Hi everyone, here are our recommended reads for the week.
Format Note: Under each book title you’ll find a list of all the different formats that specific title is available in; including: Print Books, Large Print Books, CD Audiobooks, eBooks & Downloadable Audiobooks from the Digital Catalog (Libby app) and Hoopla eBooks & Hoopla Downloadable Audiobooks (Hoopla app).
*More information on the three catalogs is found at the end of the list of recommended reads*
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Weekly Suggested Reading postings are published on Tuesdays.
And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Tuesday, November 9, 2021.
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The Attic on Queen Street by Karen White
(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)
White finishes her Tradd Street series with panache. Doughnut-addicted realtor Melanie Trenholm’s ability to see and converse with ghosts has caused considerable turmoil in her life. The old house she inherited in Charleston has provided thrills, chills, and unhappiness. Her husband, Jack, a bestselling author and father of their twins, is still angry with her for finding a long-lost treasure while he was ill–a treasure that was stolen along with his book idea by villainous Marc Longo. Since Longo thinks more treasure, the mythical half of the Hope Diamond, is still hidden in the house, he’s constantly snooping around. Mellie’s even more concerned with the spirit of a young woman who died on the property in the 1800s. The ghost appears to Jack’s teen daughter, Nola, warning her to beware of a tall man. In addition, a creepy doll in a coffin pops up, along with piles of antique buttons. While Jack blows hot and cold, Mellie researches the identity of the monitory apparition and begins to wonder if the mystical diamond might exist. This last dispatch from Tradd Street is so closely linked to the prior six that readers are well advised to start from the beginning. Charleston and its rich history provide a lovely backdrop to this tale of mystery, romance, and danger. – Kirkus Review
Reader’s note: This is the seventh book in the Tradd Street series. If you’d like to start reading at the beginning of the series check out: The House on Tradd Street.
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The Bride Finder by Susan Carroll
(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)
Praise for The Bride Finder:
“An intriguing tale that proves the wounds of the heart can be healed by the magic of true love.” –Nora Roberts
“The Bride Finder is an absolutely beautiful love story , a spellbinding combination of magic, passion and destiny.” –Kristin Hannah.
“The Bride Finder is totally fresh and original. . .The dynamite plot has a fascinating premise that keeps you riveted to the last page and still wanting more when you’re finally forced to close the book.” –Iris Johansen
High atop the cliffs of Cornwall, a mysterious castle stands, home to the St. Legers, a family possessed of otherworldly powers. Haunted by this legacy, Anatole St. Leger lives in lonely isolation until the day he is forced to yield to his family’s strangest tradition. Forbidden by an ancient curse to choose his own wife, Anatole must rely on the services of a distant cousin. Known as the Bride Finder, Septimus Fitzleger is blessed with the unique gift to find the woman who is Anatole’s destiny.
Madeline Breton is that chosen bride. Wooed by Fitzleger’s promises of a happily-ever-after marriage, the sensible Madeline dares to dream and travels to Cornwall to meet her new husband. But Anatole is nothing like the gentle scholar of her imagination. With his strapping physique and wild black hair, he appears more like an ancient Celtic warrior, guarding both his family secrets and his heart.
Yet somewhere in the depths of his fierce dark eyes, Madeline catches glimpses of a man who is as vulnerable and lonely as she is. Despite their differences, passion ignites between them. But before the Bride Finder’s promise of a forever love can be fulfilled, a dangerous foe returns, seeking revenge against all St. Legers.
Madeline must summon all her courage to defeat this enemy and save the man she loves before it is too late…
On A Reader’s Note: This is the first book in a trilogy that follows the same family – the St Legers. The Second book is: The Night Drifter and the third is: The Midnight Bride. All three eBooks are available in the Digital Catalog.
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The Christmas Bookshop: A Novel by Jenny Colgan
(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)
Perfect for the holidays! A brand-new heartwarming Christmas novel from the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Bookshop on the Corner and Christmas at the Island Hotel.
When the department store she works in closes for good, Carmen has perilously little cash and few options. She doesn’t want to move in with her perfect sister Sofia, in Sofia’s perfect house with her perfect children and her perfectly ordered Edinburgh life.
Frankly, Sofia doesn’t exactly want Carmen there either. Her sister has always been sarcastic and difficult. But Sofia has yet another baby on the way, a mother desperate to see her daughters get along, and a client who needs a retail assistant for his ailing bookshop, so welcoming Carmen might still have some benefits for everyone.
At Sofia’s behest, Carmen is thrown into the daily workings of old Mr. McCredie’s ancient bookshop on the streets of the old dark city. Can she use her design skills to revamp the store and bring it back to popularity in time to benefit from Christmas shopping traffic? Can she choose between bad boy literary rock star Blair and quiet Quaker student Oke? And will she heal the rift with the most important people of all: her family?
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Compass Rose by Anna Burke
(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook & Hoopla instant checkout eBook)
In the year 2513, the only thing higher than the seas is what’s at stake for those who sail them. Rose was born facing due north, with an inherent perception of cardinal points flowing through her veins. Her uncanny sense of direction earns her a coveted place among the Archipelago Fleet elite, but it also attracts the attention of Admiral Comita, who sends her on a secret mission deep into pirate territory. Accompanied by a ragtag crew of mercenaries and under the command of Miranda, a captain as bloodthirsty as she is alluring, Rose discovers the hard way that even the best sense of direction won’t be enough to keep her alive if she can’t learn to navigate something far more dangerous than the turbulent seas. Aboard the mercenary ship, Man o’ War, Rose learns quickly that trusting the wrong person can get you killed—and Miranda’s crew have no intention of making things easy for her—especially Miranda’s trusted first mate, Orca, who is as stubborn as she is brutal.
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Day of Wrath: A Novel by William J. Coughlin
(Available Formats: Print Book)
The city’s criminal courthouse is an unlikely place to find an ambitious state supreme court justice.
Insiders call it “the Zoo” because it’s full of animals, the dregs of the city’s underbelly. A group of judges hatch a plot to clean out the pens, thinking that their plan will de-clog the system.
But a plan that began as a simple stepping-stone to power savagely backfires and the judges of the criminal court are caught in the middle of an ugly terrorist plot.
A small band of terrorists, calling themselves the World Liberation Army, invades the courthouse during the judges’ monthly meeting, demanding the release of two of their soldiers and threatening everyone who stands in their way.
The judges, prosecutors, probation officers, and countless innocent bystanders are caught up in a ruthless and horrifying vortex of violence, and not everyone will escape unscathed.
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The Judge’s List by John Grisham
(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook & Downloadable Audiobook)
A vigorous thriller that gets out of the courtroom and into the swampier corners of the Redneck Riviera. Judges are supposed to dispense justice, not administer the death penalty on their own initiative. That’s just what Lacy Stoltz is up against, though. The protagonist of The Whistler (2016), she’s a jaded investigator for Florida’s Board on Judicial Conduct, which, thanks to budget cuts, is dying on the vine, “a leaderless mess.” Lacy acts on complaints, and she receives a doozy from a well-put-together Black woman who introduces herself as Margie, though she admits that’s an alias. Her father, a much-respected professor of constitutional law, had retired to South Carolina and was murdered by an unknown killer. Now the coldest of cold cases, his death is a link in an evidentiary chain that only Margie–her real name is Jeri Crosby–has managed to construct. The murderer: a circuit judge sitting in Pensacola, biding his time until he can cross off the next victim on a deeply personal to-be-avenged list. Judge Bannick has more money than God and more technological goodies than Lex Luthor, but though a psycho, he puts on a good public face. Lacy is resistant at first, given that her normal brief is to investigate complaints about drunkenness or corruption, but she allows that “six murders would certainly liven up her caseload.” And then some. We don’t meet the killing judge until halfway through the book, and then he’s a model of clinical badness in a game of cat and mouse that ends in–well, a rather frothily grisly moment. As with all his procedurals, Grisham injects professorial notes on crime and justice into the proceedings: “This country averages fifteen thousand murders a year. One-third are never solved….Since 1960, over two hundred thousand.” And as ever, with one body unaccounted for, he leaves the door ajar to admit a sequel–one that, with luck, will team Lacy with the much more energetic Jeri to enact some justice of their own. A shiny bauble of mayhem sure to please Grisham’s many fans. – Kirkus Review
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Oh William! By Elizabeth Stout
(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook & Downloadable Audiobook)
Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout explores the mysteries of marriage and the secrets we keep, as a former couple reckons with where they’ve come from—and what they’ve left behind.
“Elizabeth Strout is one of my very favorite writers, so the fact that Oh William! may well be my favorite of her books is a mathematical equation for joy. The depth, complexity, and love contained in these pages is a miraculous achievement.”—Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House
I would like to say a few things about my first husband, William.
Lucy Barton is a writer, but her ex-husband, William, remains a hard man to read. William, she confesses, has always been a mystery to me. Another mystery is why the two have remained connected after all these years.
They just are.
So Lucy is both surprised and not surprised when William asks her to join him on a trip to investigate a recently uncovered family secret—one of those secrets that rearrange everything we think we know about the people closest to us. What happens next is nothing less than another example of what Hilary Mantel has called Elizabeth Strout’s “perfect attunement to the human condition.” There are fears and insecurities, simple joys and acts of tenderness, and revelations about affairs and other spouses, parents and their children. On every page of this exquisite novel we learn more about the quiet forces that hold us together—even after we’ve grown apart.
At the heart of this story is the indomitable voice of Lucy Barton, who offers a profound, lasting reflection on the very nature of existence. “This is the way of life,” Lucy says: “the many things we do not know until it is too late.”
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Silverview: A Novel by John le Carré
(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)
First-rate prose and a fascinating plot distinguish the final novel from MWA Grand Master le Carré (1931–2020). Two months after leaving a banking job in London, 33-year-old Julian Lawndsley gets a visit from an eccentric customer, Edward Avon, just before closing time at the bookshop Julian now runs in East Anglia. When Julian asks the man what he does, he replies, “Let us say I am a British mongrel, retired, a former academic of no merit and one of life’s odd-job men.” The next morning, Julian runs into Edward at the local café, where Edward claims he knew Julian’s late father at Oxford. Julian later learns that Edward, a Polish emigré, was recruited into the Service years before. Julian senses something is off, as does the head of Domestic Security for the Service, who’s investigating Edward’s wife, an Arabist and outstanding Service intelligence analyst. While laying out the Avons’ intriguing backstories and their current activities, le Carré highlights the evils spies and governments have perpetrated on the world. Many readers will think the book is unfinished—it ends abruptly—but few will find it unsatisfying. This is a fitting coda to a remarkable career. – Publishers Weekly Review
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Striking Range by Margaret Mizushima
(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook, Hoopla instant checkout eBook & audiobook)
In the continuing search for answers to her father’s murder, Timber Creek sheriff’s deputy Mattie Cobb plans to meet with a Colorado state prison inmate, but he’s found dead in his cell on the day of their planned interview. He leaves Maddie a possible clue, in a map to Timber Creek and the surrounding wilderness. Mattie, her K-9 partner Robo, and cold case detective Jim Hauck follow the clue into the mountains, trying to beat a blizzard. They find only one of the prisoner’s stashes before Mattie is called away to the scene of a murder–a young mother has been found dead at a campground, and there’s no sign of her newborn. The sheriff’s department brings in everyone to search, fearing the baby will be found frozen. As they comb the mountains, one of their own is the victim of a hit-and-run, and the blizzard traps Mattie’s boyfriend, veterinarian Cole Walker, with a desperate man connected to the cold case and the missing infant. The man sets a trap for Mattie and Robo that leads to a dramatic chase on a mountain trail. VERDICT Mizushima’s follow-up to Hanging Falls still leaves questions about Mattie’s past. The tension and drama of this series installment will satisfy fans of K-9 partners and solid police procedurals.- Starred Library Journal Review
Reader’s Note: This is the seventh book in the Timber Creek K-9 Mystery series. If you’d like to read the series from the beginning, check out the first book: Killing Trail.
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The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl
(Available Formats: eBook)
So, I’ve written a book.
Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities (“It’s a piece of cake! Just do 4 hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!”) I have decided to write these stories just as I have always done, in my own hand. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I’ve recorded and can’t wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child.
This certainly doesn’t mean that I’m quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it’s like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters…the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement. – David Grohl
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Have a great week!
Linda Reimer
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*Information on the Three Catalogs*
Digital Catalog: https://stls.overdrive.com/
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, downloadable audiobooks, digital magazines and a handful of streaming videos. The catalog, which allows one to download content to a PC, also has a companion app, Libby, which you can download to your mobile device; so you can enjoy eBooks and downloadable audiobooks 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 instant checkouts of eBooks, downloadable audiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV series. Patron check out limit is 6 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla App is available for Android or Apple devices and most smart TVs & media streaming players.
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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.
The StarCat app is called Bookmyne and is available for Apple and Android devices.
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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
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Have questions or want to request a book?
Feel free to call the library! Our telephone number is 607-936-3713.
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