Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
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King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby
Roman Carruthers did it. He got out. He left the dying town of Jefferson Run, Virginia, and he built himself a prosperous life making money for other people. When he learns that his father is in a coma after a car accident, he flies home immediately to find a family in disarray: a sister who’s become obsessed with the long-ago disappearance of their mother, and a brother who’s deep in debt to some very bad people. Can Roman somehow find a way to bring peace to his family, even as his father lies dying? Cosby has published one magnificent crime novel after another, beginning with 2019’s My Darkest Prayer, and this new book spotlights the author’s gift for building complex characters. It also continues his exploration of the dark places humans keep hidden within us. His dialogue, too, is pitch-perfect: colloquial and idiomatic, reflecting the education and upbringing of his characters–it feels like we’re eavesdropping on real people. A stunning novel.
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Cosby’s rural southern noir mysteries have become consistent best-sellers, and this one comes out in time for beach read season. – Booklist Review
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The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater
It’s January 1942, and in the immediate aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, the regal Avallon Hotel in rural West Virginia has been requisitioned by the United States government as a detention center for diplomats from Axis countries. General manager June Hudson, who controls the hotel and the mysterious sweetwater that runs through the property, must convince her staff–men who are worried about being drafted into the war, and women with family members heading off to fight–to offer the same level of service to the detainees as they do to their regular guests. Complicating matters is the presence of the State Department and the FBI, especially mysterious agent Tucker Minnick, who has more of a connection to the region and the sweetwater than he initially lets on. June must be careful as she navigates her loyalties to the hotel and the realities of life during wartime.
VERDICT YA author Stiefvater’s (“The Raven Cycle”) first foray into historical fiction retains her unique voice and signature magical realism. Well-drawn characters and excellent worldbuilding bring a little-known element of World War II to life in this must-read for all historical fiction fans.-Starred Library Journal Review
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Poet’s Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats by Courtney Gustafson
Sad Boy and Lola, Monkey, and Mr. Bigbutt are just a few of the feral cats featured on Gustafson’s social media pages, @poetsquarecats. Gustafson had no idea that after moving into her new home in Tucson’s Poets Square neighborhood, the 30 feral cats living on and around the property would change the trajectory of her life and career. After months of haphazardly tossing kibble at the wayward ferals and lamenting over how best to care for them on her meager nonprofit salary, Gustafson took some chances, learning about TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) efforts and feral cat care just as the COVID-19 pandemic struck. In alternating story lines–one often connected to a specific cat and the other to Gustafson’s life experiences–she shares her battles with mental health, chronic illness, and quarter-life crisis. As she contemplates her life and internet virality, Gustafson grapples with perception by the online masses, the significant and empowering love of an animal, misogyny in rescue work, the financial strain of pet ownership, the ache of animal loss, and most importantly, how to develop a community. Her riveting and emotional vignettes are loaded with humanity and all the important lessons we can learn from little creatures just trying to survive. – Starred Booklist Review
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Three Junes by Julia Glass
A National Book Award Winner.
This strong and memorable debut novel draws the reader deeply into the lives of several central characters during three separate Junes spanning ten years. At the story’s onset, Scotsman Paul McLeod, the father of three grown sons, is newly widowed and on a group tour of the Greek islands as he reminisces about how he met and married his deceased wife and created their family. Next, in the book’s longest section, we see the world through the eyes of Paul’s eldest son, Fenno, a gay man transplanted to New York City and owner of a small bookstore, who learns lessons about love and loss that allow him to grow in unexpected ways. And finally there is Fern, an artist and book designer whom Paul met on his trip to Greece several years earlier. She is now a young widow, pregnant and also living in New York City, who must make sense of her own past and present to be able to move forward in her life. In this novel, expectations and revelations collide in startling ways. Alternately joyful and sad, this exploration of modern relationships and the families people both inherit or create for themselves is highly recommended for all fiction collections. – Booklist Review
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With a Vengeance: A Novel by Riley Sager
Sager’s newest book, With a Vengeance, is also one of his very best. The setup is simple: in the mid-1950s, Anna Matheson invites a handful of people to take a cross-country journey, overnight from Philadelphia to Chicago, aboard a luxury train. Who is Anna? What is her relationship to these seemingly unconnected people? All will be revealed in the author’s good time: Sager demonstrates his gift for dispensing information a piece at a time by keeping the reader in a constant state of suspense. And, anyway, Anna’s plan–one enacting her own idea of justice–goes tragically wrong when one of the passengers is apparently murdered, and the killer begins picking off passengers, one by one. Back at the top of his game, Sager delivers a thriller so tautly written, so tightly constructed, that readers will emerge from the book breathless and in a mild state of shock. With this book, Sager has committed an act of brilliance.
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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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Suggested Reading Five posts are published on Wednesdays.
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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 