Andrew Bayne Memorial Library

Join us October13, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. for our discussion of Her Last Breath by Taylor Adams

When Tess reluctantly joins her adventurous best friend Allie on a caving expedition, she expects to confront her claustrophobia—not a stranger who traps her in a fight for her life. A man who claims to be a fellow caver harasses them at the cave’s entrance. Confident, take-no-shit Allie insults the guy—and he retaliates. Soon, Tess is trapped inside a narrow crawl space hundreds of feet underground, fighting to stay alive.

Hours later, Tess emerges alive—but the nightmare is far from over.

As Tess recounts her harrowing story of survival, the detective interviewing her shares new and shocking secrets about Allie’s true past. Together, they begin to suspect the brutal attack wasn’t so random after all. In the hospital, as Tess pieces together the events with a detective, she learns shocking truths about Allie’s past that reframe everything. Was the attack truly random? Who was Allie beneath her dazzling interior? And most chilling of all—has Tess really escaped the danger, or is it still closing in?

Ask at the desk for a copy of this novel.

Join us September 22, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. when we discuss The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane.

Henry Fleming dreams of the thrill of battle and performing heroic deeds in the American Civil War. But his illusions are shattered when he comes face to face with the bloodshed and horrors of war. Now he’s a raw recruit, Henry experiences both fear and self-doubt. Will war make Henry a coward or a hero? A vivid fictionalized account of the experiences of an ordinary innocent young soldier on the battlefields of the American Civil War.

Ask at the desk for a copy!

Join us September 8, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. for our discussion of The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.

As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.

Ask at the desk for a copy of this novel.