Winter Reads by Mood

Cold nights can feel dark and long, perfect for cozying up with a good book. Whether you’re in the mood for a bone-chilling thriller or a fluffy romance, here are some recommended winter reads. 

Chiller Thrillers 

The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf

This chilling thriller is set during a snow storm, making it the perfect winter read. A true-crime writer encounters a mysterious lost child while researching a crime that occurred in the same house years before. As they’re stuck inside due to the snow, the story slowly weaves together and the reader uncovers stories about the past and present. 

These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant

Another thriller set in the winter season, this suspense novel is about an isolated father and daughter living in the woods. When their annual supply drop doesn’t arrive, the father has to confront ghosts from his past and debate their hidden existence while the threat of winter looms on the horizon. 

Classics By The Fire

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

A perfect classic for cold nights, Wuthering Heights explores themes of tormented love, revenge, and destruction while set on the bleak moors of Yorkshire. The dark setting and captivating story will keep readers entertained while lounging by the warm fire. 

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Filled with snow and magic, the timeless classic tells the story of the Pevensie children as they attempt to help Aslan break the curse and defeat the White Witch. This classic children’s novel is perfect for the cold as the land of Narnia is stuck in a permanent winter.

Cozy Romance

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree 

This popular book blends fantasy and lighthearted romance, keeping readers warm and cozy in winter months. Viv, a retired adventurer, buys a coffee shop. A host of lovable characters help her build her dream cafe, including the cute barista she hires. 

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston 

Part contemporary and part paranormal romance, The Dead Romantics is a heartwarming love story perfect for reading when you’re warm and comfortable under a blanket. The story focuses on a ghostwriter who can literally see ghosts as she navigates through grief and newfound love at the same time. 

Winter Fantasy

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

This atmospheric fantasy novel is magical and intimate, ideal for reading on a long, cold night when you just want to stay home. After Adelin LaRue makes a deal with a dark god, she is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets, though in exchange she gets to live forever. The book is heartbreaking and beautifully written, contemplating what it means to live and die. 

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

The first book in the Shadow and Bone trilogy is set in a wintery, cold land based on Russia. The novel features lots of ice and snow as Alina Starkov reveals her Grisha powers and travels to the winter court in order to train with the mysterious and powerful Darkling. Darkness looms over the land as she discovers hidden secrets about the Grisha. 

Interested in reading the titles above? They are all in our collection! Use your library card to check one out or put one on hold today.

Britt Poteet

Youth Specialist

Hampton Park Library

Have you tried The Palace Project app yet?

Forsyth County Public Library (FCPL) patrons have enjoyed the Libby app (by Overdrive) for free access to eBooks, eAudiobooks, eMagazines, and more for a number of years. 

Last year, FCPL added The Palace Project funded by Georgia Public Library Service as an additional resource for accessing eBooks and eAudiobooks.

The Palace Project app provides thousands of free eBooks and eAudiobooks for your eReading enjoyment! This app is not a substitute for Libby, but rather an additional platform you can use to find exclusive content and possibly shorter wait times on your to-read list titles!

Palace has added copies of high-demand titles. Long holds wait times in other apps? See if it’s available in Palace!

 

Please note, The Palace Project is a newer app that can be a little quirky sometimes. You may experience more technical difficulties with The Palace Project than you are used to in Libby. Try it anyway! The more people who use this app, the more likely the developers are to learn of and fix technical issues.  

Which should you choose? Libby or The Palace Project? 

You don’t actually have to pick just one! Many power-readers keep Libby for their Kindle reading and use The Palace Project to find hidden gems or classic titles that are often available without a hold.

Below is a quick reference about some of the differences between Libby and The Palace Project:

Feature	Libby	The Palace Project
Kindle Support	Yes	No (In-app reading only)
Waitlists	Yes	Yes (but many "Always Available" titles)
Checkouts & Holds	10 items out 15 holds	10 items out 10 holds
User Interface	Highly visual & curated	Simple & streamlined
Login	Library Card + PIN	Library Card + PIN

NEW to The Palace Project: eRead Kids! 

eRead Kids is a digital library for children with more than 45,000 eBooks and eAudiobooks available to all public libraries in Georgia. Explore the collection of fiction and non-fiction picture books, basic readers, graphic novels, and chapter books in English and Spanish for kids in pre-K to 4th grade. eRead Kids can currently only be accessed through The Palace Project app, but stay tuned for browser-based access soon!

All eRead Kids content is available in the Forsyth County Public Library "library" in The Palace Project, but if you'd like to filter out all the adult books in Palace and only see the eRead Kids content, you can add "eRead Kids - Forsyth County Public Library" as a separate library on The Palace Project app. All you need is your library card and library PIN.

Need help getting started with The Palace Project? 

Check out this helpful guide. 

Download The Palace Project app for Android or Apple iOS today and give it a try!

Meredith Causey, FCPL Materials Services Manager 

Leslie Marinelli, FCPL Communications Manager

Staff Picks: Daughters of the Bamboo Grove by Barbara Demick

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins by Barbara Demick

One of my ongoing reading goals is to read a book from or about a different country. When I saw Daughters of the Bamboo Grove on the New Nonfiction eAudio list on Libby, I was immediately intrigued. I knew little about modern Chinese history before picking up this book and I had heard stories about China’s one-child policy, mostly about infant girls being left on streets because parents would rather have a son. Little did I know there was so much more to learn about this “social experiment.”

Barbara Demick is an American journalist who was the bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times in Beijing and Seoul and has written additional nonfiction books about modern Asia. Her latest book, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove, gives a humanistic and eye-opening view of China’s one-child policy which lasted from 1979 to 2015. Telling a different side from what most Westerners have heard about China, Demick writes of how thousands of these Chinese babies were kidnapped from their families in broad daylight then marketed as “orphans” or “abandoned” due to the increasing demand of international families and couples looking to adopt.

The book can be divided into three sections. In the first few chapters, Demick recounts the history and execution of the controversial social policy and the consequences we are already seeing today. The middle section is Demick’s own story about her journey investigating these “abandoned” children, recording first-hand accounts from the families, or victims, most of whom are from the Hunan Province in southern China. Throughout the whole book, Demick follows the story of a family from Hunan who had twin girls in 2000 with one of the infants being kidnapped, put up for adoption under false pretenses, and was soon adopted by an American couple. The last third of the book details Demick’s personal journey of reuniting the kidnapped twin with her birth family who never gave up searching for their daughter. She closes the book with a look at how China is currently handling the consequences of their “social experiment” in the rapid decrease of their population and how technology has made it easier for adoptees to find their biological parents.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in modern Chinese history and social customs, and about the operations and outcomes of international adoptions.

If you don’t have time for the 330-something page book, read  Demick’s Los Angeles Times article about the reunion of the twin girls in 2019 when they were 16-years-old. Demick also wrote an article for The New Yorker about China’s stolen adoptees discovering their true origins.

Fiction Readalikes

• The Leftover Woman: A Novel by Jean Kwok
• Girls on the Line by Jennie Liu (TH)
• Frog: a novel by Mo Yan - recommended by the author in the book

Nonfiction Readalikes

• One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment by Mei Fong

Jessica Dillard

Information Specialist

Denmark Library