During their annual Christmas celebrations, a Nantucket family faces surprising news and unexpected decisions in this warm and inviting holiday novel by New York Times bestselling author Nancy Thayer.The Nantucket Christmas Stroll is the most wonderful time of year on the island, filled with holiday cheer and festive decorations. Excited holidaymakers crowd the streets, Santa arrives on a Coast Guard boat, carolers serenade with classic Christmas carols, and shop windows glitter with treasures, twinkling lights, and merry displays. At the heart of this celebration is the Parsons family and the sparkling house party they host each year. Brick Parsons and his wife, Jane, eagerly anticipate the arrival of their three adult children, Lydia, Florence, and Lucas, who are all coming home for the holidays.Lydia, a successful hospitality professional, is torn between her career in New York and her new relationship with her uber-wealthy cosmopolitan boyfriend. Florie, the ambitious middle child, is madly in love with a handsome poet who wants her to move to his hometown in Wisconsin. Lucas, the golden boy, has decided to switch his career path, and is fearful of his father's reaction.Together, the family celebrates the Stroll, reuniting with old friends and lovers on the tree-lit Main Street. But the holiday cheer is soon overshadowed by the stress of the season as secrets are revealed and emotions run high.Champagne flows and Christmas-themed canapes are enjoyed as the Parsons family come together on the night of the party, proving that family and the power of love can make any season bright.
A man’s world is upended after he finds his father and a woman who isn’t his mother dead in the family home—and his mother goes missing.Every family has secrets, but when Reece visits his parents’ home he’s shocked to find his father and a woman he assumes is his mother in bed. Dead. At first glance it looks like a murder-suicide perpetrated by his father, but on closer inspection there’s clearly more to the story. For starters, inconsistencies in the crime scene suggest his dad may not have shot himself.As Reece, shaken by his horrifying discovery, awaits questioning from the police, his phone lights up. It’s a call from his mom—his real mom. The dead woman in that bed is clearly not the person Reece believed her to be.His mom is at a lunch date with friends, she says, and can’t reach her husband on the phone. Could Reece drop by and see if everything’s okay? At a loss for how to tell his mother her husband is dead in bed with another woman, Reece simply tells “Come home now.”But instead of rushing home, she disappears. Could she have been involved? Was she seeking revenge on her husband and a mistress? Or, just as frightening, did someone kill Reece’s father and that woman, thinking wrongly that Reece’s mother had been dispatched?And what might this grisly scene have to do with the unscrupulous pharma company Reece’s father worked for years ago? Soon Reece finds himself questioning how well he really knew his parents—who they were, what they did, and who they hurt. Most importantly, he needs to figure out who might want to hurt him and his own family now.
A deeply moving new novel about life and art from one of America’s greatest writers.Livia Cable has made her peace with her marriage and modest livelihood in the farm country where she grew up, until a shocking phone call from an old lover shakes her to the core. Decades earlier, this man knew her as Livia Bohusz, a music conservatory student estranged from her home and family, uncertain of anything except her passion for music and promise as an extraordinary pianist. His request, now, to see her again stirs up ghosts she’s kept at bay for a lifetime.Shifting between past and present, Livia’s decision to meet or reject the reunion means confronting step by step, in memories framed as musical dances, the traumas of childhood loss, abandonment, self-immolating passion, and perilous attachment to a man who broke her belief in love and ruptured the course of her life.With razor-sharp acuity and deep affection, Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Kingsolver’s unforgettable new novel reflects on class barriers, the risks of ambition, and the timeless love affair between life and art.
Join us this Saturday at the library to make your own Halloween mummy. We will be starting at 10:30 am. We have room for 8 kids and they must be age 5 or older. Look forward to seeing you here.