Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are published on Wednesdays.
And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Wednesday, April 24, 2024.
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Close To Death by Anthony Horowitz
Among his many outstanding accomplishments, Horowitz adapted Caroline Graham’s mysteries into the early episodes of the long-running and internationally popular television series Midsomer Murders. Here he’s created a tiny Midsomer village within Riverside Close in Richmond, a town near southwest London. The Close includes every manner of resident, including two ex-nuns and a chess celebrity, and becomes the scene of the murder of Charles Kenworthy, found dead on his porch with the bolt of a crossbow through his chest. Kenworthy was an arrogant and obnoxious man, and nothing in the peaceful complex was the same after he moved in. Each of the original residents had their own reason for wanting him dead. Daniel Hawthorne is called in by the baffled police. He is the shadowy (one might say shady) ex-policeman turned private investigator with whom the author himself has solved four earlier cases. Horowitz has perfected metafiction to the point where the reader settles in comfortably for the fifth time as the self-deprecating author engages with the prickly Hawthorne to create a crime novel based on his investigations. An absolutely engrossing tale, including a locked-room second murder, written with the abundance of whimsy and dark humor that seems to permeate nearly everything that Horowitz creates. Kudos to anyone who can figure this one out!
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Horowitz followers and all lovers of diabolically clever mysteries are primed for the latest Hawthorne and Horowitz adventure. – Starred Booklist Review
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The Gathering by C. J Tudor
Vampires, or “vampyrs,” roam the earth—and provoke heated political debate—in this wildly imaginative supernatural thriller from Tudor (The Drift). Though vampyrs rarely attack humans, hostility toward them in the early 20th century led to the decimation of the species and their relegation to several remote colonies across the United States. In 1983, the federal government enacted the Vampyr Protection Act, declaring them a protected species and polarizing the electorate—right-wing religious fanatics believe vampyrs should be exterminated, while “woke liberals” consider them vulnerable minorities. Against this fraught backdrop, homicide detective Barbara Atkins, who has her PhD in forensic vampyr anthropology, is dispatched to the small town of Deadhart, Alaska, after local teen Marcus Anderson is killed and his neighbors blame a vampyr. While the citizens of Deadhart prepare to cull the nearby vampyr colony in retaliation, Atkins teams up with the local sheriff to investigate Marcus’s death. As they dig, Atkins and the sheriff come to suspect the vampyr theory is cover for a much more personal motive—and then someone else turns up dead. Tudor leverages her snowbound setting for maximum atmosphere, and never lets her high-concept premise overwhelm patient character development. This frostbitten procedural is a bloody good time. – Starred Publishers Weekly Review
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The House on Biscayne Bay by Chanel Cleeton
Just as her newest protagonists, Anna Barnes and Carmen Acosta, brave a confounding maze and a hidden passage, Cleeton (The Cuban Heiress, 2023) intrepidly ventures into the gothic arena with her latest novel. Marbrisa is an extravagant showplace built on Biscayne Bay near Miami by Anna’s husband, Robert. Anna is a mature woman whose story takes place in Miami’s burgeoning post-WWI era, when rich outsiders buying up land and building mansions clash with the locals. Cue the screeching peacocks, the road-blocking, the slumbering alligators, and murder. In alternating segments, Carmen is a young woman who has come to Marbrisa to live with her estranged sister and brother-in-law after her parents’ tragic death in Havana. It’s the early 1940s, the war is starting in Europe, and history seems set to repeat itself at this ill-fated estate. As the story unfolds, readers will wonder if there’s anyone Anna and Carmen can trust. The gruff housekeeper? The handsome gardener? The nebbishy architect? The relentless detective? This is a sure bet for Cleeton fans and lovers of mansion-centric gothic tales. – Booklist Review
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The Kiss Countdown by Etta Easton
DEBUT After losing her job at a prestigious Houston event-planning company and breaking up with her long-time boyfriend, Amerie Price is trying to launch a solo venture and has absolutely no time for romantic complications. But when her ex and his new girlfriend show up at Amerie’s favorite coffee shop, a random coffee-drinker (who happens to be very cute with a chiseled jawline) makes a convenient fake boyfriend. Vincent Price, a NASA astronaut, gamely plays along with Amerie’s scheme in the moment, but she’s shocked when he suggests they continue the ruse until he blasts off for a six-month mission to space. Vincent’s meddling family is concerned they’ll lose him, and Vincent hopes that having a doting (fake) girlfriend will help soothe their worries about his upcoming mission. Plus, Amerie can move into his apartment, leaving her free to focus on her new business, not making rent. What Amerie doesn’t plan on is truly falling for the secretly sweet Vincent. VERDICT Easton’s debut is perfect for readers seeking romance with excellent character development and STEM at its center. It’s a good read-alike for Denise Williams and Ali Hazelwood. – Library Journal Review
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An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Words matter. With their power to inspire, illuminate, instruct, and influence, the words a president or other prominent individual says at the right time can quell tension or encourage reform, embolden noble deeds or suppress destructive action. As speechwriter and advisor to JFK, RFK, and LBJ, Dick Goodwin wrote some of the most powerful speeches of the 1960s, a time when America was catapulting from the New Frontier to the Great Society and challenged by upheaval at home and abroad. Although he and Doris Kearns were moons orbiting the same political planets, they did not meet until 1972, when both were working at Harvard. Their adjacent experiences and shared passion for politics, justice, and the presidency was the foundation of a love that would last until Goodwin’s death in 2018. As befits all great researchers and eyewitnesses to history, the Goodwins collected a vast trove of archival material from their years as presidential advisers and authors, and it is this unparalleled source material that historian, biographer, and political commentator Kearns Goodwin mines to galvanizing effect in a memoir that purrs with beguiling intimacy and bubbles with effervescent appreciation for an exceptional marriage during more than four decades of profound mutual engagement with politics, social struggles, and each other.
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The presidential biographer’s renown will lure readers to her most personal book. – Booklist Review
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Happy reading!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
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Information on the three library catalogs
The Digital Catalog: https://stls.overdrive.com/
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, eAudiobooks, and digital magazines. You can use your library card and checkout content on a PC; you can also use the companion app, Libby, to access titles on your mobile devices; so you can enjoy eBooks and eAudiobooks 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 on demand checkouts of eBooks, eAudiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV shows. Patron check out limit is 10 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla companion app, also called Hoopla is available for mobile devices, 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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Have questions regarding how to access digital library content (i.e. eBooks & eAudios)? Drop by the Reference Desk at the library, or give us a call at: 607-936-3713
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Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 