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Busy Summer Days Call Some Great New Fiction From JCPL!

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Moms are spot-on. With eyes in the back of their heads, 365 days a year, they are all-seeing, all-knowing beings whose sixth sense keeps children (and grandchildren) on the straight and narrow (for the most part).

With their extra-super-powered-mom-strength, they can wipe out fingerprints in one fell swoop and practically leap tall buildings in a single bound (much like superman). As the summer heats up, moms everywhere are repeating the mantra, “Stay in or out! Shut that door…we’re not cooling the outside” while stirring up a pitcher of Kool-Aid for their kids and everyone else in the neighborhood.

It is with moms in mind that the Jasper County Public Library has chosen the best in new fiction; books that when checked out can give every mom out there just the time-out they need this summer. Read on!

Leslie Anne Greene Carter knows that marriage is not always a walk in the park. However, in comparison to the other couples that she and her husband hang out with, she has gained the status of longevity, because she is the one and only original wife among them. All of the other wives are barely ripe peaches; newer, enhanced models of the original versions. Because she has been married for so much longer than the others, she feels confident in the familiarity of her relationship. That is, until she slips into a manhole and disappears and nobody notices that she is gone. Only then does Leslie realize that she has totally been taken for granted and that her idyllic life has been nothing more than a sham, and only then does Leslie make the decision to transform herself and reclaim her stronger, sexier self in “The Last Original Wife” by Dorothea Benton Frank.

Inheriting the posh Nantucket house of well-to-do ladies’ man, Rory Randall after his death comes with a price for three sisters; they must endure the company of one another for an entire summer. Thrown together after their strained relationships have completely gone sour from long-standing resentments, jealousies and misunderstandings, the three sisters, Arden, Meg and Jenny, gain new ground and surprisingly form a stronger bond than they imagined; that is, until the past comes back to haunt them in a big way in “Island Girls” by Nancy Thayer.

As far as Addie Cramer’s “mutter” and “daed” are concerned, Addie is as good as betrothed to Phillip Eicher. As in all Amish families, the Cramers expect Addie to honor them by obeying their wishes. Addie, however, has fallen in love with Jonathan Mosier, whom the Cramer family holds in contempt due to a long-standing grudge. Distraught and at the same time determined to uncover the truth, Addie makes it her mission to tear down the animosity of the past, hoping to bridge the divide between the two families in “Adoring Addie” by Leslie Gould.

So, kudos to the super-powered moms, the Kool-Aid moms, moms everywhere with eyes in the back of their heads and a sixth sense that keeps their children, old and young, on their radar at all times. And kudos to my own mom, my own personal cheerleader, my friend and mentor, in whose memory this article is lovingly written; Bernadine Richardson, you are, and always will be, the best mom and friend a girl could have.