Readers' Advisory

Book Adaptation

Author Melissa De la Cruz's best-selling "Beauchamp Family" series will premier as the television drama Witches of East End on Lifetime beginning October 6.

If you want to read the series, here are the books in order:

Book 1 - Witches of East End (2011)

Joanna and her daughters Freya and Ingrid live in North Hampton, out on the tip of Long Island. All three women lead seemingly quiet, uneventful existences. But they are harboring a mighty secret-- they are powerful witches banned from using their magic. When mysterious, violent attacks begin to plague the town and a young girl disappears over the Fourth of July weekend, they realize it's time to uncover who and what dark forces are working against them. (Novelist)


Book 2: Serpent's Kiss (2012)

Just as things are settling down for the Beauchamp witches, Freya, Ingrid, and their mother Joanna must deal with a series of events which culminates in an explosive Thanksgiving family reunion that results in magical mayhem. (Novelist)



Book 3: Winds of Salem (2013)

 

Transported back in time where she is forced to relive the horrors of Salem, Freya Beauchamp must find a way to survive the witch-burning hysteria, while her family, stuck in the present, must confront the trickster god Loki to save Freya. (Novelist)

Book Recommendations

Wilson
by A. Scott Berg (2013)

Pulitzer Prize winner A. Scott Berg presents a thorough, entertaining account of our 28th president. Wilson, a lawyer who became an academic—a professor of history, political science, and law—then president of Princeton University, was elected New Jersey's governor in 1910. Two years later he won the U.S. presidency in a landslide. Berg's detailed account of Wilson's presidency shows how Washington has changed over the past century. In Wilson's White House, the West Wing was staffed with six people. The president (until a late second-term stroke) walked the streets of Washington, DC, to and from appointments and visits. After ten years of research, Berg is unable to disguise his admiration for his subject; he tends to downplay Wilson's flaws, such as his obvious racism. But Berg shows us that in many ways Wilson was a trailblazer. He reformed Princeton's curriculum to what is now the standard for undergraduate education. As U.S. president, he took his isolationist nation on the path to world power, advocated for women's suffrage, instituted the income tax, and pushed for the direct election of U.S. senators. (Robert B. Slater - Library Journal).

Book Recommendation

Crazy Rich Asians
by Kevin Kwan (2013)

 

When Rachel Chu’s boyfriend, Nick Young, invites her home to Singapore for the summer, she doesn’t realize how much gossip she’s generated among Asian socialites around the world. To Rachel, Nick is a sweet, intelligent history professor—and the first man she’s imagined marrying. To the Asian billionaire set, he’s the gorgeous heir apparent to one of China’s most “staggeringly rich” and well-established families who virtually control the country’s commerce with their ancient fortunes. As soon as she steps off the plane, Rachel is ushered into the opulent world of castle-like estates and mind-boggling luxury. As if the shock of realizing the scale of Nick’s wealth is not enough, she must also contend with a troupe of cruel socialites who would absolutely die before they let Singapore’s most eligible bachelor get snapped up by a no-name “ABC” (American-born Chinese). There is also Nick’s family—his imposing mother, Eleanor, who has exact ideas about who Nick should be dating; his beautiful cousin Astrid, who the younger girls dub “the Goddess” for her stunning fashion sense (she was “the first to pair a vintage Saint Laurent Le Smoking jacket with three-dollar batik shorts”); and Nick’s cousin, the flamboyant Oliver, who helps Rachel navigate this strange new world. A witty tongue-in-cheek frolic about what it means to be from really old money and what it’s like to be crazy rich. (Publisher's Weekly)