Gretchen recommends "Takeover"

Takeover by Lisa Black is the first book in a series featuring Theresa MacLean in a tense hostage situation.  Like the author, Theresa is a forensic scientist.  She is swept up in the drama when her fiancé becomes a hostage in a takeover at the Federal Reserve Bank related to a recent murder investigation.  Hostage negotiations take place from the public library across the street from the Federal Reserve.  The thriller features several plot turns with an unexpected twist at the end.  Set in the sweltering Cleveland summer heat, this is a quick mystery read for adults.

Lisa recommends "Real Friends"

For anyone who has ever had a hard time making friends, dealt with cliques, or struggled through friendships, this graphic novel memoir is for you.  Shannon Hale shares her experience with elementary friendships, from feeling like the odd one out, to those moments of high anxiety, to making friends who accept you as you are.  I highly recommend picking this one up, no matter what your age is.

P.S. I even gave this one to my mom to read!

Emily recommends "The Good Widow"

If you’re looking for a quick, easy thriller to read this summer, I recommend “The Good Widow” by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke.

Elementary school teacher Jacqueline “Jacks” Morales’s marriage was far from perfect, but even in its ups and downs it was predictable, familiar. Or at least she thought it was…until two police officers showed up at her door with devastating news. Her husband of eight years, the one who should have been on a business trip to Kansas, had suffered a fatal car accident in Hawaii. And he wasn’t alone.

For Jacks, laying her husband to rest was hard. But it was even harder to think that his final moments belonged to another woman—one who had left behind her own grieving and bewildered fiancé. Nick, just as blindsided by the affair, wants answers. So he suggests that he and Jacks search for the truth together, retracing the doomed lovers’ last days in paradise.

Now, following the twisting path of that fateful road, Jacks is learning that nothing is ever as it seems. Not her marriage. Not her husband. And most certainly not his death…

This one definitely kept me reading! It’s not an overly complicated book (perfect as a beach read) but the suspense and Hawaiian setting were solid.

Recommended for older teens and adults. Also recommended for fans of Joy Fielding, Jennifer Weiner, and Nicci French.