The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections

August 1, 2021

In the No. 1 New York Times best-selling Chamberlain's The Last House on the Street, Kayla Carter is mourning the husband who died building their dream house in a North Carolina community as warnings from not one but two older women not to move into the house eventually lead to a story of prejudice and violence that rocked the community a half-century earlier (150,000-copy first printing). A librarian like her creator, debut novelist Jurczyk, Liesl Weiss is shocked to discover that a valuable manuscript has gone missing from The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections but is told not to raise a ruckus--but she starts investigating when a colleague goes missing as well. Getting readied for television by the BBC, May's debut novel, Wahala ("trouble"), features three British Nigerian women whose close friendship is blown to bits when a glamorous and ultimately venomous outsider insinuates herself into the group. In No. 1 New York Times best-selling Mitchard's The Good Son, Thea Demetriou must find a way to support her son emotionally when he returns home from prison after having committed a heinous crime. Patterson and Lupica join forces with The Horsewoman, the story of a mother and daughter who are both champion riders--and are up against each other in competitons leading to the Paris Olympics. In Shalvis's series starter, The Family You Make, Jane is dangerously stranded on a ski lift with Levi Cutler, who impulsively tells his parents by cellphone that she is his girlfriend--a charade she agrees to keep up when she finds herself falling for him and his warm, embracing family. Sorell follows up her well-rendered small-press debut, Mothers and Other Strangers, with Three Wise Women: an officious advice columnist and her two troubled adult daughters. In Steel's latest, a young woman who survived a neglectful childhood by hunkering down can remain Invisible no longer when her dream of becoming a film director unexpectedly puts her in front of the camera. Revisiting Perdita Street, the setting of Wiggs's beloved The Lost and Found Bookstore, Sugar and Salt makes love bloom between San Francisco baker Jerome "Sugar" Barnes and barbecue master Molly Salton, trying to forget an unhappy past in Texas.

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2021
Toronto librarian Jurczyk's first novel is a valentine to librarians that doesn't shy away from their dark sides. The ceremonial display of a university library's latest headline acquisition, a Plantin Polyglot Bible, to a select group of influential donors comes a cropper over two misfortunes. First, Christopher Wolfe, the director of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections for the 40 years since 1969, suffers an incapacitating stroke before he can retrieve the Bible from the safe in which he stored it while awaiting an insurance evaluation (best guess: $500,000). Then, when Liesl Weiss, the longtime assistant who's suddenly catapulted into Wolfe's job, finally gets the combination from his distraught wife, she finds the safe empty. The donors are fobbed off with a Peshawar manuscript that may include the very first use of a zero, but the library is still in crisis. Was the Plantin simply misplaced or (gasp) stolen? How long can university president Lawrence Garber keep its disappearance secret? And how will the library ever recover the trust of major donors if the staff can't keep track of the materials it purchases with their big-ticket donations? Liesl is especially distressed because her prot�g�, Miriam Peters, goes missing very shortly after the Platin, and the discovery of her corpse, an apparent suicide, weeks later in a nearby wood does nothing to derail the assumption that she was the thief. Even though, as Liesl's colleague Francis Churchill points out, "Our entire job is finding information," Jurczyk consistently subordinates the question of whodunit to the question of how to handle the case. The perfect gift for librarians and those who love them--and doesn't that include just about every reader?

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November 22, 2021
Librarian Liesl Weiss, the protagonist of Jurczyk’s underwhelming debut, is asked to return to Toronto from her sabbatical after the library director of the unnamed university where she works suffers a stroke. When a newly purchased manuscript vanishes from a locked vault and a missing female colleague is suspected of the theft, Liesl must dig deep into the university’s ugly underbelly to find the truth, despite her male colleagues’ attempts to bully her into silence. Jurczyk paints Liesl’s oppressors with a heavy hand, from Lawrence Garber, the triathlon-obsessed college president, to Percy T. Pickens III, the vulgar, glad-handing donor. Mystery readers are likely to be disappointed by the crimes and their solutions, and bibliophiles may feel that the rare books themselves are given short shrift, despite the author’s obvious research. This works best as an unflinching appraisal of the personal and professional effects of a woman’s aging into invisibility. Fans of women’s fiction may want to check it out. Agent: Erin Clyburn, Jennifer De Chiara Literary.

December 1, 2021
Liesl Weiss is acting as head of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections while her boss, Christopher, lies in a coma. She'd much rather be behind the scenes, but the university president, Lawrence Gerber, wants her schmoozing with donors. She sets up a private showing of the Plantin Polyglot Bible, Christopher's prize acquisition, but when she opens the safe where it was stored, it's not there. Has it been misplaced among thousands of rare books, or was it stolen? When an employee goes missing, signs point to theft, and still Lawrence is reluctant to get the police involved. Liesl is left to solve the mystery on her own, unsure of whom to trust among her staff, all while keeping donors happy and running the library. Jurczyk's unique debut has plenty for bibliophiles to relish, from dark stacks to precious manuscripts. Readers will sympathize with Liesl and her desperation to keep her head above the demands of a position she didn't ask for while untangling the intricate threads of the mystery of the missing book.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2021

DEBUT When a rare book goes missing at a Toronto university library, Liesl Weiss is in the midst of a mystery that no one wants to solve. The director of the library is unconscious at the hospital after a stroke, and Liesl, now interim director, has been called in from her sabbatical to open the safe that should contain the book, a Plantin Polyglot Bible. But the safe is empty. Ordered to keep this information from the donors, the public, and the police, Liesl starts searching the stacks, pondering how to manage the scandal when she'd rather be writing her book and planning her retirement. Then another book disappears, carbon dating reveals a book to be a facsimile, and a library staffer goes missing. Suspecting that the culprit is a staff member, Liesl knows it's up to her to find the truth. VERDICT Filled with characters that resonate, glimpses into the reality of libraries and academia, and enchanting descriptions of rare books, this debut from a librarian will captivate bibliophiles.--Melissa DeWild, Comstock Park, MI

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.