Hoisington Public Library is pleased to announce that some additional Hoisington High School yearbooks pre-1950 have been added to our website www.hoisingtonpl.weebly.com and are available for viewing.

There are quite a few missing years in the pre-1950 collection. I would imagine that at times during the Great Depression, and during war years, there were no books published. When the 2020 yearbook is delivered, we will send it along with any missing years that we have managed to borrow for digitization. The books are not damaged during transport if anyone wishes to lend the library a missing year.

We have quite a few new books at the library. A few are: 

“When Old Midnight Comes Along.” Loren Estleman. Amos Walker is hired by Francis X. Lawes, a private-sector mover and shaker, to prove that his wife, Paula, who disappeared under sinister circumstances more than six years ago, is dead. Francis wants to remarry without having to wait for the seven-year declaration-of-death rule to kick in. Walker’s investigation is complicated by two facts: the police still consider Lawes the prime suspect, and the first-responding officer in that old case was killed in the line of duty. If Lawes is guilty, why would he put himself in jeopardy by giving the forensics team a body to work on?

“The Girl from Widow Hills.” Megan Miranda. As a child, Arden Maynor was swept away while sleepwalking during a terrifying rainstorm. Found alive days later clinging to a storm drain, the girl from Widow Hills was a living miracle. 

Now a young woman living hundreds of miles away, Arden goes by Olivia. With the twentieth anniversary of her rescue approaching, the media will inevitably renew its interest in Arden. 

One night she jolts awake in her yard--and at her feet is the corpse of a man she knows from her previous life.

“The Room Where it Happened.” John Bolton. Bolton served as National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump for 519 days. A seasoned public servant who had previously worked for Presidents Reagan, Bush #41, and Bush #43, Bolton brought to the administration thirty years of experience in international issues and a reputation for blunt talk. In his memoir, he offers a factual account of his time in the room where it happened.

“A Walk Along the Beach.” Debbie Macomber. The Lakey sisters are opposites. After their mother died and their father was lost in grief, Willa had no choice but to raise her sister, Harper, and their brother, Lucas. Then, as an adult, she put her own life on hold to nurse Harper through a terrifying illness. Now that Harper is better and the sisters are living as roommates, Willa has realized her dream of running her own bakery and coffee shop, bringing her special brand of caretaking to the community. Harper, on the other hand, is always on the go. Overcoming a terrible illness has given her a new lease on life, and she does not intend to waste it. When Harper announces her plan to summit Mount Rainier, Willa fears she may be pushing herself too far. Harper, for her part, urges Willa to stop worrying and do something outside of her comfort zone.  But both sisters will discover that even in the darkest moments, family is everything.

“The Vanishing Half.” Brit Bennett. The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing. 

What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and an exploration of the American history of passing.

Karen La Pierre is the director at the Hoisington Public Library. She can be reached by email at library@hoisingtonks.org