Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are usually published on Wednesdays, unless Monday is a holiday and then they are published later in the week.
And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Wednesday, September 4, 2024.
–
Buried Too Deep by Karen Rose
From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Karen Rose comes another explosive novel in the New Orleans series, where some secrets are worth dying for—or killing to keep.
Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.
Employed as the nighttime security guard of Broussard Investigations, Phineas Bishop has been working through overwhelming PTSD episodes from his army service while still utilizing his military skills. But when a violent break-in occurs at the office, the accusatory eyes of the NOPD are on Phin, and he resolves to track down the intruder and clear his name.
Phin’s only lead is Cora Winslow, a spirited librarian who also needs answers. The body of her father, murdered twenty-three years ago, has just been discovered under a recently demolished building. So who has been sending her handwritten letters—written and signed by her father—every year since she was five? Someone wants to keep Cora in the dark. And now, they’re coming for her.
As Cora’s self-appointed bodyguard, Phin is surprised by his growing fondness for the woman and her fierce determination and research prowess. But New Orleans’s Garden District holds secrets as old as the streets themselves. With help from the entire Broussard P.I. team, Phin and Cora enter a labyrinth of fraud and homicide that threatens to bury them all.
–
Daydream by Hannah Grace
The third in the New York Times bestselling Maple Hills series follows fan-favorite Henry and a bookish fellow student who come up with a plan to help them both overcome their respective challenges in a difficult year.
When his procrastination lands him in a difficult class with his least favorite professor, Henry Turner knows he’s going to have to work extra hard to survive his junior year of college. And now with his new title of captain for the hockey team—which he didn’t even want—Henry absolutely cannot fail. Enter Halle Jacobs, a fellow junior who finds herself befriended by Henry when he accidentally crashes her book club.
Halle may not have the romantic pursuits of her favorite fictional leads, but she’s an academic superstar, and as soon as she hears about Henry’s problems with his class reading material, she offers to help. Too bad being a private tutor isn’t exactly ideal given her own studies, job, book club, and the novel she’s trying to write. But new experiences are the key to beating her writer’s block, and Henry’s promising to be the one to give them to her.
They just need to stick to their rule book.
–
The Dark Wives: A Vera Stanhope Novel by Ann Cleeves
On the same night Josh, a supervisor in an at-risk teen shelter, is murdered, Chloe, a 14-year-old resident, goes missing. Is she a suspect or a victim? Such is the investigatory challenge facing detective Vera Stanhope and her team, including a new member, Rosie Bell. The case grows more complicated when Brad, another teen resident, is also found dead in an area where Stanhope’s crew is searching for Chloe. The Northumberland district is known for its unforgiving countryside, dominated by three stone monuments called “The Dark Wives,” and for its annual pageant celebrating witches. Although sinister folklore, a tight-knit community, troubled teens, and a corrupt business enterprise give the detectives multiple avenues to pursue, Stanhope feels a personal connection to the wayward Chloe, whose discovered diaries reveal a scared, sensitive soul. A taut police procedural enhanced by relevant social consciousness, the eleventh book in Cleeves’ popular Vera Stanhope series is dedicated to “teens everywhere, and especially to . . . uppity young women with minds of their own, struggling to find a place in a difficult world.” – Booklist Review
Reader’s Note: The Dark Wives is the eleventh book in the Vera Stanhope mystery series. If you like to start reading the series from the beginning, check out book one: The Crow Trap.
–
I Need You to Read This: A Novel by Jessa Maxwell
When the murder of the Herald’s beloved advice columnist goes unsolved, her longsought replacement, Alex Marks, nearly withers under the strain of filling the void. Alex was not only a devoted fan, she also had contacted “Dear Constance” multiple times throughout an abusive relationship, signing her pleas for help, “Lost Girl.” It’s not only dispensing the same empathetic advice in the same sympathetic tone that challenges Alex, it’s the overall mystery surrounding the sudden death, the haunted eeriness of the New York newspaper offices, the erratic behavior of her boss, and the ominous threats she receives that prompt her to delve into her predecessor’s murder. But having forged a new identity when she moved to the city, Alex is paranoid about getting close to people. Are her new friends and colleagues allies or enemies? With a propulsive pace of escalating violence and immersive compassion for Alex’s untenable position, Maxwell’s palm-sweat-inducing psychological thriller decisively captures the subterranean fear and uncertainty that accompany victims of domestic violence. – Booklist Review
–
Worst Case Scenario: A Novel by T.J. Newman
Former flight attendant Newman (Drowning) parlays her professional experience into another nail-biter centered on a commercial airline accident. Nearly 300 people die when the pilot of a plane en route from Minneapolis to Seattle suffers a heart attack and crashes into a nuclear power plant shortly after taking off. The resulting leak at the Waketa, Minn., energy facility raises twin concerns: first, that 900 locals will be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation; second, that the breach could ignite an impossible to extinguish fire that would spread radioactive material across the entire Midwest. Waketa fire chief Steve Tostig spearheads an effort, with support from Nuclear Emergency Support specialist Joss Vance, to contain the radiation and save the country. Like Michael Crichton and other disaster novelists before her, Newman loops several ordinary people into her sprawling narrative, including Waketa schoolteachers and employees at the power plant, but she sets herself apart by giving notable weight and color to the human-scale dramas. She doesn’t skimp when it comes to action, either, resulting in a rip-roaring adventure that’s anchored in palpable emotion. This should satisfy the author’s fans and win her new ones. – Publishers Weekly Review
–
Happy reading!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
–
Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
–
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.
–
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.
–
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.
–
Have questions about how to access Internet based content (i.e. eBooks, eAudios)? Feel free to drop by the Reference Desk or call the library and we will assist you! The library’s telephone number is: 607-936-3713.
–
Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 