Helen Plum Library

Entering the afterlife due to a hit and run accident, a successful author learns she can observe the earthly lives of her nearly grown children and is also permitted three "nudges" to alter the outcome of events

"In her stunning debut, Souvankham Thammavongsa captures the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees in a nameless city, illuminating hopes, disappointments, love affairs, and above all, the pursuit of a place to belong. An ex-boxer turned nail salon worker falls for a pair of immaculate hands; a mother and daughter harvest earthworms in the middle of the night; a country music-obsessed housewife abandons her family for fantasy; and a young girl's...

"'Tis the season for romance, second chances, and Christmas cheer with this new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber. Carrie Slayton, a big-city society-page columnist, longs to write more serious news stories. So her editor hands her a challenge: She can cover any topic she wants, but only if she first scores the paper an interview with Finn Dalton, the notoriously reclusive author. Living in the remote Alaskan wilderness,...

"Bells that ring themselves. Record players that turn on an play music to empty rooms. Ghosts that can climb out of wardrobes... Maggie Holt doesn't believe in these things, even though they are the details of the story that made her family famous. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved to Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent twenty days there before fleeing in the dead of night, an...

After posting a one-star review for a poorly written--but gruesome--horror novel, Emma Carpenter is dragged into an online argument with the author himself, but when disturbing incidents start happening at night, Emma digs into his life and work, discovering a sadistic man who is capable of anything After posting a negative book review, a woman living in a remote location begins to wonder if the author is a little touchy -- or very, very dangerous...

"Viggo Bergman, hopeless romantic, is thoroughly weary of waiting for his happily ever after. But between opening a romance bookstore, running a romance book club, coaching kids' soccer, and adopting a household of pets-just maybe, he's overcommitted himself?-Viggo's chaotic life has made finding his forever love seem downright improbable. Enter Tallulah Clarke, chilly cynic with a massive case of writer's block. Tallulah needs help with her thriller's...

"Cathy Bonidan's The Lost Manuscript is a charming epistolary novel about the love of books and magical ability they have to bring people together. Sometimes a book has the power to change your life... When Anne-Lise Briard books a room at the Beau Rivage Hotel for her vacation on the Brittany coast, she has no idea this trip will start her on the path to unearthing a mystery. In search of something to read, she opens up her bedside table drawer in...

When mystery author Charlee Russo arrives at a Portland writers' conference and learns that the adult daughter of the organizer has been kidnapped, she takes over the conference planning while trying to untangle the problematic web of the kidnapping

Have you ever lost someone who meant more to you than your own soul? Ford Newcombe has. For years, he loved his wife, Pat, more than anyone -- and anything -- in the world. She came into his life when he was an inexperienced college student with big dreams of becoming a published author. Pat guided him down the path that eventually led to more success than he dreamed possible. Since Pat's death, Ford has lived a life of solitude, barely able to put...