From celebrated New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry comes the latest installment in his wildly popular Cotton Malone series–now in development as a streaming series. The Medici Return takes Cotton to Italy to solve a five hundred year-old mystery.  

Cotton Malone is on the hunt for a forgotten 16th century Pledge of Christ–a sworn promise made by Pope Julius II that evidences a monetary debt owed by the Vatican, still valid after five centuries–now worth in the trillions of dollars.  But collecting that debt centers around what happened to the famed Medici of Florence–a family that history says died out, without heirs, centuries ago. 

Who will become the next prime minister of Italy, and who will be the next pope? Finding answers proves difficult until Cotton realizes that everything hinges on when, and if, the Medici return.

And the latest from best-selling author Marie Benedict.

London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.

May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering they’re stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.

Inspired by a true story in Sayers’ own life, New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict brings to life the lengths to which five talented women writers will go to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of letters as they unpuzzle a mystery torn from the pages of their own novels. 

We are excited to partner with @KeepLouisianaBeautiful and participate in #LovetheBootWeek April 5-13th! We will be hosting a “Let’s Trade: Trash for Seeds” event on Saturday April 5th at the main library in Ville Platte from 8 am to noon as a kick off! It will feature a few local authors and vendors too! We will distribute trash bags that can be traded for free Seed packets all week long! Keep an eye out for more details soon.

LIBRARY BOARD OF CONTROL MEETING AGENDA

THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 2025

4:00 pm Board of Control Meeting

BASILE BRANCH LIBRARY

3036 STAGG ST., BASILE, LA 70515

Notice: This meeting that will be live-streamed via our YouTube channel:

www.youtube.com@evangelineparishlibraryboard

(If you have a disability, please notify us ahead of time for accommodations)

1. Opening Business

1. Call to Order, Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance
2. Roll Call
3. Approval/Amendment of Agenda
4. Approval of Minutes from Previous Meeting
5. Public Comments on Agenda Items
6. Leave the meeting to take a walk through the new Basile Branch library as it nears completion in the next few weeks.

1. Old Business
2. Report from the Basile Building committee.
3. Update on the fundraising idea. (Faye Langley)
4. Update on plans to expand the program rooms of the Turkey Creek and Pine Prairie branches in 2025
5. Update on Board’s request on payroll analysis from the December 2024 meeting

1. New Business

1. Advertisement to hire a part time employee for the Basile Branch Library. See attached.
2. Request to continue the current adjusted hours at the main library (7 am to 5 pm MTTF. Wednesday is 10 am to 5 pm).  Saturday remains 8 am to noon.
3. Discuss a date for a grand opening of the new Basile Branch Library
4. Announce the decision to host only a Fall Library Fest this year
5. Request to increase the credit limit on the two library Visa Credit Cards from $2,000 to $3,000.
6. 2025 training requirements for Board members: Cyber Security, Sexual Harassment Prevention & Ethics

1. Reports

1. Financial Report
2. Facilities Report
3. Outreach Report

• Next Board Meeting is May 12, 2025 @ 4 pm

• Adjournment  

When Gemma’s anxiety gets the best of her, she opens her sock drawer and starts counting. Lately, she’s been counting a lot of socks.

As a high school history teacher, Gemma Jones loves the certainty of the past–specific names, solid dates, proven statistics. Maybe that’s because her own past resembles a jumbled-up sock drawer, one where it’s impossible to find a match.

On paper, Gemma’s life is just like any other successful, single thirtysomething. Her students adore her. She lives in a cute beachside cottage next door to the world’s sweetest neighbor, Margie. And she’s definitely caught the eye of Karim, the resident hot PE teacher at her school. But every day of her life, she can’t get one thing out of her mind: the baby she gave up for adoption when Gemma was just sixteen years old.

This is the year that Baby–the only name Gemma has for her little girl–will turn eighteen. And it might be the year she actually meets her daughter face-to-face. Or maybe she already has. Katie, a new student who’s moved into the area, shares Gemma’s hair color (bright red) and build (long and lean). And BTW–totally random stat–she also shares the same birthday (October 3) as Baby. And they’re both about to turn eighteen. What are the odds? But Gemma and Katie’s mom are becoming good friends, and Gemma is concerned that their newly minted friendship will unravel fast if Katie is indeed Gemma’s birth daughter.

Gemma doesn’t know if this will be the year she finds Baby. But maybe, just maybe, it will be the year she finds herself–and finds peace with her life–past and present. And maybe that’s what truly counts.

And from New York Times bestseller, Rhys Bowen…

It’s late 1936, and King Edward is in turmoil, having fallen in love with the scandalously divorced and even more scandalously American Wallis Simpson. He wants to marry her but knows that doing so will jeopardize his crown. Edward confides in his dear friend Darcy, Georgie’s husband, and the couple agree to hide Wallis in their home while Edward figures out what to do. But unbeknownst to Georgie and Darcy, Sir Hubert, the owner of the estate, has given a film crew permission to shoot a motion picture about Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn on the grounds. Trying to keep Mrs. Simpson hidden while raising a newborn baby seems like it couldn’t be any more stressful for the Rannochs, until one of the stars of the film is found murdered on set. Georgie must solve the murder for king and country before scandal threatens to envelop them all.