Monroe Free Library

"Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is the story of Emily Shepard, a homeless teen living in an igloo made of ice and trash bags filled with frozen leaves. Half a year earlier, a nuclear plant in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom had experienced a cataclysmic meltdown, and both of Emily's parents were killed. Devastatingly, her father was in charge of the plant, and the meltdown may have been his fault. Was he drunk when it happened? Thousands of people are forced...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author—a rich and compelling novel about a mismatched marriage and its consequences, spanning three generations
They seemed like the perfect couple—young, good-looking, made for each other. The moment Pauline, a stranger to the Polish Eastern Avenue neighborhood of Baltimore (though she lived only twenty minutes away),...

"Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a run-down motorhome, flunking out of school, and picking up shifts at the local diner. But when April realizes she's finally had enough-enough of her selfish, absent father and barely surviving in an unfeeling town-she decides to make a break for it. Stealing a car and with only her music to keep her company, April hits the road, determined to live life on her own terms. She manages to scrape...

Runaways Axi, sixteen, and Robinson, seventeen, who met on a cancer ward, leave small-town Oregon on a cross-country trip to experience the best of life before it is too late.

"One year ago, the person Olivia adores most in the world, her father, left home for a meditation retreat in the mountains and never returned. Yearning to make sense of his shocking departure and to escape her overbearing mother, a woman as grounded as her father is mercurial, Olivia runs away from home and retraces his path to a place known as the Levitation Center. Once there, she enrolls in their summer program for troubled teens, which Olivia...

"Sixteen-year-old Scott Ferdowsi's impromptu trip to a famous professor for advice about success turns into a summer of freedom that brings him answers in unexpected places"--

The beautiful town of Bellevue-sur-Mer, tucked between glitzy Monte Carlo and the plush red carpets of Cannes, is home to Theresa, Carol, William, Benjamin, and Sally: five retired expats who have pooled their resources to set up La Mosaïque, a divine little restaurant. But there is trouble in paradise: the friends are desperately struggling to make ends meet. It will take every bit of their talent and gumption to save La Mosaïque. With fussy customers,...

"For decades, people have been warned about the Cold Creek Highway. Hitchhikers have vanished along it over the years, and women have been known to have their cars break down... and never be seen again. When Hailey McBride decides to run away from an unbearable living situation, she thinks that her outdoor skills will help her disappear into the Cold Creek wilderness, and she counts on people thinking that she was the victim of the killer. One year...

"Tess Dombegh journeys through the kingdom of Goredd in search of the World Serpents and finds herself along the way"--

New York Times bestselling author Mary Monroe presents an unforgettable tale featuring Mama Ruby, the indomitable heroine of her acclaimed novel The Upper Room. Now readers will get a peek into Ruby's early years, as she transforms from a spoiled small-town girl into one of the South's most notorious and volatile women...

Growing up in Shreveport, Louisiana, Ruby Jean Upshaw is the kind of girl who knows what she wants and knows how to

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