100 Main Street, Alton, New Hampshire 03809, United States
ALTON BOOK CHAT
Unless otherwise noted, meetings are held on the second Tuesday of each month, at 7:00 pm. Call the library at 875-2550 to reserve your copy of the next book discussion title and get in on the fun!
Alton Book Chat, established in 1999, is a library-sponsored book discussion group that meets monthly in the Agnes Thompson Meeting Room (lower-level entrance), Gilman Library, 100 Main St., Alton, NH 03809
October 10
October 10
Hour of the Witch
by Chris Bohjalian
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From the acclaimed author of The Flight Attendant: “Historical fiction at its best…. The book is a thriller in structure, and a real page-turner, the ending both unexpected and satisfying” (Diana Gabaldon, bestselling author of the Outlander series, The Washington Post).
A young Puritan woman—faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul—plots her escape from a violent marriage in this riveting and propulsive novel of historical suspense.
Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is twenty-four-years-old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But here in the New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary's hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life.
But in a world where every neighbor is watching for signs of the devil, a woman like Mary—a woman who harbors secret desires and finds it difficult to tolerate the brazen hypocrisy of so many men in the colony—soon becomes herself the object of suspicion and rumor. When tainted objects are discovered buried in Mary's garden, when a boy she has treated with herbs and simples dies, and when their servant girl runs screaming in fright from her home, Mary must fight to not only escape her marriage, but also the gallows.
A twisting, tightly plotted novel of historical suspense from one of our greatest storytellers, Hour of the Witch is a timely and terrifying story of socially sanctioned brutality and the original American witch hunt.
Look for Chris Bohjalian's new novel, The Lioness!
NOVEMBER 14
NOVEMBER 14
NOVEMBER 14
image and description from amazon.com
AUTHOR VISIT WITH
NOVEMBER 14
NOVEMBER 14
The World As We Know It
by Joseph Monninger
Critically acclaimed author Joseph Monninger has penned a subtle and heartrending love story of friendship, nature, and the surprising twists that can alter our destinies forever.
A lifetime of friendship begins the day brothers Ed and Allard save Sarah from drowning in an icy river near their rural New Hampshire home.
Though their paths diverge through the years, the connection between the three endures until a heartbreaking tragedy in the remote mountains of Wyoming forces Sarah and Allard to confront the unthinkable.
In their grief, they find themselves on separate journeys that test the enduring bonds of their relationship and time’s unremitting power to heal.
JOSEPH MONNINGER
NOVEMBER 14
JOSEPH MONNINGER
About the Author
Joseph Monninger lives in New Hampshire beside the Baker River.
DECEMBER 12
DECEMBER 12
DECEMBER 12
DECEMBER 12
DECEMBER 12
image and description from amazon.com
Wreck the Halls
by Sarah Graves
“The town (Eastport) and its warmly wondrous citizens continue to enchant!”
— Booknews from The Poisoned Pen
When ex—Wall Streeter Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree bought a charming 1823 fixer-upper in tiny Eastport, Maine, she figured she’d also bought herself a tranquil, stress-free life. But Jake soon learned that appearances can be deceiving, and that even small towns have their share of dark secrets — including murder.
Wreck The Halls
People hardly ever lock their doors in Eastport. So when Jake and her best pal, Ellie, arrive at Faye Anne Carmody’s kitchen door, they knock and walk right in. But though Christmas is just two weeks away, what they find is far from festive: a dazed Faye Anne covered with blood, and her no-good husband — the town butcher, Merle — nowhere in sight. Nowhere, that is, until Jake discovers his body — tidily wrapped in his own butcher paper....
It doesn’t take long for news of the murder to race through the small town, and just about everyone has a theory about the grisly crime that has robbed Eastport of its least-liked citizen. But while police chief Bob Arnold considers it an open-and-shut case, Jake and Ellie aren’t convinced of Faye Anne’s guilt.
Jake has enough going on in her life without trying to investigate a murder. After all, she’s just married her longtime love, Wade, and the pair plan to spend the winter rehabilitating the paint-encrusted windows in Jake’s old house.
But Jake has to admit that there are a lot of details that don’t add up: for example, Faye Anne’s complaint that she was being stalked, and blood-splattered evidence at the crime scene that just doesn’t make sense. Then there is the diary that Faye Anne’s secret, sometime boyfriend claims is hidden somewhere in her house. Could Faye Anne’s own journal be the key to unlocking an even more fiendish murder plot, or is her double-crossing lover trying to frame her?
When yet another Eastport citizen turns up dead, Jake realizes the murderer’s trail began long before the night Merle Carmody died. But what keeps eluding her and Ellie is the motive behind the mystery. The truth is so close, they can almost taste it — but can they stop the shrewd killer before he chisels another victim’s name onto a tombstone?
DECEMBER 12