Linda Frenzel, MSLS

Camden Library Director

Linda's Picks:

A powerful novel of friendship set in a traveling circus during World War II, The Orphan’s Tale introduces two extraordinary women and their harrowing stories of sacrifice and survival. Sixteen-year-old Noa has been cast out in disgrace after becoming pregnant by a Nazi soldier and being forced to give up her baby. She lives above a small rail station, which she cleans in order to earn her keep… When Noa discovers a boxcar containing dozens of Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp, she is reminded of the child that was taken from her. And in a moment that will change the course of her life, she snatches one of the babies and flees into the snowy night.  Amazon

Maddie Baxter West is shaken to the core when she finds out everything she believed about her life was a lie. Her parents had always planned to tell her the truth about her past: that she was adopted as an embryo. But somehow the right moment never happened. Then a total stranger confronts Maddie with the truth and tells her something else that rocks her world—Maddie had a sister she never knew about. Betrayed, angry, and confused, Maddie leaves her new job and fiancé, rejects her family’s requests for forgiveness, and moves to Portland to find out who she really is.   Amazon

The #1 New York Times–bestselling story about the American Olympic rowing triumph in Nazi Germany—from the author of Facing the Mountain.

For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant.   Amazon

Right from the first pages, this book tears your heart out. So beautifully written from the view of a child while she navigates the loss of her mother, alone. Every day closer to the end of the "55 days" you wonder what will become of the girl and dog duo. The end will not disappoint you.

One wild trip. The beginning is a bit hard to get into as it is told through different perspectives of the cast and their recording material. But once you understand the flow, you won't want to stop reading. If you enjoy Stephen King, Dean Koontz or Nick Cutter: This book is everything you will love. Get ready to meet abominations of our wildest nightmares.

To view another family through the lens of a camera is not enough for the main character in this "make your skin crawl" thriller. Manipulation at it's finest, read how Delta slips in carefully into the folds of this family and attempts to take over.