Tag secrets

The book cover depicts a hand reaching through the crack in a door to turn the doorknob; the area surrounding it has several bloodstains.

The Tenant by Freida McFadden

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The book cover depicts a hand reaching through the crack in a door to turn the doorknob; the area surrounding it has several bloodstains.

by Carmen J.

I’ve never had a live-in tenant, as the thought of living with a stranger — regardless of their glowing references and background checks — seems straight out of an episode of Criminal Minds or Law and Order: SVU. And while I don’t usually fall for hype surrounding “buzzed about” authors, I made an exception for Freida McFadden, in the interest of literary experiment.

I devoured The Tenant, which centers on Blake Porter, a VP of marketing and newly engaged to girlfriend Krista. Blake loses his job, and in order to afford his New York brownstone, he agrees to take in a tenant. But not just any ordinary tenant: The young and beautiful Whitney moves in to help make ends meet for Blake and Krista. Hard-working, charming, smart, and nice, Whitney is the perfect tenant, right? Soon, nothing is right when Blakes discovers dead bodies, family secrets, fruit flies, infidelity, itchy laundry detergent, and plenty of bloodshed. McFadden writes a story dripping with intrigue, one that makes you question how much you can truly trust a stranger living in your home.

There is a reason McFadden’s books are often checked out in our branches. Here, she’s crafted a suspenseful page-turner with twists and turns right up until the epilogue.  The Tenant will live rent-free in your thoughts long after the last page.

The Tenant is available from HCLS in print, large print, as an audiobook on CD, and as an e-audiobook from Libby/OverDrive.

Carmen J. is a teen instructor at HCLS East Columbia Branch. Among her favorite things are great books, all things 80s, shamelessly watching The Bachelor, gardening, and drinking anything that tastes like coffee.

Big 3D type lettering with orange pull out rest against a pink wall and an orange floor. A line drawing of an office cube rests below, with legs sticking out, half hidden by a cube wall.

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue 

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Big 3D type lettering with orange pull out rest against a pink wall and an orange floor. A line drawing of an office cube rests below, with legs sticking out, half hidden by a cube wall.

by Piyali C.

It is always exciting for me to read a fabulous story written by a debut author. Natalie Sue has done a tremendous job in her first novel, I Hope This Finds You Well, to drive home the point that everyone around us has a unique story, fighting their own individual battles. As humans, we need to recognize that fact and show others some grace. But that is not always easy. 

Jolene had a life altering experience in high school. As a result of that incident and the ramifications of it in society and in her head, she is stuck in her life. She is 33, stagnant in a confining job as an administrative assistant in a big corporation called Supershops. She lives in a decrepit apartment after finally moving out of her parents’ house. She drinks too much, lives a lonely life, and evades the intrusive texts of her Persian mother.

As we meet Jolene at the beginning of the story, it is hard to like her. Her petty coworkers are trying to back stab each other to climb the corporate ladder and, most importantly, to avoid the layoffs that are looming over them. Jolene’s way of coping with the nastiness at her workplace is writing unsavory comments about her colleagues in her official emails to them but changing the text color to white. When she forgets to change the color of the font in one of her emails to another administrative assistant, Caitlin, Jolene is called to HR for an intervention.

She must take mandatory training under a new HR guy, 33-year-old Cliff. Although Cliff is helpful and pleasant, Jolene does not trust him since he is part of the enemy, a.k.a management. As part of the training, IT must change some settings in Jolene’s computer, which backfires. Jolene finds to her surprise that she has access to all her coworkers’ work emails and chats. Through her prying, Jolene can see what changes are coming in the organization and what her coworkers think about her. This unexpected glimpse into private conversations gives Jolene a chance to maneuver her own actions to position herself to get the next promotion over her fellow administrative assistant.

It also gives her access to the secrets that her coworkers harbor. The correspondence of her coworkers reveals to her the challenges that all her coworkers struggle with in their personal lives. Cliff, the HR guy and Jolene become friends, but can they be more than that as there is definitely a conflict of interest in their respective roles? 

The story is full of humor and observations of basic human nature. It is also full of love, loneliness, mental health challenges, eccentricities of people who surround us, the push and pull of second-generation immigrant experiences, and above all the human connections that free from our past. 

I Hope this Finds You Well by Natalie Sue is available in Howard County Library System in print, e-book, and e-audiobook formats.

Piyali is an instructor and research specialist at HCLS Miller Branch, where she facilitates two book discussion groups: Light But Not Fluffy and Global Reads. She keeps the hope alive that someday she will reach the bottom of her to-read list.