Sarah’s Recent Recommendations – 2022

Sarah’s Recent Recommendations – 2022
South Branch BooksTalks on Zoom, January 13, 2022
Sarah D. (Administration at the Bennett Martin Public Library)

Sarah’s own novel

Something Fatal: The Sixth Tale of the Zodiac Cusp Kids
by Sarah Dale (Dale)

It’s the summer of 1987. Angie’s summer intensive on the mysteries of Agatha Christie has her seeing clues everywhere she looks, and there are plenty of clues to be sorted through when one of the Witches in Lorrain’s coven is killed. Was it an accident that Shelly’s car crashed into Dead Man’s Run? Or something darker? And what has become of Shelly’s dog, Tati? Angie, David, and Jenny have their work cut out for them to get to the truth, but what they find only leads to more mysteries.

Something Fatal is the sixth of seven stories drawn from Angie’s diaries. Kept safely hidden for decades, they tell how the kids spent their teenage years – working with their mentor, Mr. Rakow, and Jenny’s mom, Lorraine, who leads a coven, to realize their power and battle the forces of darkness that menace their hometown.

And her other recent recommendations

Salt Fat Acid Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking
by Samin Nosrat (641.5 Nos)

Whether you’ve never picked up a knife or you’re an accomplished chef, there are only four basic factors that determine how good your food will taste. Salt, Fat, Acid, and Heat are the four cardinal directions of cooking, and they will guide you as you choose which ingredients to use and how to cook them, and they will tell you why last minute adjustments will ensure that food tastes exactly as it should. This book will change the way you think about cooking and eating, and help you find your bearings in any kitchen, with any ingredients, while cooking any meal.

Better Off Dead
by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Child)

Digging graves had not been part of my plans when I woke up that morning.

Reacher goes where he wants, when he wants. That morning he was heading west, walking under the merciless desert sun–until he comes upon a curious scene. A Jeep has crashed into the only tree for miles around. A woman is slumped over the wheel.

Dead? No, nothing is what it seems.

The woman is Michaela Fenton, an army veteran turned FBI agent trying to find her twin brother, who might be mixed up with some dangerous people. Most of them would rather die than betray their terrifying leader, who has burrowed his influence deep into the nearby border town, a backwater that has seen better days. The mysterious Dendoncker rules from the shadows, out of sight and under the radar, keeping his dealings in the dark.

He would know the fate of Fenton’s brother.

Reacher is good at finding people who don’t want to be found, so he offers to help, despite feeling that Fenton is keeping secrets of her own. But a life hangs in the balance. Maybe more than one. But to bring Dendoncker down will be the riskiest job of Reacher’s life. Failure is not an option, because in this kind of game, the loser is always better off dead.