Blue Ridge Regional Library - Home

• A lady's handbook to gadgets and guile.Bell, Angela

  August 25, 2026

  Margaret Kingsley's routine revolves around invention not investigation--until her ordered world springs a gasket. London, England, 1895 Ambulatory wheelchair user Margaret Kingsley secretly crafts gadgets for the Daughters of Genius Society, a covert team of lady inspectors disguised as harmless bluestocking spinsters. While her fellow inspectors gallivant about London solving crimes, Margaret has been perfectly content assisting from the sidelines--until her expertise is needed to infiltrate the domain of London's most prolific inventor. Charles Noble sacrificed his career as a musician to support his family after his father's stroke. Now he balances ledgers as a secretary by day and tends to his disabled father by night, but he can't pass up the chance to take a temporary job as event coordinator for a famous inventor commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of his mechanical empire. As strange occurrences cause Charles' event planning to collide with Margaret's case, the pair must unravel a plot of sabotage against the inventor's legacy while also investigating the sparks of attraction between them. "Utterly charming! What an original and adorable story."--JEN TURANO, USA Today bestselling author on A Lady's Guide to Marvels and Misadventure Little Women meets Inspector Gadget in Angela Bell's witty romp of brilliant women, whimsical gadgetry, and sweet he-falls-first romance set in the Victorian era with themes of disability representation, women in STEM, light academia, and steampunk.

• Purranormal activity.Conte, Cate

  August 25, 2026

  The tenth installment in a charming cozy mystery series set on an island off the New England coast and featuring the cat cafe owner Maddie and her cat JJ. Trouble is brewing on Daybreak Island... Summer is in full swing on Daybreak Island, and JJ’s House of Purrs—and the new mobile cat café—have Maddie James running nonstop with on-site cat parties. When her mom’s old best friend, back on the island for the first time since her aunt Delia vanished decades ago, asks Maddie to plan a birthday party for her granddaughter, Maddie happily agrees. But when Maddie and her mom arrive at Delia’s old house, it’s empty—except for a white-and-gray cat that leads Maddie to a hidden room, where they find her mom’s friend dead. Soon Maddie learns the cat might be tied to a ghostly island legend. And as she digs deeper, she realizes she’s unraveling two disappearances, forty years apart—while someone is desperate to keep the truth buried.

• Counting the days : a novelChinn, Laura

  August 25, 2026

  What begins as a near-midlife crisis transforms into a journey of love and self-acceptance in this sharp, beautifully layered, and funny debut romance from screenwriter and director Laura Chinn. At thirty-eight years old, Rhea Darby has never been more single in her life. With her best friends all married and having kids, her social calendar is filled with baby showers and birthday parties, petting zoos and bouncy castles. However, she’d much rather be having hot sex with “the one” and getting closer to the perfect life she always envisioned. After being told that her fertility might plummet when she turns thirty-nine, and always having wanted kids of her own, Rhea decides that drastic times call for drastic measures. She has less than a year to find the right guy, or she’ll have to rethink her meticulously crafted vision board of the future. Apparently, manifestation really works, because she soon meets Danny, a gorgeous gardener who is perfect for her—until Danny reveals he is absolutely morally opposed to having kids. Still, the connection between them is too strong to resist, even as their differences threaten to tear them apart. Rhea realizes she can’t let go of Danny, but is she willing to sacrifice her dreams to keep him? Counting the Days is an insightful and sexy novel in which the complexities of love and modern womanhood are met with relatable humor and self-acceptance.

• The winter folkJulian, Jen

  August 25, 2026

  A woman returns to the mysterious lodge in the woods where she once worked, and to the inscrutable creature that bound her there, in this haunting Appalachian gothic horror from singular voice Jen Julian. Perfect for fans of Alix E. Harrow and T. Kingfisher. This is the story of Moth, who earned her name working for the Winter Folk. Every year, the Winter Folk gather at a secret lodge in the Appalachians, a place known as Deerhaven, refuge for the time-worn and weary. As a child, Moth heard warnings from her mother: They are heartless, wild creatures--and they got no concern of us. At twenty-one, Moth is a college dropout, indebted, impoverished, and desperate for better things. She falls instantly for Deerhaven's beautiful antlered host, the mild-mannered Mr. Oslin. When he offers her a housekeeper's contract--one wish granted for a winter of service--she signs without question. But Deerhaven is a dangerous place. Staff must follow strict rules or else face dire consequences, and the guests can be unpredictable and savage. And yet, Moth endures, enticed by a rumor that Mr. Oslin is looking for a protégé. A singular worker who would stay with him forever and be transformed. Decades later, Moth returns to Appalachia with her husband and teenage daughter. She can't shake the feeling that she needs to return to Deerhaven, which banished her twenty years ago. As she hunts for a way in, her haunting memories and harrowing experiences come roaring back -- her friends and rivals, her growing obsession with Mr. Oslin, and her mysterious exile. A door exists in the dark of the woods. After so long away, what has Deerhaven become?

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