Hi everyone, here are our recommended titles for the week, five digital titles, eBooks & downloadable audio books, available through OverDrive and five print titles available through StarCat.
DIGITAL CATALOG SUGGESTIONS
The City of Shifting Waters by Jean-Claude Mézières & Pierre Christin:
Galaxity, capital of the Terran Empire in the 28th century. Valerian and Laureline are agents who protect mankind from rogue time travellers. Now they are sent to New York in 1986 to intercept Galaxity’s worst megalomaniac, Xombul-except that in 1986, the world is in ruins and New York is about to be swallowed by the ocean. The two agents must navigate the shifting waters of the past to make sure that the future will exist.
Note: This is a graphic novel and must be opened on a device with a color screen, AKA not an eReader)
Book 1 in the Valerian & Laureline Series
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The Ghost and Lady Alice by M.C. Beaton:
A mistreated maid may be transformed into a lady—with the help of a departed duke in this novel from the New York Times–bestselling author.
Alice Lovesey, a poorly treated scullery maid, makes a desperate plea for help—which miraculously summons Wadham Hall’s rakish eighth duke. Summons him from the dead, that is . . .
The duke is delighted to be newly materialized, and promises to return the favor by helping Alice become a lady of quality. But Alice’s heart may not stand a ghost of a chance, now that she’s lost it to a restless spirit . . .
Originally published under the name Marion Chesney, this heartwarming and hilarious story is by the beloved author of the Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series.
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The Heart Specialist: A Novel by Claire Holden Rothman:
“Based on the life of one of Canada’s pioneering female physicians, [this] novel paints an arresting portrait of an indomitable yet vulnerable young woman” (Booklist).
Set in Quebec near the beginning of the twentieth century, The Heart Specialist is the epic story of Agnes White, a lonely orphaned girl fascinated by the “wrong” things—microscopes, dissections, and anatomy instead of more ladylike interests. When Agnes is young, her father, a French-Canadian doctor living in Montreal, is charged with the murder of his handicapped sister. Although he is eventually acquitted, his reputation is ruined, and he flees, abandoning Agnes and her pregnant mother.
Less than a year later, her mother dies of consumption, leaving Agnes and her baby sister, Laure, on their own. From this tumultuous childhood, the story follows Agnes as she grows up yearning to track her father down—and to follow in his footsteps as a doctor, even though medical schools in Canada don’t yet admit women. She eventually finds a niche for herself as the curator of the McGill University pathology museum. But even as her professional star begins to rise, her life is solitary and her happiness remains incomplete. A world-renowned expert on the human heart, she still struggles to understand her own.
Inspired by the career of Maude Abbott, one of Canada’s first female physicians, The HeartSpecialist is a story about the mysterious, painful journey into selfhood, and a “brilliant first novel” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
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Into the Valley: A Novel by Ruth Galm:
Ruth Galm’s spare, poetic debut novel, set in the American West of early Joan Didion, traces the drifting path of a young woman as she skirts the law and her own oppressive anxiety.
Into the Valley opens on the day in July 1967 when B. decides to pass her first counterfeit check and flee San Francisco for the Central Valley. Caught between generations and unmarried at 30, B. doesn’t understand the new counterculture youths. She likes the dresses and kid gloves of her mother’s generation, but doesn’t fit into that world either.
B. is beset by a disintegrative anxiety she calls “the carsickness,” and the only relief comes in handling illicit checks and driving endlessly through the valley. As she travels the bare, anonymous landscape, meeting an array of other characters—an alcoholic professor, a bohemian teenage girl, a criminal admirer—B.’s flight becomes that of a woman unraveling, a person lost between who she is and who she cannot yet be.
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The Man In The Maze written by Robert Silverberg with an introduction by Neil Gaiman:
A diplomat who successfully negotiated with intelligent aliens finds his loyalty to the human race tested in this novel by a Nebula Award–winning author.
Richard Muller was an honorable diplomat who braved unimaginable dangers to make contact with the first-known race of intelligent aliens. But those aliens left a mark on him: a psychic wound that emanates a telepathic miasma his fellow humans can neither cure nor endure. Muller is exiled to the remote planet of Lemnos, where he is left, deeply embittered, at the heart of a deadly maze . . . until a new alien race appears, seemingly intent on exterminating humanity. Only Muller can communicate with them, due to the very condition that has made him an outcast. But will Muller stick his neck out for the people who so callously rejected him?
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PRINT BOOK SUGGESTIONS:
The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis:
The bright lights of the theater district, the glamour and danger of 1950s New York, and the wild scene at the iconic Chelsea Hotel come together in a dazzling new novel about a twenty-year friendship that will irrevocably change two women’s lives—from the national bestselling author of The Dollhouse and The Address.
From the dramatic redbrick facade to the sweeping staircase dripping with art, the Chelsea Hotel has long been New York City’s creative oasis for the many artists, writers, musicians, actors, filmmakers, and poets who have called it home—a scene playwright Hazel Riley and actress Maxine Mead are determined to use to their advantage. Yet they soon discover that the greatest obstacle to putting up a show on Broadway has nothing to do with their art, and everything to do with politics. A Red scare is sweeping across America, and Senator Joseph McCarthy has started a witch hunt for Communists, with those in the entertainment industry in the crosshairs. As the pressure builds to name names, it is more than Hazel and Maxine’s Broadway dreams that may suffer as they grapple with the terrible consequences, but also their livelihood, their friendship, and even their freedom.
Spanning from the 1940s to the 1960s, The Chelsea Girls deftly pulls back the curtain on the desperate political pressures of McCarthyism, the complicated bonds of female friendship, and the siren call of the uninhibited Chelsea Hotel.
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Maggie Brown & Others: Stories by Peter Orner:
In this powerful and virtuosic collection of interlocking stories, each one “a marvel of concision and compassion” (Washington Post), Peter Orner, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and “master of his form” (New York Times), takes the short story to new heights.
In his orchestral and moving new book, Peter Orner, a writer who “doesn’t simply bring his characters to life, he gives them souls” (New York Times Book Review), chronicles people whose lives are at inflection points. In forty-four compressed gems, he grips us with a series of defining moments.
Whether it’s a first date that turns into a late-night road trip to a séance in an abandoned airplane hangar, or a family’s memories of the painful mystery surrounding a forgotten uncle’s demise, Orner reveals how our fleeting decisions between kindness and abandonment chase us across time. These stories are anchored by a poignant novella that delivers not only the joys and travails of a forty-year marriage, but an entire era in a working-class New England city. Bristling with the crackling energy of life itself, Maggie Brown & Others marks the most sustained achievement to date for “a master of his form” (New York Times).
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Marilou is Everywhere by Sarah Smith:
One of Los Angeles Times “Most Anticipated Books of the Summer”
“This novel reads like a miracle.” –NPR
“Hauntingly gorgeous… Spare and sensual and surprisingly funny… Smith’s characters are as rich as her prose.”–Kirkus, STARRED review
Consumed by the longing for a different life, a teenager flees her family and carefully slips into another — replacing a girl whose own sudden disappearance still haunts the town.
Fourteen-year-old Cindy and her two older brothers live in rural Pennsylvania, in a house with occasional electricity, two fierce dogs, one book, and a mother who comes and goes for months at a time. Deprived of adult supervision, the siblings rely on one another for nourishment of all kinds. As Cindy’s brothers take on new responsibilities for her care, the shadow of danger looms larger and the status quo no longer seems tolerable.
So when a glamorous teen from a more affluent, cultured home goes missing, Cindy escapes her own family’s poverty and slips into the missing teen’s life. As Jude Vanderjohn, Cindy is suddenly surrounded by books and art, by new foods and traditions, and most important, by a startling sense of possibility. In her borrowed life she also finds herself accepting the confused love of a mother who is constitutionally incapable of grasping what has happened to her real daughter. As Cindy experiences overwhelming maternal love for the first time, she must reckon with her own deceits and, in the process, learn what it means to be a daughter, a sister, and a neighbor.
Marilou Is Everywhere is a powerful, propulsive portrait of an overlooked girl who finds for the first time that her choices matter.
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True Believer: A Thriller by Jack Carr:
“This is seriously good. I mean—seriously. Both author Jack Carr and main character James Reece are the real deal, the action is razor sharp, the suspense is unrelenting, and the tradecraft is so authentic the government will probably ban it—so read it while you can!” —Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Past Tense
“A powerful, thoughtful, realistic, at times terrifying thriller that I could not put down. A terrific addition to the genre, Jack Carr and his alter-ego protagonist, James Reece, continue to blow me away.”—Mark Greaney, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Mission Critical
“True Believer, the highly anticipated new thriller from Jack Carr, is one of this year’s hottest thrillers, and a perfect fit for fans of Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, and Daniel Silva.” —The Real Book Spy
In acclaimed author Jack Carr’s follow-up to The Terminal List, former Navy SEAL James Reece’s skill, cunning, and heroism put the US government back in his debt and set him on another path of revenge.
When a string of horrific terrorist attacks plagues the Western world during the holiday season, the broader markets fall into a tailspin. The attacks are being coordinated by a shadowy former Iraqi commando who has disappeared into Europe’s underground. The United States government has an asset who can turn the Iraqi against his masters: James Reece, the most-wanted domestic terrorist alive.
After avenging the deaths of his family and team members, Reece emerges deep in the wilds of Mozambique, protected by the family of his estranged best friend and former SEAL Team member. When a series of events uncovers his whereabouts, the CIA recruits him, using a Presidential pardon for Reece and immunity for the friends who helped him in his mission of vengeance.
Now a reluctant tool of the United States government, Reece travels the globe, targeting terrorist leaders and unraveling a geopolitical conspiracy that exposes a traitorous CIA officer and uncovers a sinister assassination plot with worldwide repercussions.
A high-intensity roller-coaster ride, True Believer explodes with action and authenticity that cements Jack Carr as the new leader in political thrillers.
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The Victory Garden by Rhys Bowen:
From the bestselling author of The Tuscan Child comes a beautiful and heart-rending novel of a woman’s love and sacrifice during the First World War.
As the Great War continues to take its toll, headstrong twenty-one-year-old Emily Bryce is determined to contribute to the war effort. She is convinced by a cheeky and handsome Australian pilot that she can do more, and it is not long before she falls in love with him and accepts his proposal of marriage.
When he is sent back to the front, Emily volunteers as a “land girl,” tending to the neglected grounds of a large Devonshire estate. It’s here that Emily discovers the long-forgotten journals of a medicine woman who devoted her life to her herbal garden. The journals inspire Emily, and in the wake of devastating news, they are her saving grace. Emily’s lover has not only died a hero but has left her terrified—and with child. Since no one knows that Emily was never married, she adopts the charade of a war widow.
As Emily learns more about the volatile power of healing with herbs, the found journals will bring her to the brink of disaster, but may open a path to her destiny.
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Book descriptions are provided by the publishers unless otherwise specified.
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Have a great week!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
Online Catalog Links:
StarCat
The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD, etc.
The Digital Catalog (OverDrive)
The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos.
Freegal Music Service
This music service is free to library card holders and offers the option to download, and keep, three free songs per week and to stream three hours of commercial-free music each day:
RBDigital
*Magazines are available for free and on demand! You can check out magazines and read them on your computer or download the RBDigital app from your app store and read them on your mobile devices.
ABOUT LIBRARY APPS:
You can access digital library content on PCs, Macs and mobile devices. For mobile devices simply download the OverDrive, Freegal or RB Digital app from your app store to get started. If you have questions call the library at 607-936-3713 and one of our tech coaches will be happy to assist you.
Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 