Katherine Center’s What You Wish For (2020)

Sam feels like she’s finally found happiness in both her personal and professional life. Does she have everything she wants? No. But she is very pleased with her job as a children’s librarian at a quirky, fun-loving private elementary school on Galveston Island in Texas, and she loves the circle of friends/coworkers she has found.

When corporate robot Duncan is hired to be the new principal and promptly starts wrecking everything that makes the school unique and endearing, she and her fellow teachers are outraged and vow to take action. But Sam is even more horrified than everybody else because, years ago, she worked with a very different Duncan–one who was fun-loving and caring. In fact, she was madly in love with that Duncan, though she was too shy to ever act on her feelings. She still sees flashes of that person underneath the austere, distant new Duncan. What happened to Duncan? What’s going to happen to the school? What’s going to happen to Sam?

Your Library Card, Your Ticket to the World: Mexico

Our library theme for 2020 is Your Library Card, Your Ticket to the World–because with the library, you truly can travel around the world without ever leaving the comfort of your own home. Every month in 2020, we’ll be landing at a new place on the globe. In November, we’re in Mexico.

Television Review: Lark Rise to Candleford

In 1890s Oxfordshire, two neighboring towns have a bit of a love/hate relationship. The impoverished rural agricultural hamlet of Lark Rise is small and desperately poor but proud, and its residents are devoted to each other. Nearby Candleford is a larger town and more prosperous. Tension exists between the haves of Candleford and the have-nots of Lark Rise. When teenaged Laura leaves Lark Rise to work at the Candleford post office, she finds herself caught between two worlds that may have more in common than either side thinks. And everyone in both towns find themselves caught in changing times.

Book Buzz: Singapore Romance, Ozark Noir, and Florida Panthers

Every month, we’re profiling new-ish releases that are getting critical and commercial buzz. For November, we’re looking at a jaunty romance set in Singapore, a thriller about crime in the Missouri Ozarks, and a nonfiction narrative about panther conservation in Florida.