Staff Picks - Fiction

4 KIDS WALK INTO A BANK is the darkly comedic story of four burgeoning child criminals and their elaborate plans. When a group of bumbling criminals show up in her father's life looking to pull one last job, young Paige has two choices - let her father get caught up in their criminal hijinks or enlist her three best friends to do the job first. Paige picks the bad one. -- from Amazon.

Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences,...

"Adelaide Williams is a 20-something American, living in dreamy London. With wonderful friends and fierce ambitions, Adelaide has little interest in finding "The One" right now, but when she meets Rory Hughes on a dating app-a charming Englishman who's been placed there by fate, she swears-that all changes. All of a sudden, Adelaide finds herself completely in love. Does he respond to texts? Honor his commitments? Make advanced plans? Sometimes, rarely,...

The seemingly perfect Hawthorne family of northern California is tested by Ivy League ambitions, overscheduling, impossible expectations by the Bay Area elite, and difficult personal secrets.

When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend. Told through Rashad and Quinn's alternating viewpoints.

A murderous android discovers itself in "All Systems Red", a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial intelligence. In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest...

"On a tiny lighthouse island far from the rest of the world, a lonely hermit lives out his existence. Every week a supply boat leaves provisions, its occupants never meeting him, never asking the obvious questions: Who are you? Why do you hide? Why do you never leave? What is it like to be so alone? Years spent on a deserted rock--a lifetime, really--with imagination his sole companion has made the lighthouse keeper something more than alone, something...

When a building collapses around five teenagers-and they just barely escape-they know something strange is going on. Little by little, the group pieces together a theory: Their parents are working together to kill them all. Is it true? And if so, how did their parents come together-and why? And, most importantly, how can the five of them work together to save themselves? With an unlikely group of heroes, sky-high stakes, and two budding romances,...

Autumn, Shay, and Logan, whose lives intersect in complicated ways, each lose someone close to them and must work through their grief. Music brought Autumn, Shay, and Logan together. Autumn is a talented artist and a loyal friend. Shay was defined by two things: her bond with her twin sister, Sasha, and her love of music. And Logan has always turned to writing love songs when his real love life was a little less than perfect. But death might pull...