The House on Salt Hay Road by Carin Clevidence. Life in a quiet seaside town takes an eventful turn for brother and sister orphans after a fireworks factory explosion. The novel captures the beauty of the salt marshes, the power of a hurricane (1938) and the golden light of a vanished time. (paperback)

Room by Emma Donoghue. To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world, the only home he has known. But not to Ma, who has been captive there for seven years. Told entirely in the language of five-year-old Jack, this is a rare and beautifully told book about resilience and the bond between parent and child. (paperback)

Border Songs by Jim Lynch. A tender as well as humorous novel about a quirky young man hired as a Canadian Border Control agent whose real passion is bird watching. (paperback)

The Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schlitz.A charming book for children about tiny, feisty Flory, a night fairy the size of an acorn who loses her wings. Lovely illustrations by Angela Barrett, and a classic read aloud.

Best Staged Plans by Claire Cook.Transforming cluttered rooms is far easier than transforming cluttered lives, as home stager Sandy Sullivan quickly learns. Ready to downsize her Boston suburb home, Sandy's plan is thwarted by a reluctant husband and a boomerang son. She accepts a staging job in Atlanta to be near her daughter. GREAT tips for fixing homes, combined with inspiring doses of wit and wisdom, make this my favorite Claire Cook read ever!

Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks. (Pulitzer-Prize Winner of March) Fact: In 1665, Caleb Cheeshateaumauk, from Martha's Vineyard, was the first native American to graduate from Harvard University. Fiction: Young Bethia Mayfield, the narrator, forms a secret friendship with Caleb on the island. Geraldine Brooks manages to take a little-known figure and bring him to life with the voice of the period. This is the historical read of the summer.

Season to Taste: How I Lost My Sense of Smell and Found My Way by Molly Birnbaum.
At 22, while preparing for the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, Molly's future as a chef ended when she lost her sense of smell in an accident. While her broken bones healed, this beloved sense did not. Spices, food, comfort clothing, and nature all help Molly rediscover scents.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch. Bibliophiles should curl up in their favorite chair and fall in love with this amazing author. Grief-stricken Nina Sankovitch sped through her days after the death of her sister. But on her forty-sixth birthday, Nina began a year-long love affair with reading one book a day. Lessons of joy, comfort, wisdom, and healing were the results of this therapeutic journey.

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova. The newest book by the best selling author of Still Alice.

Hitman by Howie Carr. The Untold Story of Johnny Martorano, Whitey Bulger's enforcer, and the most feared gangster in the underworld.

Reasonable Doubt by Peter Manso. The Fashion Writer, Cape Cod, the Murder and the Trial of Chris McCowen.

Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand. Set against the backdrop of a Nantucket summer. Meredith Martin Delinn just lost everything, her friends, her home and her social standing because her husband Freddy cheated rich investors out of billions of dollars.

Delta Solution by Patrick Robinson. A new military thriller.

Bee Balm Murders by Cynthia Riggs. The author’s latest Martha's Vinyard Mystery.

Illusion of Murder by Carol McCleary. The latest Nellie Bly mystery.

Ice Margin by Marcia Woodruff Dalton. Cape Cod, exquisitely captured, becomes a paradigm for both change and stability. Marcia Woodruff Dalton evokes the inner weather of three generations of women who come from elsewhere to love this particular meeting of land and sea.

Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks. A remarkable shard of history comes to vivid life. In 1665 a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College.

Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman. Set on the coast of Maine over the course of four summers, Red Hook Road tells the story of two families and the ways in which their lives are unraveled and stiched together by misfortune, by good intentions and failure and by love and calamity.

Swim Back To Me by Ann Packer. A collection of burnished, emotionally searing stories, framed by two masterfully linked narratives that express the transformation of a single family over the course of a lifetime.

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes. A dense vivid narrative spanning many months in the lives of American troops in Vietnam as they trudge across enemy lines. Marine platoon commander Waino Mellas is braving a 13 month tour in Quang-Tri province. He befriends Hawke and both learn about life, loss, and the horrors of war.

The Passage by Justin Cronin. The story of Amy-abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions.