Hi everyone, here are our recommended reads for the week!
*More information on the three catalogs and available formats is found at the end of the list of recommended reads*
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Weekly Suggested Reading postings are now published on Wednesdays.
And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Wednesday, November 16, 2022.
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Blood Moon by Heather Graham
(Available Formats: Print Book)
The action-packed follow up to The Rising, from acclaimed thriller-suspense novelists Heather Graham and Jon Land, this is Blood Moon.
The recipient of RWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award and ITW’s Thriller Master Award, Heather Graham is at the pinnacle of her career. Now she’s teamed up with USA Today bestselling author Jon Land to continue the story of high school seniors Alex Chin and Samantha Dixon.
They may have managed to win a major battle against the powerful enemy determined to destroy civilization as we know it. But the war continues, with Alex and Sam embarking on a desperate journey to save mankind, even as their friendship blossoms into something much more.
The roadmap for their journey lies in a mysterious book, the language of which has never been deciphered, until Alex finds himself able to translate the words that may hold the keys to saving the future. Toward that end, Alex’s and Sam’s quest spirits them away to a myriad of locations around the world, each of which holds another piece of the puzzle that can defeat the alien invaders.
But an ageless foe, long the guardian of the secrets his race has left behind on Earth, arises to stop them at all costs. At his disposal is a deadly and merciless army that has been awaiting this very war, an army as unstoppable as it is relentless.
Over the ruins of the lost Mayan city of El Mirador, a blood moon is about to rise, triggering the end of mankind unless Alex and Sam can prevail in a struggle that will determine the fate of the planet. As forces both ancient and modern converge, as painful choices must be made and sacrifices accepted, two young heroes will rise again to stand as the final line of defense to preserve their world and their love.
Reader’s Note: This is the second book in The Rising Series, if you’d like to start reading the series from the beginning check out book one titled, simply, The Rising.
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Desert Star by Michael Connelly
(Available Formats: Print Book, Large Print & CD audiobook)
In bestseller Connelly’s thrilling fifth outing for Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch (after 2021’s The Dark Hours), Ballard invites the retired Bosch to volunteer for the LAPD’s newly revived Open-Unsolved Unit, which she’s running, enticing him with the prospect of finding the man responsible for the 2013 slaying of an entire family. She also wants to reopen the 1994 murder of 16-year-old Sarah Pearlman, sister of the L.A. city councilman who helped resuscitate the cold case team. Ballard and Bosch work at the department’s new homicide archive where the unsolved murder books are stored: “hallowed ground to Bosch. The library of lost souls.” Both cases require deep dives into the past; both lead to great action scenes; and, as always, Connelly displays his encyclopedic knowledge of the latest forensics, such as “Investigative Genetic Genealogy.” Bosch, however, takes a low-tech approach and follows leads in the field with his trademark intensity, driven by his desire to restore order in a violent world (“The dark engine of murder would never run low on fuel. Not in his lifetime”). This entry, the 24th Bosch novel, may not be as expansive as The Dark Hours, but it ranks up there with Connelly’s best. – Starred Publishers Weekly Review
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Galatea: A Short Story by Madeline Miller
(Available Formats: Print Book & Hoopla instant check out eBook)
In Ancient Greece, a skilled marble sculptor has been blessed by a goddess who has given his masterpiece – the most beautiful woman the town has ever seen – the gift of life. Now his wife, Galatea is expected to be obedience and humility personified, but it is not long before she learns to use her beauty as a form of manipulation. In a desperate bid by her obsessive husband to keep her under control, she is locked away under the constant supervision of doctors and nurses. But with a daughter to rescue, she is determined to break free, whatever the cost…
Pygmalion’s story has moved millions through the centuries, inspiring George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, and later the beloved musical My Fair Lady. Ecco is proud to publish Orange Prize-winning author Madeline Miller’s E-book original short story Galatea which will appear in the forthcoming anthology xo Orpheus: Fifty New Myths to be published in October. This retelling of the Pygmalion myth from the statue’s perspective is a tale that will make readers rethink how they relate to the great myths of our time.
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Murder at Black Oaks: A Robin Lockwood Novel by Phillip Margolin
(Available Formats: Print Book)
Defense attorney Robin Lockwood has a tricky problem to resolve. A retired DA has proof that a man he convicted for murder three decades ago is innocent, but he can’t reveal the proof because he’s bound by attorney-client privilege. To free the wrongly convicted man, Robin must find a workaround. But is such a thing possible? An intriguing situation, and it’s only the beginning of this audacious combination of a legal thriller and a modern-day Gothic. The titular Black Oaks is the name of a centuries-old, moody, possibly cursed English manor house that was transplanted and rebuilt in Oregon. It’s the retired DA’s home, and it’s the key setting (a character, really) for the bulk of the action. This is the sixth Lockwood novel, and it’s certainly the gutsiest. Margolin risks straining the reader’s credibility with talk of curses, but the risks pay off exceedingly well. Readers who enjoy a traditional legal thriller with some distinctly nontraditional story elements should really enjoy this one. – Booklist Review
Reader’s Note: As mentioned this is the sixth book in the Lockwood Series. If you’d like to start reading the series from the beginning, check out book one: The Third Victim.
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One Woman’s War: A Novel of the Real Miss Moneypenny by Christine Wells
(Available Formats: Print Book & Large Print)
World War II London: When Victoire “Paddy” Bennett first walks into the Admiralty’s Room 39, home to the Intelligence Division, all the bright and lively young woman expects is a secretarial position to the charismatic Commander Ian Fleming. But soon her job is so much more, and when Fleming proposes a daring plot to deceive the Germans about Allied invasion plans he requests the newlywed Paddy’s help. She jumps at the chance to work as an agent in the field, even after the operation begins to affect her marriage. But could doing her duty for King and country come at too great a cost?
Socialite Friedl Stöttinger is a beautiful Austrian double agent determined to survive in wartime England, which means working for MI-5, investigating fifth column activity among the British elite at parties and nightclubs. But Friedl has a secret—some years before, she agreed to work for German Intelligence and spy on the British.
When her handler at MI-5 proposes that she work with Serbian agent, Duško Popov, Friedl falls hopelessly in love with the dashing spy. And when her intelligence work becomes fraught with danger, she must choose whether to remain loyal to the British and risk torture and execution by the Nazis, or betray thousands of men to their deaths.
Soon, the lives of these two extraordinarily brave women will collide, as each travels down a road of deception and danger leading to one of the greatest battles of World War II.
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Peril in Paris by Rhys Bowen
(Available Formats: Print Book)
A quick trip to Paris turns into a dangerous murder hunt in 1936. Lady Georgiana Rannoch O’Mara may be cousin to King Edward VIII, but she and her husband, Darcy O’Mara, are poor and lucky to be living on an estate belonging to a relative. The pregnant Georgie, who’s finally over her morning sickness, jumps at the chance to go to Paris with Darcy and spend time with her best friend, Belinda, who’s apprenticing with Coco Chanel. Darcy has a hush-hush job, and Georgie always worries when he’s away, so she’s especially happy that they won’t be separated. Once they settle in Paris, Darcy asks Georgie to do a little job for him picking up microfilm from Frau Goldberg, whose husband, a Jewish scientist, isn’t allowed to travel. Georgie enjoys spending time in the city with Belinda and her avant-garde friends. Since she’s modeled for Chanel before, though with disastrous results, she’s urged to model a dress Chanel designs to hide her pregnancy. The only good thing to come out of the experience is the chance it provides to get the microfilm from Frau Goldberg, who’s attending the fashion show with the ladies from a delegation that includes Georgie’s mother, who’s engaged to a wealthy German. After rude American Mrs. Rottenburger takes Frau Goldberg’s seat, Georgie finds the lady dead of cyanide poisoning. Was she the real target, or was it a case of mistaken identity? Georgie had better find out, for the French police think she’s the killer. The mystery is meager, but touring prewar Paris with Bowen’s irresistible sleuth is a treat. – Kirkus Review
Reader’s Note: This is the sixteenth book in The Royal Spyness Series; if you’d like to start reading the series from the beginning, check out book one Her Royal Spyness
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Ted Kennedy: A Life by John A. Farrell
(Available Formats: Print Book)
Biographer Farrell (Richard Nixon: The Life) untangles in this masterful account the complex blend of political dexterity, recklessness, and unflagging support of the less fortunate that defined Ted Kennedy’s rise from overlooked youngest son of a political dynasty to “Lion of the Senate.” According to Farrell, Kennedy grew up “awed by the achievements of his father and brothers and vexed by self-doubt.” Only 30 years old when he took his brother John’s former seat in the U.S. Senate in 1962, Kennedy remained in that role until his death in 2009, fighting in his final months for the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Kennedy took early stands on civil rights, Farrell writes, but came into his own after the tragic assassinations of his older brothers. Farrell’s evenhanded account documents Kennedy’s “craven” behavior following the car crash on Chappaquiddick Island that left Mary Jo Kopechne dead, but gives equal weight to his accomplishments as an anti-apartheid advocate, an early champion of gay rights and AIDS funding, and a crusader for healthcare reform. The book shines in its vivid accounts of backroom political dealmaking, as Farrell enlivens his exhaustive research and expert analysis with a novelist’s pacing. The result is the definitive one-volume biography of a consequential American lawmaker. – Starred Publishers Weekly Review
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Triple Cross by James Patterson
(Available Formats: Print Book & CD audiobook)
A precise killer, he always moves under the cover of darkness, flawlessly triggering no alarms, leaving no physical evidence.
Cross and Sampson aren’t the only ones investigating.
Also in on this most intriguing case is the world’s bestselling true-crime author, who sees patterns everyone else misses.
The writer, Thomas Tull, calls the Family Man murders the perfect crime story. He believes the killer may never be caught.
Cross knows there is no perfect crime. And he’s going to hunt down the Family Man no matter what it takes.
Until the Family Man decides to flip the narrative and bring down Cross and his family.
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Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars: The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission by Eileen Collins
(Available Formats: Print Book, Hoopla instant check out eBook & audiobook)
The long-awaited memoir of a trailblazer and role model who is telling her story for the first time.
Eileen Collins was an aviation pioneer her entire career, from her crowning achievements as the first woman to command an American space mission as well as the first to pilot the space shuttle to her early years as one of the Air Force’s first female pilots. She was in the first class of women to earn pilot’s wings at Vance Air Force Base and was their first female instructor pilot. She was only the second woman pilot admitted to the Air Force’s elite Test Pilot Program at Edwards Air Force Base. NASA had such confidence in her skills as a leader and pilot that she was entrusted to command the first shuttle mission after the Columbia disaster, returning the US to spaceflight after a two-year hiatus. Since retiring from the Air Force and NASA, she has served on numerous corporate boards and is an inspirational speaker about space exploration and leadership.
Eileen Collins is among the most recognized and admired women in the world, yet this is the first time she has told her story in a book. It is a story not only of achievement and overcoming obstacles but of profound personal transformation. The shy, quiet child of an alcoholic father and struggling single mother, who grew up in modest circumstances and was an unremarkable student, she had few prospects when she graduated from high school, but she changed her life to pursue her secret dream of becoming an astronaut. She shares her leadership and life lessons throughout the book with the aim of inspiring and passing on her legacy to a new generation.
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Have a great week!
Linda Reimer
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*Information on the three catalogs*
Digital Catalog: https://stls.overdrive.com/
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, downloadable audiobooks, digital magazines and a handful of streaming videos. The catalog, which allows one to download content to a PC, also has a companion app, Libby, which you can download to your mobile device; so you can enjoy eBooks and downloadable audiobooks on the go!
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.
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Hoopla Catalog: https://www.hoopladigital.com/
The Hoopla Catalog features instant checkouts of eBooks, downloadable audiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV series. Patron check out limit is 6 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla App is available for Android or Apple devices and most smart TVs & media streaming players.
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StarCat: The catalog of physical/traditional library materials: https://starcat.stls.org
Card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can access StarCat to search for and request materials available at libraries through out the Southern Tier Library System.
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Format Note: Under each book title you’ll find a list of all the different formats that specific title is available in; including: Print Books, Large Print Books, CD Audiobooks, eBooks & Downloadable Audiobooks from the Digital Catalog (Libby app) and Hoopla eBooks & Hoopla Downloadable Audiobooks (Hoopla app).
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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
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Have questions or want to request a book?
Feel free to call the library! Our telephone number is 607-936-3713.
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