Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
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Big Stick Energy by Sarine Bowen
Bowen’s second “New York Legends Hockey” book, after Thrown for a Loop, delivers a romance between Darcy Kendrick, assistant to the general manager of the New York Legends hockey team, and team captain Eric Tremaine. When Darcy receives a wedding invitation from her half-sibling, she decides to enter a fake-dating arrangement with Eric, who is also attending the wedding. Their scheme quickly becomes complicated as real feelings emerge between the two characters. The workplace-romance element adds layers of tension to their relationship as Darcy navigates the implications of dating the team captain while maintaining her position in management. Bowen shifts the focus from hockey to relationship development, allowing readers to dive deeper into the emotional lives of the characters, and the novel explores significantly heavy family dynamics: Eric struggles with his parents’ inability to move on after a death in the family, while Darcy navigates the fallout from her parents’ divorce, affairs, and complicated half-sibling relationships.
VERDICT Fans of the first book in Bowen’s series will enjoy this sequel, which has even more focus on romance. Recommended for readers who want to delve into sports romance with unique workplace dynamics. – Library Journal Review
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The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss by Robert Macfarlane & Jackie Morris
From the best-selling authors of The Lost Words, a dazzling celebration of endangered birds.
The Book of Birds is a field guide with a difference: It shows readers not just how to identify birds, but also how to identify with them. Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris conjure the unique spirit of nearly fifty once-common species: avocet to yellowhammer, kestrel to kingfisher, skylark to nightingale. In lyrical and incantatory essays, Macfarlane describes each bird’s habits and habitats, their patterns of flight and patterns of song, how they hunt or fish or scavenge or gather, how they nest and raise their chicks, the myths that attend them, the threats that shadow them―and how their lives intersect with our own. On every page we encounter Morris’s exhilarating artwork, painted from life in watercolor and gold leaf, and animated with an extraordinary attention to detail. The Book of Birds is a love letter to the thrilling variety and mysteries of birdlife, and a clarion call to halt the rapid depletion of our skies.
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Bulletproof by K. M. Moronova
He was built to be bulletproof. She’s the one thing that can break him. Briar Thornton has spent months outrunning her past, but when she’s drawn to the small Montana town of Bane Falls with the death of her late uncle and his estate to handle, she runs straight into a new nightmare—and a man more dangerous than the one who tried to kill her. Roman Syxx isn’t a savior. He’s a weapon—cold, precise, and programmed by the Dark Forces to destroy anything and anyone. As the lieutenant of the covert Icarus Squad, he’s in Bane Falls on orders: infiltrate, eliminate, disappear. But the new girl that randomly shows up in the small town fractures his control in ways no enemy ever could. Drawn together by their traumas, they burn through each other’s defenses until love feels as lethal as war. And when Briar’s hidden connection to Roman’s mission is exposed, both will learn that freedom always comes with a body count.
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The Great Wherever by Shannon Sanders
Award-winning short-story author Sanders (Company, 2023) returns with a debut novel that is part family saga, part historical fiction, part ghost story, and entirely captivating. We meet Aubrey Lamb on the night her boyfriend of four years ends things and just a year after losing her father. As she struggles to cope and navigate multiple jobs to afford her life in Washington, DC, the inheritance of a family farm in Tennessee offers not only a distraction from her heartbreak, but also an opportunity to connect with her extended family. As Aubrey contemplates the future of her family’s land, the complicated and fraught origins of her heritage are told through the story of her great-grandfather. Throughout the novel, the ghosts of her ancestors observe the daily lives of their descendants and the story unfolds under their watchful eyes. Sanders expertly portrays familial relationships, imbuing her characters with pathos and humor as they grapple with the complexities of family legacy. Give to readers of The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois (2021), by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. Booklist Review
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Revolutionary by Alex Myers
As a former indentured servant in Colonial Massachusetts, Deborah Sampson (1760-1827) leads a constricted life. Frequently chided for her desire for independence, she reaches a breaking point and runs away. Tall and strong, she dresses as a man to escape and soon finds untold freedom, respect, and comfort when she joins the Continental Army as Robert Shurtliff. But there are risks as well. Besides the dangers of battle and the fear of being discovered, there is the effect on Deborah/Robert’s sense of self: while increasingly comfortable at being Robert, the deceit of having to hide her true and complex nature takes its toll. The author is transgender and writes well about identity and gender, but sticklers for a historical voice may be disappointed. While based on true events and a real person, Myers’s debut novel is more interested in Deborah/Robert’s internal journey than in immersing readers in period detail.
VERDICT Despite some flaws, this work offers a new take on historical accounts of transgender people; Myers explores not just how Deborah manages to pass as a man but her reasons for doing so.– Library Journal 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 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 