Helen Plum Library

"The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this brilliant and wondrous work of the imagination that melds historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy. Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George -- publisher of The...

"An immigrant family gets caught in the middle of a criminal investigation in this pulsating debut, perfect for readers of Everything I Never Told You and Ask Again, Yes"-- Babur "Bobby" Singh, single parent and owner of fledging Uber business "Move with Bobby," remains ever hopeful about ascending the ladder of American success. He lives in an affluent suburb of New York with his daughter Angie, an introverted teenager who is uncomfortable in her...

"All favors come with a cost, and after using what little favors he has in the Newark PD to get his private investigators license, former crime reporter Russell Avery finds himself paying. He spends his days reluctantly keeping sideways cops out of the crosshairs of the Internal Affairs department. Until Keyonna Jackson, a social justice activist, presents him with a troubling video: a made-for-Youtube cell phone snippet chronicling the same kind...

"Under the bright lights of Broadway, one new musical pushes the boundaries of love, legacy, and art. Growing up in rural Wisconsin, Eleanor O'Hanlon always felt different. In love with musical theater from a young age, she memorized every show album she could get her hands on. So when she discovers an open call for one of her favorite productions, she leaves behind everything she knows to run off to New York City and audition. Raw and untrained,...

"Liliana Cruz does what it takes to fit in at her new nearly all-white school, but when family secrets come out and racism at school gets worse than ever, she must decide what she believes in and take a stand"-- It's fine that Lilliana's best friend, Jade, is all caught up in her new boyfriend lately. It's fine that her inner-city high school is disorganized and underfunded. It's fine that her father took off again, and she's left with her increasingly...

"Life is hopeless but it is not serious. We have to have danced while we could and, later, to have danced again in the telling. A weekend spent antiquing is shadowed by the colonial atrocities that occurred on that land. A walk at dusk is interrupted by casual racism. A loving marriage is riven by mysterious tensions. And a remarkable cascade of voices speak out from a pulsing metropolis. We're invited to experience these events and others through...

In Oak Knoll, a verdant, tight-knit North Carolina neighborhood, professor of forestry and ecology Valerie Alston-Holt is raising her bright and talented biracial son. Xavier is headed to college in the fall, and after years of single parenting, Valerie is facing the prospect of an empty nest. All is well until the Whitmans move in next door - an apparently traditional family with new money, ambition, and a secretly troubled teenaged daughter. Thanks...

After fifteen years of growing up in the Ozark hills with his widowed mother, high-school freshman Boady Sanden is beyond ready to move on. He dreams of glass towers and cityscapes, driven by his desire to be anywhere other than Jessup, Missouri. The new kid at St. Ignatius High School, if he isn't being pushed around, he is being completely ignored. Even his beloved woods, his playground as a child and his sanctuary as he grew older, seem to be closing...

"From beloved, bestselling historical novelist Tracy Chevalier, whose mega-hit Girl with a Pearl Earring enchanted readers around the world, comes a poignant, unforgettable adaptation of Othello set in the fierce world of preadolescent children, where the grown-up forces of love and jealousy, and the hurt of being ostracized, can be as real and as devastating as for any adult. "O felt her presence behind him like a fire at his back." Arriving at his...

"A dynamic, gripping collection of short stories from "America's best novelist" (Denver Post), the New York Times-bestselling James Lee Burke. Harbor Lights is a story collection from one of the most popular and widely acclaimed icons of American fiction, featuring a never-before-published novella. These eight stories move from the marshlands on the Gulf of Mexico to the sweeping plains of Colorado to prisons, saloons, and trailer parks across the...