Local & Regional

Andy Hull has made a promise. He has vowed to care for his nephew, who suffers from a disorder so horrible it has left him a recluse and pushed away everyone he ever loved. But to what lengths will Andy go to fulfill this promise, and at what cost to himself or the woman he loves? ___________________ BEAST is a dark and intimate novel about a man who has made a promise to care for his ill nephew... who just happens to be a werewolf. But not the kind of werewolf you might be used to. Cox's monster is entirely human, cursed not by a gypsy but by biology, suffering from a disease that is completely organic and disturbingly real. "I made a list of everything that's normally included in a werewolf story," Cox says. "And then I deliberately avoided all of them. This helped give the story the kind of grit and realism I knew it needed. This isn't a story set in some dark English castle. There are no moors, and no gypsy curses. And there are certainly no romantic teenagers running around wasting time making googly-eyes at each other. This is my attempt to write seriously about this kind of affliction and, more importantly, how that affliction affects the people around the man who has it." The way the story is told is different, as well. Says Cox: "In many ways there is a story going on in Beast that could be told in a much more conventional way, but that story is in the background. I am interested in turning the camera just slightly off-center, and focusing on what would normally be off-stage in another story. I get bored with the focus always being the heart of the action. When a person is killed by a monster, let's say, I always think of their family. The fact that a monster killed their loved one would, really, be secondary to the simple fact of their loss. It's that background story I find more interesting, the one going on at the outskirts of the main action... or what would more conventionally be seen as the main action." With Beast, another writer might have focused on entirely different characters, and tell an entirely more conventional story. Cox chose to keep that conventional story in the background, and let it come in and out of focus in the reader's mind. The result is a novel of realism and pathos, a character portrait focusing on those who love the unfortunately inflicted soul, with a depth and grit and realism not usually seen in this genre.

Life in Bodega Bay on the rugged, foggy coast of northern California has been pretty quiet since Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds there. But antiques dealer Toby Sandler learns that his new business partner Charlie has been found dead on an abandoned boat in the harbor. When the local sheriff discovers that Charlie's newly acquired Hitchcock artifacts and a painting of an angel are missing, he enlists Toby and his wife, Nora Barnes, an art historian, in the investigation.
Local tales about Hitchcock's famous film, and some digging into the region's past as a Russian outpost, provide Toby and Nora with clues to the existence of a lost masterpiece. Convinced that this forgotten work may hold the key to the murder, Nora and Toby set out to find it. When Nora's trouble-prone sister Angie arrives, events take a surprising turn, leading to the uncanny realm of angel reading and putting Nora and her family in danger. As Nora and Toby investigate matters both criminal and otherworldly, Nora realizes that some mysteries in life may be too deep to solve.

Dave Cubiak is back!

After tracking a clever killer in Death Stalks Door County, park ranger and former Chicago homicide detective Dave Cubiak is elected Door County sheriff. His newest challenge arrives as spring brings not new life but tragic death to the isolated fishing village of Gills Rock. Three prominent World War II veterans, about to be honored for their military heroics, die from carbon monoxide poisoning during a weekly card game.

Blame falls to a faulty heater but Cubiak puzzles over details. When one of the widows receives a message claiming the men got what they deserved, he realizes that there may be more to the deaths than a simple accident.

Investigating, Cubiak discovers that the men's veneer of success and respectability hides an intricate web of lies, betrayal, and treachery.

In a dark, moody tale that spans more than half a century and hopscotches across the peninsula, Cubiak encounters a host of suspects with motives for murder. Amid broken dreams, corruption, and loss, he sorts out the truth.

Death at Gills Rock is the second book in the Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery series.

On a bracing autumn day in Door County, a prominent philanthropist disappears. Is the elderly Gerald Sneider--known as Mr. Packer for his legendary support of Green Bay football--suffering from dementia or just avoiding his greedy son? Is there a connection to threats against the National Football League? As tourists flood the peninsula for the fall colors, Sheriff Dave Cubiak's search for Sneider is stymied by the FBI. When human bones wash up on the Lake Michigan shore, the sheriff has more to worry about than a missing man.

You're invited to visit Deep Lakes, Wisconsin and meet a new friend, Francine "Frankie" Champagne. The 40-something owner of Bubble and Bake-bakery by day, wine lounge by night-Frankie is a spitfire pastry maker, vintner, and budding journalist.

Frankie finds herself on the perimeter of a suspicious death that upends the peaceful winter slumber in Deep Lakes when the local pastor is found dead inside his fishing shanty on Lake Loki. Frankie sticks her curious nose into the investigation, despite warnings from the local sheriff to leave it alone. But she has something to prove, maybe to the newspaper editor who wouldn't hire her as a reporter, maybe to herself as she searches for fulfillment. Regardless, her fierce independence won't allow her to back down. Follow Frankie as she stumbles upon one discovery after another, trails potential suspects, and solves the case!

What is the deep web? A locked door. A tool for oppression and for revolution. "An emptying drain, driven by gravity." And in Patrick Johnson's Gatekeeper--selected by Khaled Mattawa as the winner of the 2019 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry--it is the place where connection is darkly transfigured by distance and power.

So we learn as Johnson's speaker descends into his inferno, his Virgil a hacker for whom "nothing to stop him is reason enough to keep going," his Beatrice the elusive Anon, another faceless user of the deep web. Here is unnameable horror--human trafficking, hitmen, terrorism recruitment. And here, too, is the lure of the beloved. But gone are the orderly circles of hell. Instead, Johnson's map of the deep web is recursive and interrogatory, drawing inspiration and forms from the natural world and from science, as his speaker attempts to find a stable grasp on the complexities of this exhilarating and frightening digital world.

Spooky and spare, Gatekeeper is a striking debut collection and a suspenseful odyssey for these troubled times.

In these poems drawn from a lifetime of experience, Richard Merelman writes of the aspirations and disappointments of his youth--women, ambition, and escape from a difficult childhood; a middle age coming to terms with the horrors of war, Jewish identity in America, and the vicissitudes of love; and the difficulties and accomplishments of old age. He writes in a variety of forms--sonnets, sestinas, rondeaux, free verse, and syllabics--with humor, music, clarity, and irony about his lifelong struggle with himself and an unforgiving God.

This engaging illustrated history, full of photographs, maps, and bird's-eye views, captures Madison's early history from its first days as a city to the Great Depression. Biographical vignettes tell the stories of early movers and shakers in the city. The volume includes many archival images of Madison that have never been published or have not been seen since for a century or more.

The perfect feel-good read. Don't miss this delightful novel! -Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author of Starlight on Willow Lake

Lily Stewart has reached a crossroads in her life. Her painting career hasn't taken off, her best friend has changed beyond recognition, her relationship is a constant disappointment, and now she can't keep up with the rising cost of living in the city. With no one to turn to, Lily is forced to move from her beloved apartment, but while packing she comes across a piece of mail that had slipped to the back of her junk drawer: a letter detailing further action needed to finalize the annulment of a quickie Vegas wedding. From ten years ago!

Lily decides it's time to gather up the pieces of her life, and the first item on her list of things to fix is that annulment... but you can't just send a text ten years later reading, Hey BTW we are still married. This is something that must be addressed in person, so Lily decides to track down her husband - the charming, enigmatic man she connected with all those years ago.

Ben Hutchinson left a high-profile dot-com lifestyle behind to return home to his family and the small lake town he loves, Minnow Bay. He's been living off the grid with the express purpose of making it hard to be found--so the last thing he expects is a wife he didn't know he had making her presence known.

By chance, Lily finds her way to the magical Minnow Bay Inn. There she will discover not just a place to lay her head, but new friends, new inspiration, and maybe even a new chance to fall in love.

Kelly Harms lights up the page in The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay, a story of the surprising beauty of past mistakes and the unexpected pleasures of correcting them.

The farm has belonged to Richard Quinney s family for generations, since it was first settled by his great-grandparents fleeing the potato famine in Ireland, and it is the place of his birth and early years. When the old house was torn down more than half a century ago, the family photograph albums were carried up to the farmhouse. A few letters, some diary entries, and a scrapbook of obituaries survived to preserve a portion of family history. Quinney s memoir also draws from the photographs of his mother s family, from the photographs made by his mother and father as they documented their young lives, and from the many photographs of the early years of the family. "Of Time and Place" concludes with a photographic survey of the artifacts that remain on the farm."

Have you ever wondered what it was like to attend a one-room school, to be in the same classroom as your older brother or younger sister, or to have your teacher live with your family for part of the school year?

In One Room Schools, Susan Apps-Bodilly chronicles life in Wisconsin's early country schools, detailing the experiences of the students, the role of the teacher, and examples of the curriculum, including the importance of Wisconsin School of the Air radio programs. She describes the duties children had at school besides their schoolwork, from cleaning the erasers and sweeping cobwebs out of the outhouse to carrying in wood for the stove. She also tells what led to the closing of the one room schools, which were more than just centers of learning: they also served as the gathering place for the community.

Susan Apps-Bodilly drew from the research compiled by her father Jerry Apps for his book, One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections. Apps-Bodilly has geared her book toward young readers who will learn what students and their teacher did on cold mornings before the wood stove warmed them up. They also will find out how to play recess games like Fox and Geese and Anti-I-Over and will learn the locations of 10 former one room schools that can be toured. Apps-Bodilly also encourages readers to ask themselves what lessons can be learned from these early schools that have application for today's schools?

One Room Schools will transport young readers back in time and make their grandparents and others of that generation nostalgic--perhaps even prompting them to share memories of their school days.