READING Library staffers review their favourite Summer selections Catch Me: A Novel by Lisa Gardner (Fiction) Summer Ninety Days: A Memoir of Recovery by Bill Clegg (Non-Fiction) In vivid, clean language, Bill Clegg details the mess and ruin of addiction. Clegg cycles through relapse and recovery, aiming for the coveted way station of 90 days sober on his nightmarish journey away from crack and liquor. The agony of Clegg's friends, mother and sister is made plain. Polly and Asa, both struggling, valiantly bear Clegg's company but addiction swamps them repeatedly and pulls one of them under, seemingly for good. Ninety Days is like a series of short stories, with similes Oz, the Incredible Hulk, Dickens' Bleak House as unvarnished as its prose. Clegg believes the only chance for sobriety is through the fellowship of others in recovery. Reviewed by Mary Land Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant has always been a survivor. After almost being killed by an abusive mother, Charlene, or Charlie as she likes to be called, has learned to defend herself and she has good reason to. Every January 21 at 8 p.m., one of Charlie's childhood friends has been murdered. This year, Charlie knows the murderer is coming for her. Four days before the January anniversary, Charlie recruits Detective D.D. Warren, Boston's best murder investigator, to investigate her death when it happens. But as D.D. soon finds out, Charlie has all the characteristics of a murderer and not a murder victim. Is she really being hunted down or is she reason behind to so many tragic deaths? Reviewed by Clare Hanman by Seth Grahame-Smith (Fiction) Seth Grahame-Smith, author of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, has done it again with his new novel Unholy Night. Unholy Night gives us a new way to look at the mysterious three wise men who attended the birth of Christ. This is the story of three criminals who have escaped from Herod's prison and stumble across naïve Joseph and Mary and their newborn son. Led by Balthazar, they help the young couple escape to Egypt when Herod's men start to slaughter the newborns. Full of twists and turns and interesting characters, this novel is a great story of three flawed men and the baby that changes their lives. Reviewed by Sherry Farago Unholy Night Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran (Fiction) The year is 1788 and a revolution is about to begin in Paris. Marie Grosholtz, who becomes the famous Madame Tussaud, is a talented wax sculptress for her family's wax museum, the Salon de Cire. Her waxworks of prominent public figures attract the attention of the royal family and she is invited to tutor the king's sister at Versailles where she experiences the opulence of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. But this is a dangerous time when men like Robespierre, Marat, and Desmoulins speak against the monarchy. Tension builds between the royalty and the people, and eventually erupts into the French Revolution. Through Marie's eyes we witness the downfall of the French monarchy and the Reign of Terror when aristocrats and innocents were guillotined. Reviewed by Etta De'ath Hush Now, Don't You Cry by Rhys Bowen (Fiction) Molly promises her new husband Daniel O'Sullivan that she will give up her private detective business after they are married. They are pleased when an acquaintance of Daniel's, a New York City alderman, offers to let them spend their honeymoon at his cottage. "We should not have come here!" are the first words spoken by Molly as they arrive in a violent thunderstorm, and Molly sees the face of a child in the turret window of the main house. But there are no children living on the estate. Has she seen a ghost? Molly's sixth sense tells her that something is about to happen. Daniel is bedridden with pneumonia and while he recovers, Molly can't help investigating, especially after the alderman is found dead! Reviewed by Christine Otto SUMMER · 2012 46 S i d e r o a d s o f halton hills