Frank Carlson Library

Early in the twentieth century, a group of female factory workers in Newark, New Jersey, slowly died of radiation poisoning. Around the same time an Indian elephant was deliberately and publicly put to death by electricity in Coney Island. These are matters of historical fact. Now these two tragedies are intertwined in a dark alternate history of rage, radioactivity, and wrongs crying out to be righted. Brace yourself for a wrenching journey that...

Teenaged Wyn Davies took a shortcut through the woods in her New Hampshire hometown and became a cautionary tale. Twenty years later, divorced, she lives in New York making her living painting commissioned canvases of birch trees to match her clients' furnishings. Then she hears that Robby Rousseau, who has spent the past two decades in prison for a terrible crime against her, may be released based on new DNA evidence. Wyn agrees to be temporary caretaker...

The unexpected delivery of a large crate containing an Antarctic penguin changes the life and fortunes of Mr. Popper, a house painter obsessed by dreams of the Polar regions.

"Kate Myles was a promising Los Angeles police detective, until an accident and opioid addiction blew up her family and destroyed her career. Struggling to rebuild her life, Kate decides to try her hand at private detective work--but she gets much more than she bargained for when she takes on the case of a celebrated painter found dead in a downtown loft. When Margot Starling's body was found, the cause of death was assumed to be suicide. Despite...

"In present-day Greece, deep in an ancient forest, lives a family: Irini, a musician, who teaches children to read and play music; her husband, Tasso, who paints pictures of the forest, his greatest muse; and Chara, their young daughter, whose name means joy. On the fateful day that will forever alter the trajectory of their lives, flames chase fleeing birds across the sky. The wildfire that will consume their home, and their lives as they know it,...

When Rachel, a married and well-respected doctor living in a picturesque and affluent English village, embarks on a dangerous affair with a French painter who has a mental disorder, she finds her life blown wide open when he is accused of murdering one of her colleagues.

Isobel is a prodigy portrait artist with a dangerous set of clients: the sinister fair folk, immortal creatures who cannot bake bread, weave cloth, or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and Isobel's paintings are highly prized. But when she receives her first royal patron--Rook, the autumn prince--she makes a terrible mistake. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes--a weakness that could cost...

Cara Rutledge inherited her mother Lovie's beach house on Isle of Palms. She rents the house for the summer to Heather, who suffers from extreme social anxiety. Heather plans to send the summer painting shore birds, for a postage stamps commission. When Cara suffers a life changing tragedy, she wishes only to return to the beach house that had once been her port amid life's storms. The two start out as strangers, but together they rediscover their...

"There's a lot going on in Joy Howard's life. She's got an ex-husband who starts acting like he doesn't want to be an ex anymore, a sixteen-year-old daughter in need of a guiding hand and a lot of rides to dance practice, more orders for paintings than she has time to paint, and a roster of tutoring clients who sometimes need far more than she can give. What she doesn't have is time for a new relationship. Samuel "Bo" Beauman is a lot of things. He's...