Sweet Home Alaska

By Carole Estby Dagg

Terpsichore’s Father has lost his job at the mill and it doesn’t look like things are ever going to improve. The great depression has hit hard in Wisconsin. When Terpsichore’s family gets chosen to go to Alaska to homestead, she is so excited! She loves the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and she wants to live just like Laura did. Mother is not too happy about the move and says she will “vote” on whether to stay after the first harvest.

Terpsichore falls in love with Alaska along with her father and twin sisters. Mother will have to be convinced however, and Terpsichore starts planning to win her over by the end of the local fair.

This is a juvenile book suitable for any reader.

~ Dixie

Mud Season

By Ellen Stimson

A very funny chronicle of one family’s transition from city life to real country living in Vermont. That culture shock alone is funny but when Ellen decides she wants to own the old fashioned country store, the calamities start coming at an alarming rate. Anything that could go wrong did with (most of the time) hilarious results. I’m pretty sure the broken bone healed. I always enjoy stories of people totally out of their element.

~ Dixie

Lovable Livable Home – How to Add Beauty, Get Organized, and Make Your House Work for You

By Sherry & John Petersik

I want to read anything with the word “organize” in it. Someday maybe I will master that. In the meantime there are some great books about it including this one. Nice photos of livable rooms and ideas that don’t take a professional to accomplish. Now I’m pretty sure I need a Murphy bed. . . .

~ Dixie

Interstellar

DVD format

Cooper is an ex-pilot who is now a farmer in the Midwest. The earth is foundering and mankind’s existence is being threatened. Cooper and his daughter stumble upon a secret NASA station and learn of a most important mission in the history of mankind. Cooper agrees to pilot this mission to see if humans can find a planet that will sustain life. This is a great cast including Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Michael Caine. Very enjoyable!


~ Dixie

Annie’s Quilted Mysteries

This 12 book series includes:

A Patchwork Murder – by Jan Fields
Raven Threads – by K.D. McCrite
A Midsummer Night’s Seam – by Racheal Phillips
Broderie Curse – by Jan Fields
Innocent Until Proven Quilty – by Donna Kelly
Oceans Selvage – by Jan Fields
A Deadly Pattern – by Liz Penney
Unsavory Notions – by Amy Lillard
Seam of the Crime – by Jan Fields
Celtic Chains – by Donna Kelly
Sab Stitched – by Liz Penney
Unraveled Secrets - by Jan Fields

This series is the type that can be purchased from a book-of-the-month club. I thought it might be something that I would enjoy because it involved quilting and mysteries: two topics that I enjoy in a book. There is only one set in the Clevnet system so it makes it a necessary to wait a bit for the next book. Emma Cotton and Kelly Grace are co-owners of a quilt restoration business in Mystic Harbor, Massachusetts. Fifteen years before the first book takes place their best friend dies falling down a stairway at the college where she worked. Emma always felt it was murder but the police declared it an accident and closed the case quickly. Emma never believed it was an accident and had been trying for 15 years to get the police to reopen the case. She received a clue from a friend and decides to investigate the murder herself with help from Kelly and her Aunt Dottie Faye. The series takes the reader to Europe twice and different locations in the US. I found the books entertaining and wanted the next book as soon as I finished each title. I think you will like this series, give it a try.

~ Beckie H.

Tricky Twenty-Two

By Janet Evanovich

Fans of Stephanie Plum will not be disappointed by the latest in the series. Stephanie is always getting into trouble and the trouble in this instillation is really big. Ken Globovic (aka: Gobbles) has missed is court date, while looking for him Stephanie discovers he is the Supreme Exalted Zookeeper for Zeta House fraternity and there is definitely something funny going on at that house. While she is trying to find Gobbles, there are two murders and her life is in danger more than once. I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll leave the rest for you to discover. I’ve always enjoy the Stephanie Plum novels as a book on CD in my car because Lorelei King does such a fantastic job. If you have only read her books, give the book on CD a try, you’ll laugh your way down the road.

~ Beckie H.

What We Do in the Shadows

DVD

Do you like horror-comedy? Mockumentaries? Vampires trying to be modern? Me too!

Four vampires - Viago, Vladislav, Deacon, and Petyr - share a flat in the Wellington suburb of Te Aro, New Zealand. They are all centuries old and not modern at all but are trying their best. Before the annual Un-Holy Masquerade Ball, these guys decide to invite a documentary crew into their home to show people what vampires are really like. While they enjoy going out on the town looking for people to eat, they also need to take turns with chores and pay rent.

~Crystal

Soul Surfer

By Bethany Hamilton

They say Bethany Hamilton has saltwater in her veins. How else could one explain the passion that drives her to surf? How else could one explain that nothing—not even the loss of her arm—could come between her and the waves? That Halloween morning in Kauai, Hawaii, Bethany responded to the shark’s stealth attack with the calm of a girl with God on her side. Pushing pain and panic aside, she began to paddle with one arm, focusing on a single thought: “Get to the beach....” And when the first thing Bethany wanted to know after surgery was “When can I surf again?” it became clear that her spirit and determination were part of a greater story—a tale of courage and faith that this soft-spoken girl would come to share with the world.

~Crystal

The Choice

By Nicholas Sparks

Travis Parker has everything a man could want: a good job, loyal friends, even a waterfront home in small-town North Carolina. In full pursuit of the good life - boating, swimming, and regular barbecues with his good-natured buddies -- he holds the vague conviction that a serious relationship with a woman would only cramp his style. That is, until Gabby Holland moves in next door. 

Spanning the eventful years of young love, marriage and family, THE CHOICE ultimately confronts us with the most heart wrenching question of all: how far would you go to keep the hope of love alive?

~ Crystal

Summer Secrets

By Jane Green


Struggling with a shocking family secret, London journalist Cat Coombs finds herself drowning her sorrows in a bottle of vodka. This family secret leads her to her father and half-sisters who lives in Nantucket. This story takes you through the trials in her life including possibly losing the people she loves most. The AA meetings she attends help her not only gain her sobriety they help her with her relationships. This story will have you thinking about summer (here in the freezing cold winter months) and keep you captivated till the very end.


~ Beckie H.

Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1)

By Cassandra Clare

The year is 1878. Tessa Gray descends into London’s dark supernatural underworld in search of her missing brother. She soon discovers that her only allies are the demon-slaying Shadowhunters—including Will and Jem, the mysterious boys she is attracted to. Soon they find themselves up against the Pandemonium Club, a secret organization of vampires, demons, warlocks, and humans. Equipped with a magical army of unstoppable clockwork creatures, the Club is out to rule the British Empire, and only Tessa and her allies can stop them...

~Crystal

The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era

By Jessica Fellowes & Matthew Sturgis

Downton Abbey. Need I say more? The photos are gorgeous. Each chapter highlights a different character. Check out all our other Downton Abbey books!

~ Dixie

Before the Awakening

by Greg Rucka

I've seen the movie "Star Wars The Force Awakens" and have been impatiently waiting for the novelization - this little gem gives you something to get you through the wait!  While it's considered a children's book, it's 224 pages and still full of juicy stories about these three characters (Finn, Rey, & Poe). The book is divided into three sections for each, and covers the months to days before the events of the movie. I was hoping for a much deeper history, but it was still worth spending 2 hours reading it. A must-read for any Star Wars fan.

~Becky

iPhone: the Missing Manual

The book that should have been in the box
By David Pogue

You’ve heard the old saying ‘you only use 10% of your brain’? Well I think the iPhone is like that. It can do so much more than you are doing right now. It’s easy to look up the topic you need help with. It isn’t too technical and I did learn a few things.

~ Dixie

What Alice Forgot

By Liane Moriarty

Alice is twenty-nine, happily married, and pregnant with her first child. Life couldn’t get sweeter. What a shock when she finds out that she fell at the gym and has lost 10 years of her memory. She needs to be convinced that she is thirty-nine, in the midst of a nasty divorce and has three children.

For Alice it is like stepping into someone else’s life. She is crazy in love with her husband. They can’t possibly be getting a divorce. As for the kids – she doesn’t even remember giving birth once let alone three times. What do you even do with three kids?

Slowly Alice starts piecing together the last ten years of her life. She needs to find out what happened to her marriage and to her so maybe she can start over.

~ Dixie