Randolph's Top 100 of 2022

"Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme's place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning...

"Archaeologist Riley Smith has been obsessed with Helen of Troy since she was a small girl, trailing her professor father all over the world in search of the tomb of the world's most beautiful woman. Professor Smith set out to prove that, instead of a myth, Helen had been a living, breathing queen who inspired Homer to write The Iliad. Forensic sculptor Eve Duncan has the unusual skills needed to recreate the face that launched a thousand ships-revealing...

Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon; the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him 'the bitter neighbour from hell'. But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty...

"Growing up the daughter of notorious treasure hunter and absentee father Duke Wilder left Lily without much patience for the profession . . . or much money in the bank. But Lily is nothing if not resourceful, and now uses Duke's coveted hand-drawn maps to guide tourists on fake treasure hunts through the treacherous and storied red rock canyons of Utah. It pays the bills but doesn't leave enough to fulfill her dream of buying back the beloved ranch...

Taken hostage by a failed bank robber while attending an open house, eight anxiety-prone strangers--including a redemption-seeking bank director, two couples who would fix their marriages, and a plucky octogenarian--discover their unexpected common traits. Viewing an apartment normally doesn't turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that: a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage....

Imagine everyone's surprise when Carter von Oehson, a sophomore in Dr. Dylan Reinhart's Abnormal Psychology class, posts on Instagram that he plans to kill himself. 24 hours later and still no one has seen him. Release the hounds. A massive search ensues. But when Carter's sailboat rolls in with the tide without him or anyone else on it, the worst seems to be confirmed. He really did it... Or did he? The one person convinced he's still alive is his...

"Fans of Barbara Kingsolver will love this stunning debut novel from a New York Times bestselling nature writer, about an unforgettable young woman determined to make her way in the wilds of North Carolina, and the two men that will break her isolation open. For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. She's barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase...

"An irresistible comedy of manners about three generations of a Chicago restaurant family and the private jokes, ancient grudges, broken hearts, and deep, abiding love that feeds them all. Here are the three things the Sullivan family knows to be true: the Chicago Cubs will always be the underdogs; historical progress is inevitable; and their grandfather, Bud, founder of JP Sullivan's, will always make the best burgers in Oak Park. But when, over...

"Rosalind Franklin knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture--one more after thousands--she can unlock the building blocks of life. Never again will she have to listen to her colleagues complain about her, especially Maurice Wilkins who'd rather conspire about genetics with James Watson and Francis Crick than work alongside her. Then it finally happens--the double helix structure of DNA reveals itself to her with perfect clarity. But what happens...

Sergeant Jim Chee, after visiting the sacred Rainbow bridge, investigates the death of a Navajo artist, putting his own life at risk, while Officer Bernadette Manuelito searches for the killer of a hitchhiker connected to a Navajo Nation cannabis enterprise.