Monday Night BCB for January: The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson.

Product Description

Part blistering espionage thriller, part riveting police procedural, and part piercing exposé on social injustice, The Girl Who Played with Fire is a masterful, endlessly satisfying novel.

Mikael Blomkvist, crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, the two reporters responsible for the article are murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend, the troubled genius hacker Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander’s innocence, plunges into an investigation. Meanwhile, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past.

Gardendale Library HOLIDAY HOURS

Thursday, December 2	9-4
Thursday, December 16	CLOSED 10:30-2
Monday, December 20	9-6
Tuesday, December 21	9-5
Wednesday, December 22	9-5
Thursday, December 23	9-6
Friday-Monday, Dec 24-27	CLOSED
Tuesday, December 28	9-6
Wednesday, December 29	9-5
Thursday, December 30	9-6
Friday-Saturday, Dec 31-Jan 1	CLOSED

All other hours will remain the same.

Fall Book Sale

We are having a Fall book sale! This sale is to help raise money for our expansion fund, so please join us Thursday November 18 from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m, Friday November 19 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m and then Saturday November 20 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

As we have an abundance of books and other items for sale we do not have the room to have the sale at the library, so it will be held at the old Anderson Boat Building on HWY 31. Click here for directions from the library.

Prices will range from .50¢ each paperbacks, $1 for hardbacks, audiobooks, VHS and DVDs. Magazines 4/$1.

We will also be selling coffee and cakes for your enjoyment. All proceeds benefit the Gardendale Public Library Expansion Fund!

Monday Night BCB for November : The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

Product Description

An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.

Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.

The Shadow by Jenny Moss

In a dying kingdom, prophecy said that the young queen would die before her 16th birthday, and so an orphaned girl was given the task to be the queen's shadow, in the hopes that the queen's fate could be averted and fall on the shadow instead.  But Shadow, for she has no given name, could careless for the prophecy.  Friendless and close-hearted, all Shadow wants is a chance at freedom, freedom from the queen's spite as she is never allowed to be away from the queen's side, but for a few stolen moments, when the guard sleeps on duty.  As the years pass the queen and her shadow are sequestered in the castle for fear of attack on the queen, and Shadow grows to hate her queen and her life in the castle.

When the prophecy is fulfilled, Shadow finds herself fleeing the castle with Sir Kenway, a favorite of the queen and a knight who has been given the duty to protect her but who suspects that she had a hand in the queen's murder. Uncomfortable with her feelings for Sir Kenway, Shadow decides to run away as soon as an opportunity presents itself, but as they journey away from the castle on a quest Shadow finds that her fate is bound to the castle and only by accepting it can she save the people she has learned to love.

I love the idea of a queen's shadow who hates her role, despises the queen, and could careless for her country!  Jenny Moss, gives our reluctant heroine depth which shows through in Shadow's independence and courage.  I did guess very early on the the major part of the twist at the end and I found the love story part of the tale a little trite and forced.  As a whole, the novel was enjoyable, easy to read, the characters well thought out and a refreshingly new tale.