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, April 16, 2025.
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Big Chief by Jon Hickey
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2025 by The Washington Post, Debutiful, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, and LitHub
Publishers Weekly Writer to Watch for Spring 2025
There, There meets The Night Watchman in this gripping literary debut about power and corruption, family, and facing the ghosts of the past.
Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside his childhood friend, Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe’s Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack’s reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack’s estranged sister and Mitch’s former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go—and what they will sacrifice—to win it all.
But when an accident claims the life of Mitch’s mentor, a power broker in the reservation’s political scene, the election slides into chaos and pits Mitch against the only family he has. As relationships strain to their breaking points and a peaceful protest threatens to become an all-consuming riot, Mitch and Layla must work together to stop the reservation’s descent into violence.
Thrilling and timely, Big Chief is an unforgettable story about the search for belonging—to an ancestral and spiritual home, to a family, and to a sovereign people at a moment of great historical importance.
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A Drop of Corruption: An Ana and Din Mystery by Robert Jackson Bennett
Bennett’s wonderfully clever and compulsively readable sequel to 2024’s The Tainted Cup offers another winning blend of fantasy and classic detection, featuring off-beat sleuths who call to mind Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin but operate in a realm under constant threat of destruction from eldritch marine creatures known as the leviathans. Ana Dolabra, “a woman so brilliant she lives most of her days blindfolded and rarely leaves her rooms, for fear that common life shall overwhelm her mind,” and her legman, Dinios Kol, who has been genetically augmented with the ability to perfectly recall what he sees and hears, are the Khanum Empire’s go-to case-cracking duo. Bennett again gives them a baffling murder to solve: Immunis Mineti Sujedo, part of a Treasury delegation on a high-stakes mission, vanished from his locked room, only for his partial remains to surface five days later. The investigators must ascertain how he disappeared, who killed him, and why. Other deaths follow, muddying the waters. Bennett skillfully integrates humor and magic into the complex puzzle plot and plays fair with planting clues for the reader. Randall Garrett fans will be hooked.
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Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
The latest from Perkins-Valdez (Take My Hand) features a dual narrative that starts with Washington, DC, real estate agent Nikki Lovejoy being summoned to rural North Carolina by her estranged grandmother Rita. Mother Rita needs help managing the family homestead. As the story and relationship between Rita and Niki develop, readers learn about family secrets and history of the Kingdom of the Happy Land. The historical side of the narrative is revealed by Luella, a Lovejoy ancestor known as the queen of Happy Land. Luella is part of a group of formerly enslaved people who migrated to this spot after emancipation to create a settlement for themselves. Through hard work and saving, the community was able to purchase the land, which they called the Kingdom of the Happy Land. In the contemporary storyline, Perkins-Valdez reveals how that land was stolen from the Lovejoys and how Rita fights to retain it for her family.
VERDICT This is a lyrical and unique work of historical fiction. The Kingdom is based on a real place about which readers will want to know more after reading Perkins-Valdez’s novel. Fans of hidden-history narratives will enjoy her hopeful, empowering tale. – Library Journal Review
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Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age by Vauhini Vara
In this singular inquiry, journalist and novelist Vara (The Immortal King Rao) reflects on humanity’s relationship with technology. One entry transcribes an exchange between Vara and ChatGPT in which she prompts the chatbot to explain that it provides answers in first-person plural because doing so encourages users to “let down their guard” while fostering “a sense of identification and loyalty” with its parent company. In “A Great Deal,” Vara compiles Amazon reviews she wrote detailing her reasons for buying from the site despite otherwise boycotting the company over its exploitative labor practices, illustrating how monopolistic corporations make it difficult to live without their services. The most poignant selections find pathos in the gap between humanity and AI’s superficial approximation of it. For instance, Vara laments that her sister, who died from cancer as a college junior in 2001, left behind relatively few photos of herself compared to the abundance that characterizes the smart phone age. Slick AI-generated images that accompany the text purport to fill the vacuum by depicting her sister, their childhood toys, and scenes from their lives, but the images’ uncanniness instead drives home the technology’s sterility and lifelessness. The inventive formal experiments incorporate scraps of digital media into scathing critiques of the soulless online environment to which they belong. Readers will be profoundly moved by this remarkable meditation. Agent: Susan Golomb, Writers House.
Correction: A previous version of this review stated that Vara’s sister died in 2000. She died in 2001. – Starred Publishers Weekly Review
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Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Vera Wong is back and as meddling as ever in this follow-up to the hit Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.…
Ever since a man was found dead in Vera’s teahouse, life has been good. For Vera that is. She’s surrounded by loved ones, her shop is bustling, and best of all, her son, Tilly, has a girlfriend! All thanks to Vera, because Tilly’s girlfriend is none other than Officer Selena Gray. The very same Officer Gray that she had harassed while investigating the teahouse murder. Still, Vera wishes more dead bodies would pop up in her shop, but one mustn’t be ungrateful, even if one is slightly…bored.
Then Vera comes across a distressed young woman who is obviously in need of her kindly guidance. The young woman is looking for a missing friend. Fortunately, while cat-sitting at Tilly and Selena’s, Vera finds a treasure trove: Selena’s briefcase. Inside is a file about the death of an enigmatic influencer—who also happens to be the friend that the young woman was looking for.
Online, Xander had it all: a parade of private jets, fabulous parties with socialites, and a burgeoning career as a social media influencer. The only problem is, after his body is fished out of Mission Bay, the police can’t seem to actually identify him. Who is Xander Lin? Nobody knows. Every contact is a dead end. Everybody claims not to know him, not even his parents.
Vera is determined to solve Xander’s murder. After all, doing so would surely be a big favor to Selena, and there is nothing she wouldn’t do for her future daughter-in-law.
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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 four library catalogs
The Digital Catalog aka Libby: 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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Kanopy Catalog: https://www.kanopy.com/en
The Kanopy Catalog features thousands of streaming videos available on demand.
The Kanopy Catalog is available for all Southern Tier Library System member library card holders, including all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders!
You can access the Kanopy Catalog through a web browser, or download the app to your phone, tablet or media streaming player (i.e. Roku, Google or Fire TV).
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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 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.
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Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 