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, May 14, 2025.
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Austen At Sea: A Novel by Natalie Jenner
Henrietta and Charlotte lost their mother early in life and became the center of their father’s world. Now in 1865, Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice William Stevenson feels pride in his determined adult daughters. Denied entrance to college, the sisters chose to discuss notable authors, attend suffragette rallies, and petition their father for the right to travel. Writing in secret to Sir Francis Austen, brother of Jane Austen, and receiving an invitation to hear family stories in person, the sisters board the next transatlantic ship without informing anyone. Acquiring a last-minute chaperone doesn’t quell the sister’s excitement in making new friends, including Lousia May Alcott, but their real adventure begins with Sir Austen. Author of the best-selling The Jane Austen Society (2020), Jenner returns to Austen territory, prefacing her new tale with a cast of characters and a map of key locations. The novel is packed with details about the Austen family, references to Dickens, a semifictionalized Alcott, and intricately interwoven insights into the political and domestic life of the young U.S. Every page will induce readers to undertake further investigations. Janeites will be enthralled, and all readers will appreciate this richly dimensional historical outing. – Starred Booklist Review
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Children Of Eve: A Thriller by John Connolly
Connolly’s bewitching latest whodunit featuring Maine PI Charlie Parker (after The Instruments of Darkness) combines hard-boiled tropes with supernatural elements. Parker is hired by eccentric artist Zetta Nadeau after her boyfriend, Wyatt Riggins, receives a text message that reads “Run,” then vanishes. Parker’s attempt to track down Riggins coincides with a series of gruesome murders, committed by a killer who removes their victims’ still-beating hearts. Initially, Parker’s investigation points him in the direction of Riggins’s work at a marijuana dispensary owned by mobster Devin Vaughn, who conspired to kidnap the children of Mexican drug kingpin Blas Urrea. Meanwhile, Connolly weaves in a subplot about Parker’s dead daughter, Jennifer, who’s stuck in an unidentified spiritual limbo, where she’s targeted by sinister angels who try to persuade her to enter a realm where she’ll lose her memories. Connolly once again flexes his gifts for vivid characterization and striking prose (“The shirts matched the brilliance of his dentition”). This long-running series shows no signs of slowing down. – Starred Publishers Weekly Review
Reader’s Note: Children of Eve is the twenty-second book in the Charlie Parker series. If you’d like to binge read from the beginning, checkout book one: Every Dead Thing.
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Old School Indian: A Novel by Aaron John Curtis
A Native American man returns home to heal wounds both literal and metaphorical. Abe Jacobs, the hero of Curtis’ finely tuned debut, is 43 and seriously ill. He’s taken a break from his job as a bookseller in Miami (and from his wife, Alexandria East), to visit family on a Mohawk reservation in upstate New York. He’s suffering from chronic fatigue and lesions on his legs that baffle his doctors; while he waits for a formal diagnosis, he skeptically but desperately accepts some folk treatment from a great-uncle. Otherwise, he spends his stay reconnecting with friends and family, attempting to make sense of his various past struggles: a depression that led to a suicide attempt, a difficult open relationship with Alex, and a stalled career as a poet. That last challenge gives the novel a poignant, lyrical lift: An alter ego of Abe’s, Dominick Deer Woods, regularly intrudes on the narrative, sharing excerpts of Abe’s poetry and generally serving as his snarkier, more confident self. (“Abe? He’s just the guy with the rotting skin who panicked and fled his wife, friends, and job in Miami. Why should he need to know what’s going on? It’s just his sanity.”) Some of those sidebars deal with Native American life, from food to tribal relationships, to the bigotry that informs Abe’s skepticism of traditional medicine, to forced sterilizations, and more. A formal diagnosis, when it finally arrives, pushes the narrative into a deeper, more soulful, and in some ways more surprising territory. Thematically, the novel contains echoes of Leslie Marmon Silko’s classic Ceremony (1977), which also dealt with themes of trauma and Indigenous paths to healing. But Curtis’ voice is his own, and its ending, while a left turn, feels wholly earned. An affecting tale of loss and healing that thrives through its seriocomic style. – Starred Kirkus Review
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One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune
Good things happen at the lake. That’s what Alice’s grandmother says, and it’s true. Alice spent just one summer there at a cottage with Nan when she was seventeen—it’s where she took that photo, the one of three grinning teenagers in a yellow speedboat, the image that changed her life.
Now Alice lives behind a lens. As a photographer, she’s most comfortable on the sidelines, letting other people shine. Lately though, she’s been itching for something more, and when Nan falls and breaks her hip, Alice comes up with a plan for them both: another summer in that magical place, Barry’s Bay. But as soon as they settle in, their peace is disrupted by the roar of a familiar yellow boat, and the man driving it.
Charlie Florek was nineteen when Alice took his photo from afar. Now he’s all grown up—a shameless flirt, who manages to make Nan laugh and Alice long to be seventeen again, when life was simpler, when taking pictures was just for fun. Sun-slanted days and warm nights out on the lake with Charlie are a balm for Alice’s soul, but when she looks up and sees his piercing green gaze directly on her, she begins to worry for her heart.
Because Alice sees people—that’s why she is so good at what she does—but she’s never met someone who looks and sees her right back.
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What Happens in Amsterdam by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Falling in love with your husband is anything but convenient in this steamy romance from the New York Times bestselling author of Business or Pleasure.
Dani Dorfman has somehow made it to her thirties without knowing what she wants to do with her life. So when an office romance ends poorly and gets her fired, she applies for a job in Amsterdam, idly dreaming of escaping the mess she’s created, but never imagining she’ll actually get it.
Except she does. By the end of her first week in Amsterdam, she’s never felt more adrift or alone. Then she crashes her bike into her high school ex-boyfriend—and suddenly life is blooming with new opportunities.
Wouter van Leeuwen was a Dutch exchange student Dani’s family hosted, a forbidden love that ended in a painful breakup. Years later, there’s still sizzling chemistry between them, and okay, maybe a little animosity. More importantly, Wouter needs to be married to inherit a gorgeous family home on a canal—and when Dani’s job falls apart, she needs a visa. As the marriage of convenience pushes them together in unexpected ways, Dani must decide whether her new life is yet another mistake—or if it’s worth taking a risk on a second chance.
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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 