out nearly all of humanity. The narrative moves backward and forward in time as Snowman reflects on the world “before” and what brought it to where it is now.
In those before times, Jimmy lived in a society of rampant consumerism, pervasive violence, and huge wealth disparity. Jimmy was an upper class child, born and raised in a compound where he met Glenn, an intellectually gifted boy who comes to be called Crake. When Jimmy and Crake are adults, Crake is hired by a preeminent genetics corporation, RejoovenEsense, and begins work on a top secret project of his own, ostensibly to manage the problem of overpopulation.
However, Crake’s goals are not as altruistic as he pretended and actually much more sinister. I won’t give much away, but suffice to say things do not go exactly as he envisioned. Also layered into the story is Jimmy’s love interest, a young woman known as Oryx. Be warned, though, this is definitely NOT a love story.
Dystopian fiction may not be everyone’s cup of tea right now, but this book is remarkable in its prescience as the world Atwood paints feels both possible and familiar.
I love her ability to look at the world in its current form and posit where we might end up. She is also a keen observer of society and people and those observations are at times very funny. She has a wonderful time with language, particularly in the world of advertising and marketing, while also championing the human spirit and our determination to retain our humanity and connection to others—our saving graces, if you will.
Oryx and Crake is actually the first in a trilogy, the MaddAddam series. The second book of the trilogy, The Year of the Flood, details the same “before” times as Oryx and Crake, but from the perspective of women in the pleeblands. In the third, MaddAddam, the two novels converge and move forward. In spite of the horrors inflicted on the world, Atwood seems optimistic and hopeful about humanity’s future at the end of the series.
This book is available in our collection and is also available to check out via audiobook and ebook on the Libby app.
-Susan M.
