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, June 21, 2023.
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Against The Currant by Olivia Matthews
(Available Formats: Print Book & Hoopla Instant Checkout Audiobook)
In Olivia Matthews’s Against the Currant, the first Spice Isle Bakery Mystery, investigating a murder was never supposed to be on the menu…
Little Caribbean, Brooklyn, New York: Lyndsay Murray is opening Spice Isle Bakery with her family, and it’s everything she’s ever wanted. The West Indian bakery is her way to give back to the community she loves, stay connected to her Grenadian roots, and work side-by-side with her family. The only thing getting a rise out of Lyndsay is Claudio Fabrizi, a disgruntled fellow bakery owner who does not want any competition.
On opening day, he comes into the bakery threatening to shut them down.
Fed up, Lyndsay takes him to task in front of what seems to be the whole neighborhood. So when Claudio turns up dead a day later—murdered—Lyndsay is unfortunately the prime suspect. To get the scent of suspicion off her and her bakery, Lyndsay has to prove she’s innocent—under the watchful eyes of her overprotective brother, anxious parents, and meddlesome extended family—what could go wrong?
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Bear with Me Now by Katie Shepard
(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)
Shepard’s wonderful debut romance features characters who are so beautifully depicted, they become real. Teagan, who lives an elite life of wealth and privilege and runs a foundation to bring art to children, would seem to have little in common with navy veteran Darcy, whose learning challenges have kept her from the successes she has worked toward in college and as a forest ranger. They meet when Teagan takes a walk in the woods and runs into a bear while he and his sister are at a rehab-spa in Montana. Teagan is recovering from a stint in a psych ward following a panic attack so severe he thought he was dying and now nearly becomes a bear snack. He is rescued by Darcy, who was hired as the wilderness therapy instructor but has been doing all the maintenance for the new-agey resort. Darcy focuses on helping Teagan, however off-track she is about his issues, and insists on accompanying him to New York when his foundation is threatened. Shepard seamlessly incorporates Teagan’s mental-health struggles and Darcy’s learning differences as they help each other fight their personal demons. This exquisite combination of issues, humor, and hot sex make Shepard a writer to watch. – Booklist Review
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Best Men by Sidney Karger
(Available Formats: Print Book)
Who does Chasten Benchley think he is?
Max Moody has been Paige Greendale’s BFF for more than 30 years, and if anyone is going to be at her side during her upcoming wedding to Chasten’s brother, Austin, it is going to be Max. Setting aside their awkward (to say the least) one-time hookup, if Chasten thinks he can become Paige’s go-to guy for all things nuptial by showing Max up with his superior fashion sense and amazing bachelorette-party planning skills, well, he can just think again. Max is Paige’s man of honor, and Chasten is Austin’s best man. It shouldn’t be a competition between them. But if it is, then it is one Max is definitely going to win. With a spoton gift for writing dryly witty banter and a deliciously acerbic sense of humor in the Nora Ephron mode, Karger, an award-winning screenwriter and television contributor (including Saturday Night Live), makes his fiction debut. A fun and flirty rom-com that is the perfect addition to beach bags and suitcases. – Booklist Review
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Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You: A Memoir by Lucinda Williams
(Available Formats: Print Book)
In a conversational style, Grammy Award winner Williams takes readers through the ups and downs of her family life and musical career. She weaves a narrative that feels relatable and extraordinary. Having inherited her musical talent from her mother and her way with words from her father, Williams considers how her childhood and family shaped her music and life. When the author was a child (she was born in 1953 in Louisiana), her mother was diagnosed with manic depression with paranoid schizophrenic tendencies, which left Williams and her two siblings in the care of their poet father, a professor at the University of Arkansas who read a poem at Bill Clinton’s second presidential inauguration. The author ponders her long journey toward achieving her dream in her forties, decades after being stuck in the hard-to-sell category between country and rock. Williams tells her story candidly, sharing the inspiration for her songs along with the trials and tribulations that made her the artist she is today. The book includes a chronology of the many places where the author lived from childhood through the 2020s.
VERDICT Honest and raw, this book serves a slice of an inspiring life that reminds readers to keep trying. Williams’s story will likely appeal to readers interested in music, poetry, literature, or mental health. – Library Journal Review
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Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs
(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)
Long-kept family secrets and tested loyalties complicate the lives of the characters of this exceptional debut novel from an award-winning short-story author. Esther and Joanna are estranged sisters driven apart by secrets surrounding the magical books their late father collected and that Joanna now safeguards in their magically hidden family home in Vermont.
Nicholas, the heir to a magical library patronized by the rich and powerful, is the only known scribe in the world, with the ability to write new spells using ink created from his blood. When Esther and Nicholas discover that they are the intended victims of a deadly plot originating at the library, Nicholas and his brooding bodyguard, Collins, must team up with Esther and Joanna and unearth secrets long held by their families to prevent a malevolent spell from claiming their lives. But can they truly trust one another?
All four must set aside old hurts and decide where their loyalties lie before it is too late. This suspenseful dark fantasy, full of family drama, is perfect for readers of Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House (2019), Holly Black’s Book of Night (2022), and Peng Shepherd’s The Cartographers (2022). – Booklist
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Murder on Mustang Beach by Alicia Bessette
(Available Formats: Print Book)
Murder disrupts a bookseller’s love life while complicating her deepening reconnection to her childhood home on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. After waiting nearly a year for Toby Dodge to complete his self-imposed experiment in abstinence, Calista “Callie” Padget is eager for what she calls “the most epic first date ever” with the handsome martial arts teacher she’s been patiently wooing for the past 11 months. She can’t believe it when on the morning of that date, she and Toby find a body gazing lifelessly at the ceiling of his dojo, Cattail Family Martial Arts. More than their relationship is at stake, since families rush to pull out of the dojo’s programs once they learn that Seth Goodnow, the bridegroom in a Cattail Island destination wedding, met his end there shortly after saying his vows. So Callie summons the detective skills she discovered in Smile Beach Murder (2022) to prove that Seth’s death had nothing to do with Toby’s business. When she interviews members of the wedding party, including Seth’s brand-new widow, she learns that she isn’t the only one captivated by the magic of Cattail Island. Despite their grief, none of them are willing to leave the gentle pace of the island and its wild natural beauty. Just as Callie struggles with learning that, thanks to the boom in tourism, her meager salary at MotherVine Bookshop won’t begin to cover her rent at the tiny Hyde Road cottage where she grew up, the wedding guests confide their difficulty reconciling their horror at Seth’s murder with their growing attachment to Cattail. All good things must end, and with grief for some, as Callie’s sleuthing skills once again crack a case that baffles the police. A worthy successor to Bessette’s Outer Banks debut. – Kirkus Review
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Nonna Maria and the Case of the Missing Bride: A Novel by Lorenzo Carcaterra
(Available Formats: Print Book)
Nonna Maria, the distinctive protagonist of this gentle standalone from bestseller Carcaterra (the Tank Rizzo series), seldom travels from her home on the Italian island of Ischia, though she has a vast network of friends who come to her “with issues that should be brought to the attention of the local carabinieri and not a widow with a bad right leg.” She, in turn, depends on her buddies, including a Camorra crime boss and a priest, to help her resolve any problems that can’t be cleared up by common sense alone. One such is the plight of a reluctant bride-to-be, who has impetuously agreed to marry a handsome stranger and is now afraid to break things off for fear of what he might do to her family. Meanwhile, Nonna Maria uses her encyclopedic knowledge of the island and its inhabitants to help a carabinieri captain investigate the death of an 85-year-old tour boat captain. All the nice people involved are rewarded with happy endings. Italophiles wishing for a brief vacation in charming and clever company will revel in this love letter to Ischia. – Publishers Weekly Review
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Once More With Feeling by Elissa Sussman
(Available Formats: Print Book)
Kathleen Rosenberg once sold out arenas as pop star Katee Rose, until her very public breakup with her fiancé, boybander Ryan. Years later, her best friend, Harriet, has written a musical, Riveted!, about Rosie the Riveter, and she wants Kathleen to star. She also wants Ryan’s former bandmate Calvin Tyler Kirby to direct. But Kathleen hasn’t spoken to Calvin since she and Ryan broke up–in fact, he’s the reason they split. But her past with Calvin goes deeper, back to their teenage years at theater camp in Rhode Island. Kathleen and Calvin agree to work together, and it’s tense at first, but things slowly begin to thaw as the show comes together, going into previews at their old theater in Rhode Island. Harriet sees that the chemistry is still there, but Kathleen promises nothing will happen, until it does, making everything even messier. Sussman’s latest (after Funny You Should Ask, 2022) explores romance in the public eye while offering satisfyingly specific details about the process of mounting a Broadway show. Theater nerds, pop culture fanatics, and hopeless romantics will dig this one. – Booklist Review
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The Only One Left by Riley Sager
(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook & Downloadable Audiobook)
The author of Home before Dark (2020) and Survive the Night (2021) goes full-on Gothic in this tale of an in-home nurse who’s hired to take care of a wheelchair-bound woman. But this is no typical patient: the woman is Lenora Hope, who, according to public opinion, slaughtered her family six decades ago. Her new caregiver, Kit McDeere, also believes her client is guilty until Lenora begins to reveal secrets she’s kept nearly all her life. After a slight misstep with last year’s The House across the Lake, in which the supernatural elements didn’t quite work, Sager is back on form here. The writing is compelling, the story captivating, and the characters nicely rendered. The novel is set in the early 1980s, but it has a timeless feel: it could have taken place a century ago, or it could be happening today. Claustrophobic and haunting, this is Sager at the top of his game. – Booklist Review
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Vacation Wars by Meghan Quinn
(Available Formats: Print Book)
Tessa is thrilled to be spending the weeks before her twin sister’s wedding on the Greek island of Santorini. Then her sister decides it’s time for Tessa to find some love herself: they made a deal back in high school, after all! Trying to avoid her sister’s matchmaking attempts, Tessa finds an ally in her childhood crush, Myles, who works at the resort and is dealing with some family conflict of his own. Together they navigate their way through their families’ antics– and begin to realize that past feelings may have a future.
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Have a great day!
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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