Tag: Readers Advisory

Suggested Reading Five: January 7, 2026

Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!

An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole 

Ellory Morgan feels a bit isolated as an older-than-average freshman at the prestigious Warren University, arriving with a handful of community college credits and a Godwin Scholarship, which entails a full ride with high expectations and a work-study job. She immediately goes head-to-head with Hudson Graves, whose family donated the campus library, as the two of them are both brilliant Black students from vastly different backgrounds in a wealthy, white academic environment. Their paths continue to cross, with inexplicable incidents of both déjà vu and possibly magic drawing their analytical minds towards the puzzle of mysterious disappearances across the history of their campus. With their friends’ help, they use a cross-section of magical heritage and institutional knowledge to delve into the mysteries, drawing them into a seance with the library ghost and other strange occurrences. As the plot untangles, a surprising twist has Ellory making life-or-death decisions for her friends. Cole’s adult debut is an unusual dark academia tale that diverges from an obvious enemies-to-lovers conclusion to build a richer story. – Booklist Review 

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The First Time I Saw Him by Laura Dave 

Dave’s latest takes place five years after the events of The Last Thing He Told Me, in which Hannah Hall and her stepdaughter Bailey had to run for their lives after Hannah’s husband Owen disappeared. They’ve now settled into a new life, with Bailey a recent college graduate and Hannah a successful artist. They even both have a good relationship with Hannah’s grandfather, whom they have grown to love and trust. Then unexpected events cause Hannah and Bailey to flee once again for their safety. Twists and turns will keep readers guessing throughout the novel at how it will all end. Chapters jump back and forth between past and present, but with smooth transitions that flow with the story. The characters’ love and concern for each other show through their thoughts and actions, and even minor characters show their loyalty by keeping long-ago promises. VERDICT This sequel is sure to be a hit, with fans of the first novel or its Apple TV+ series adaptation lining up to read it. A definite buy for most collections. – Library Journal Review 

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Pride And Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution by Amanda Vaill 

Vaill  examines the lives of Angelica Schuyler Church and Elizabeth “”Eliza”” Schuyler Hamilton, the unconventional eldest daughters of the prominent Schuyler family. Following their wealthy childhoods in upstate New York, Angelica and Eliza socialized with prominent figures during the American Revolution. Eliza married Alexander Hamilton, and Vaill recounts their relationship and how Eliza helped Hamilton create several of the nation’s founding documents. Angelica married a businessman, moved to England, and became a witness to the wider effects of unrest in Europe. Vaill relates the main events of the Revolutionary War and other volatile events while interweaving Angelica and Eliza’s experiences. After Hamilton is killed in a duel, Eliza immersed herself in charity work and fought to preserve his legacy. Vaill speculates on the women’s feelings and motivations where sources are scarce as well as on the suspiciously close relationship between Angelica and Hamilton. A detailed and fascinating story of two strong women. – Booklist Review  

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The Shop On Hidden Lane by Jayne Ann Krentz 

For four generations, the Wells and the Harpers have feuded over the proper professional use of psychic powers. Eventually, a tenuous pact to agree to disagree was reached. Now Sophy Harper and Luke Wells are going to test that pact when Luke’s Uncle Deke disappears, and Luke hires Sophy to “read and clean” the scene of the crime. However, while doing so, Sophy discovers that not only did her beloved Aunt Bea disappear with Deke but all the rumors of “No-Talent” Luke’s lack of physic powers are untrue. Luke seems to have a few psychic tricks up his sleeve, and he is to be the one man who isn’t scared off by Sophy’s own unique talents. Krentz’s (It Takes a Psychic, 2025) latest paranormally imbued romantic-suspense novel, which stands on its own while simultaneously referencing other titles in the Jayneverse, delivers everything her readers crave including a super-cool librarian heroine with an intriguing side hustle, plenty of snappy dialogue, simmering sexual chemistry, and a clever canine who almost steals the show. – Starred Booklist Review  

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The Storm by Rachel Hawkins  

In 1984, Landon Fitzroy is found dead on the beach in St. Medard’s Bay after a hurricane has roared through town. His death is initially thought to be an accident, a horrible case of wrong place, wrong time. When Landon’s affair with local teen Lo Bailey is discovered, Lo is accused of murder and of using the storm to cover up her crime. After she is acquitted, Lo escapes the gossip and leaves town. Forty years later, Geneva Corliss is the current owner of her family’s struggling hotel, The Rosalie Inn. When August, a writer, reserves a room to work on a book about the Fitzroy case, Geneva thinks the publicity may help her save the inn. Unexpectedly accompanying August is Lo, and as another hurricane makes its way toward the town, the truth about what happened in 1984 will be uncovered. Hawkins uses her mastery of multiple time lines and characters to great effect in this quick and enjoyable read, and the pulpy nature of the story will appeal to fans of Sally Hepworth and Laura Dave. – Booklist  

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Happy reading!

Linda Reimer, SSCL

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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.

–

Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are usually published on Wednesdays, unless Monday is a holiday and then they are published later in the week.

–

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.

–

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.

Suggested Reading Five: December 31, 2025

Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!

On another library note, the Southeast Steuben County Library is open abridged hours today, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Additionally, the library is closed tomorrow, January 1, 2026, due to the New Year’s holiday. We will re-open at our regular opening time of 9:00 a.m. on Friday, January 2, 2026. Happy New Year to everyone!

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This week we’re focusing on five of the best non-fiction titles of 2025, again as compiled from a number of “Best of 2025” book lists, links for which may be found at the end of this post.

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Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI by Karen Hao

A well-reported look at the frontiers of information technology as brought to the world courtesy of artificial intelligence. “I think this will be the most transformative and beneficial technology humanity has yet invented,” Silicon Valley tech tycoon Sam Altman once exalted of ChatGPT, the AI engine built on a vast corpus of words. Hao, a writer forThe Atlantic and other publications, takes a more measured view of the accomplishments of Altman and his OpenAI, a tech firm with significant transparency issues and a curious structure, part nonprofit, part for profit. Hao opens with Altman’s being fired in November 2023 at the hands of his board and his quick return to the company with few of those issues resolved, a drama that, Hao writes, “highlighted one of the most urgent questions of our generation: How do we govern artificial intelligence?” It’s an urgent question indeed, given that AI increasingly governs us in making decisions about judicial sentencings, college admissions, health insurance payouts, and so on. Moreover, Hao writes, AI development has become increasingly secretive, with the evolving product put to uses that “could amplify and exploit the fault lines in our society.” Against booster promises that AI will solve the climate crisis and discover a cure for cancer, Hao–who found employees blocked from speaking with her “beyond sanctioned conversations”–looks at some unhappy realities: For one, data centers consume huge amounts of energy, with one planned facility using nearly as much power as New York City; for another, most of the corpus of AI’s large language models overlooks the developing world, where, not coincidentally, a great deal of AI-related grunt work is happening for low wages in places like Kenya and Chile. A pointed account raises needed questions about how AI is to be regulated to do no–or at least less–harm. – Kirkus Review

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Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families by Judith Giesberg 

 The Second Middle Passage, the transportation of enslaved people from one U.S. state to another, forcibly separated families, relocating siblings, parents, children, and spouses across multiple states. The arduous task of locating loved ones who had often not been seen for decades began after the defeat of the Confederacy. Ads placed in newspapers throughout the North and South urgently sought information about long-lost family members. Giesberg (history, Villanova Univ.; Sex and the Civil War) expertly utilizes an archive of thousands of such information-seeking ads published from the end of the Civil War through the 1920s. Many of the stories demonstrate how difficult it could be to locate family members, as searchers tried to remember names, dates, and places. In other instances, people discovered that in the intervening years, their spouses had remarried. While a few stories have endings where family members were reunited, the vast majority show how the horrors of enslavement and forced migration continued to affect Black families for years after emancipation. VERDICT Based on a unique set of sources, this heart-wrenching work should be read by all focused on enslavement studies as well as American and Civil War history. – Starred Library Journal Review

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A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst

British journalist Elmhirst’s first book is the riveting tale of a quirky married couple who survived 117 days lost at sea in the 1970s. Maralyn and Maurice wanted to live a different life from their parents in England, so instead of settling down and buying a house, they got a boat. They spent four years building out their small yacht, the Auralyn. In June 1972, they set off on their planned around-the-world cruise, sailing to Spain, then across the Atlantic and through the Panama Canal. Occasionally, the couple would travel with like-minded couples, but mostly they sailed alone and, at Maurice’s insistence, without a radio transmitter on board. En route to the Galapagos Islands, a dying whale crashes into their hull, and the Auralyn sinks quickly. The couple find themselves alone in the ocean with only a dinghy, a life raft, and what they could salvage from the wreck. The story then follows the next 117 days at sea, as they find all their survival skills tested. Elmhirst reconstructs the tale from Maralyn’s diaries, books the couple wrote after their rescue, and news stories. VERDICT This compelling adventure story of two people sailing around the world without radios or electronics has emotional depth.—Library Journal Review

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Mother Mary Comes To Me by Arundhati Roy

 Roy’s mother Mary was formidable, her brilliance and determination yoked to her “rage and unpredictability.” So dominant and radical was Mary, Roy compares her childhood in Kerala, India, to growing up in a cult requiring “unquestioning obedience and frequently demonstrated adoration of the Mother-Guru,” demands the future writer failed to meet. In the wake of her mother’s death, Booker Prize-winner Roy recounts her unconventional life, beginning with her shocking their small Syrian Christian community by divorcing her husband, clashing with family over property rights, and running a thriving, progressive village school. Mary was also a fierce women’s rights activist even as her viciousness toward her daughter led to a long estrangement. Roy left home young, living hand-to-mouth, studying architecture, and finding her way to love and writing, first screenplays, then, eventually, the novel that made her famous, The God of Small Things (1997). She reconnected with her feckless father and impossible mother as the book’s success brought her controversy and wealth, which she generously shared. Never one to play it safe, Roy began writing daring essays about social and environmental crises, embarking on a “restless, unruly life as a seditious traitor-writer,” traveling across India and Kashmir while facing prosecution, “insults and outrage.” Roy’s stunning, dramatic, funny, far-ranging, and complexly illuminating chronicle portraying two strong-willed women fighting for justice and truth is incandescent in its fury, courage, and love. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Roy’s many avid admirers are eagerly awaiting her first memoir, certain that, as always, she will be astute, provocative, and bewitching. – Starred Booklist Review

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There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone

Homelessness has long been a chronic problem in almost every large American city. However, the common assumption that the homeless are unemployed (and unemployable) is challenged in journalist Goldstone’s heartbreaking book. He does a deep dive into the history and circumstances of several family units in the Atlanta area who have been plagued by homelessness, despite having jobs. These families have found themselves without a home, sometimes because of personal problems but more often through adverse developments beyond their control. Some of them face eviction by a landlord intent on development, some have subsistence jobs that make them unable to afford move-in costs. Occasionally they have enough for a short stay in a cheap motel, sometimes they resort to shelters, sometimes they live in their cars. Learning of the harsh obstacles of daily life for these people will both distress and outrage any reader with an ounce of empathy. At the very least, the reader is made aware of the complexity and severity of the problems of those living on the edges of society. – Booklist Review

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Happy reading!

Linda Reimer, SSCL

–

Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.

–

Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are usually published on Wednesdays, unless Monday is a holiday and then they are published later in the week.

–

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.

–

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.

–

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).

–

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.

–

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.

–

Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

Suggested Reading Five: December 24, 2025

Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!

And on another library note, just a reminder, the library is closed today, Wednesday, December 24, and tomorrow, Thursday, December 25 for the Christmas holiday. We will re-open on Friday, December 26 at our usual opening time of 9:00 a.m.

This week we’re going to take a look at five of the best romances of 2025, selected from several Best of 2025 book lists – links to the lists are found at the end of this post.

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After Hours at Dooryard Books by Cat Sebastian 

1968 New York City

News about the war might be keeping Patrick up at night—news in general might be keeping Patrick up at night—but he’s doing fine. He’s sure of it. He gets to spend his days selling books in the gayest neighborhood on the East Coast and his nights merrily sleeping his way through the rare book community. But when he takes in a drifter who seems to be hiding something, and his best friend and her newborn move into the apartment upstairs, his life gets turned on its head.

A sleepy little bookstore should be the perfect place for Nathaniel to lie low, waiting for his past to catch up with him, but it turns out Dooryard Books is full of political radicals and anti-war agitators. If the FBI isn’t actively surveilling this place, it will be. Nathaniel should go anywhere else. The last thing he expects is to like these subversives. There’s a grieving folk musician and her baby—a demon of a child who will only sleep if Nathaniel, of all people, holds her. There’s a pair of rabble-rousing teenagers who, upsettingly, seem to be right about everything. And then there’s Patrick, who can’t walk past anyone who needs his help—and who is perplexingly determined to help Nathaniel.

As the world balances on the precipice of something new and scary and maybe even hopeful, Patrick needs to decide what he’s willing to risk for this chaotic new community he’s accidentally created. And Nathaniel needs to figure out whether he has a place in this messy, flawed world—and whether he can believe he deserves it.

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Consider Yourself Kissed by Jessica Stanley 

In her U.S. debut, Stanley follows a decade in the life of Coralie Bower, beginning in 2013 when she’s newly arrived in London. A chance encounter with Adam, a handsome journalist, blossoms into a romance, and her life becomes everything she’s hoped for. But the reasons she left Australia–family issues, an abusive boss–still lurk. Adam is her rock throughout numerous life events, but when their first daughter’s birth coincides with a major book deal for Adam, Coralie finds herself struggling to stay afloat. As the years pass, Coralie feels like she’s surrendered herself to motherhood and managing the household, abandoning her own dreams to ensure that Adam succeeds. By the time COVID hits, the resentment has built, and Coralie realizes that something must change. Stanley cleverly entwines British politics with the plot of the story, grounding the narrative in a specific time. The trajectory of Coralie and Adam’s relationship is authentic, and the family relationships enhance the story, providing further detail about the characters’ motivations. Fans of Jojo Moyes will be drawn into this emotionally candid deep dive into a long-term relationship.

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Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone 

 

Six months after cancer took her beloved best friend and roommate, Lou, Helen “Lenny” Bellamy is still adrift, spending most nights riding the Staten Island Ferry instead of returning to the apartment she once shared with Lou or trying to check items off Lou’s “Live Again” list. An experienced nanny, Lenny can keep herself together only for short-term gigs like a weekend with Ainslie, an eight-year-old girl with a single mom and a grumpy uncle named Miles, who seems to see right through Lenny’s fragile facade. Having lost his mother and cousin in a car accident years ago, and more recently his father and Ainslie’s pop pop, Miles is determined to be a lifeboat for Lenny, with no judgment. As Miles helps Lenny fulfill the items on Lou’s list, they both find they have so many things to live for. VERDICT A stunning book by Bastone (Ready or Not), who delivers another slow-burn and emotional romance that doesn’t shy away from also exploring life’s hardest moments. Recommended for readers who also enjoy Abby Jimenez. – Starred Library Journal

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Sweet Heat by Bolu Babalola 

 Sweet and spicy second-chance romance animates this delightfully layered contemporary from Babalola (Honey and Spice). Kiki Banjo was heartbroken after her first love, filmmaker Malakai Korede, left London for what was supposed to be a six-month job in Los Angeles only to never return. Fast-forward three years, and Kiki has a wealthy new man (though she’s not sure how she feels about him) and doles out romantic advice as the host of popular podcast The Heartbeat. When her employer insists on bringing an out-of-touch white woman in as Kiki’s cohost, Kiki quits. In the midst of this personal upheaval, she has to put on a smile to play maid of honor at her best friend’s wedding, a task made harder by the knowledge that Malakai is the best man. After the pair’s reunion at the engagement party, they struggle to navigate the still-powerful attraction between them. When a musician they both love asks Malakai to direct and Kiki to produce a documentary, working together brings even more old feelings to the surface. Babalola has a talent for convincingly depicting the extremes of human emotion, from devastating heartbreak to intense passion, and her characters feel wonderfully real and well rounded. Readers won’t be able to resist. – Publishers Weekly Review

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Time Loops and Meet Cutes by Jackie Lau 

Lau (Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie) offers up a fun contemporary rom-com with a Groundhog Day twist. Workaholic mechanical engineer Noelle Tom has been in survival mode for most of her life, believing she can find a straightforward solution to every problem if she keeps her head down and works hard. However, after eating some magical dumplings that make her endlessly repeat the day she ate them, Noelle abruptly discovers the flaws in her worldview. Now no matter what she does–leaving her time zone, quitting her job, or trying to find other magic dumplings to reverse the spell–she can’t escape June 20. There are some unexpected benefits to this mystical problem: she finds a friend in Avery, who is also stuck in the loop after eating the same dumplings, and she gets myriad, consequence-free chances at redoing her first meeting with handsome brewery manager Cam Huang, who, strangely enough, seems to subconsciously remember Noelle through hundreds of meet-cutes. Despite the repetition, Lau keeps the pace moving at a brisk clip, thanks in large part to Noelle’s attempts to apply the scientific method to her predicament. The author’s fans will be very pleased with this breezy treat. – Publishers Weekly Review

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References with Links

Colgan, J. (2025, December 4). The five best romance books of 2025. The Guardian; The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/04/five-best-romance-books-2025-ali-hazelwood-bolu-babalola-jessica-stanley

New York Public Library. (2025). Best Books. Nypl.org. https://www.nypl.org/books-more/recommendations/best-books/adults?year=2025&f%5B0%5D=terms%3ARomance

Puckett-Pope, L. (2025, November 14). The Best Books of Fall 2025, According to ELLE Editors. ELLE. https://www.elle.com/culture/books/g69251844/best-books-fall-2025/

Waite, O. (2025, December 9). The Best Romance Books of 2025. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/books/review/best-romance-books-2025.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7U8.C_Eg.i5cFvhqPxSwv&smid=nytcore-ios-share

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Happy reading!

Linda Reimer, SSCL

–

Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.

–

Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are usually published on Wednesdays, unless Monday is a holiday and then they are published later in the week.

–

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.

–

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.

–

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).

–

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.

–

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.

–

Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

Suggested Reading Five: December 4, 2025

Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!

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Home of the American Circus: A Novel by Allison Larkin 

In Larkin’s charming latest (after The People We Keep), a 30-something woman forges an unexpected bond with her teenage niece. Freya, a bartender in coastal Maine, returns to her hometown in the Hudson Valley after her parents die in a car accident, having inherited the ramshackle house she grew up in. She’s surprised to find her troubled niece Aubrey, 15, secretly living in the house. The reason at first seems to be teenage rebellion, but the troubling truth is gradually revealed, along with Freya’s fraught history with her sister, Steena, who is Aubrey’s mother, and with Steena’s scummy husband, Charlie. Freya gets a job at a local inn and reconnects with old friends, who, along with Aubrey, help her repair the house. While the storytelling is simplistic—Steena, Charlie, and the sisters’ late mother are dastardly, while those on Freya and Aubrey’s side are correspondingly good-hearted—Larkin explores with tenderness and nuance the strong yet complicated relationship between her protagonists, and successfully uses the details of home repair as a metaphor for the rebuilding of Freya’s and Aubrey’s lives. It’s a cozy tale of new beginnings. – Publishers Weekly Review  

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Murder in Constantinople by A.E. Goldin 

DEBUT Ben Canaan, the son of a Jewish East End tailor in 1850s London, finds himself at the center of the international intrigue of the Crimean War in this first entry in a swashbuckling and highly entertaining series. Ben, dissatisfied with his lot in life and itching for more, runs afoul of the law, his family, and a local gangster. Discovering a recent photo of a lost love he believed was dead, Ben escapes to Constantinople to find her. Once there, he is pursued by the police and embroiled in a series of political murders called the White Death, plus a conspiracy that threatens the life of the sultan of the Ottoman Empire with potentially disastrous outcomes for Britain in the Crimean War. Although the book includes numerous plot contrivances and derring-do stereotypes, Goldin writes Ben with such verve and fun that he’s a natural companion to Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence and John Buchan’s Richard Hannay. VERDICT Goldin interweaves romance and vibrant local and historical color into this winning first novel. Readers willing to fully suspend their disbelief will be delighted by this boisterous and charming espionage mystery.-Library Journal Review  

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Murder at Holly House by Denzil Meyrick 

In Meyrick’s proposed trilogy starter, it’s December 1952 and Detective Inspector Frank Grasby has once again mishandled an investigation in York, England. As a reprimand, he is temporarily reassigned to the village of Elderby in the North Yorkshire moors to solve a string of thefts at several farms. Upon arrival, he discovers his staff consists of two constables, an American intern, and a sergeant prone to narcolepsy. While interviewing the local aristocratic family about the latest theft, Frank finds a body stuffed into a chimney. No one in the area claims to know the victim. After a second murder occurs, Frank realizes that Elderby is not just a sleepy country village; it conceals many secrets. When he is warned off investigating the deaths by his superiors, however, he is more curious than ever. Frank soon discovers he may be in over his head and that the people he has chosen to depend on may be his worst career mistake yet. VERDICT This is quite a departure from the author’s DCI Daley series. Meyrick, who died in February 2025, includes plenty of humorous asides and commentary from Grasby. That and the dialogue style add a lighthearted mood.-Library Journal Review  

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Never Rescue A Rogue: A Novel by Virginia Heath 

A duke teams up with a journalist to protect his tenants from his scheming uncle in Heath’s infectious second Merriwell Sisters historical romance (after Never Fall for Your Fiancée). Roguish Giles Sinclair, heir to the Duke of Harpenden, learned years ago that his real mother was the duke’s mistress, making him illegitimate. When his father dies suddenly, Giles fears it’s only a matter of time before the truth gets out and the law comes calling to seize his dukedom and hand it over to his greedy, philandering uncle Gervais. Brilliant Diana Merriwell also has a secret: she’s The Sentinel, an anonymous reporter with a reputation for using her pen to uncover dangerous secrets. Though no one in Diana’s family knows her real role at the paper, Giles suspects the truth. The quarrelsome pair have been forced to tolerate each other ever since Giles’s best friend married Diana’s sister—and now Giles turns to Diana for help. As they work together to protect each other’s secrets, their witty bickering becomes more like foreplay and trust and loyalty grow. Still, the threat of Gervais and Diana’s distrust for men threaten their budding romance. It’s the perfect mix of romance and intrigue, and the formidable central couple is sure to win hearts. This is a gem. – Starred Publishers Weekly Review  

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Return of the Spider by James Patterson 

Return of the Spider is the stunning companion novel to Along Came a Spider, the New York Times bestselling classic thriller from the world’s most popular storyteller. 

Enter the thrilling world of the #1 bestselling detective series that inspired the Prime Video show, Cross. 

Along Came a Spider introduced Detective Alex Cross to readers around the globe and delivered an unsurpassed rivalry: Cross—named the “human superhero” by The New York Times—versus Gary Soneji, who the Lexington-Herald Leader called the “most deliciously wicked character since Hannibal Lecter”. But that wasn’t their first meeting … 

Police discover that Soneji kept a murder book, Profiles in Homicidal Genius, detailing his transformation from substitute teacher to hardened serial killer—including clues that imply missteps that Alex Cross may have made a rookie homicide detective. 

Now, Alex must retrace the steps of that long-ago investigation and face … the Return of the Spider. 

Reader’s Note: Return of the Spider is the thirty-third book in the Alex Cross Series. If you’d like to binge read from the beginning, check out book one: Along Came A Spider. 

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Happy reading!

Linda Reimer, SSCL

–

Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.

–

Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are usually published on Wednesdays, unless Monday is a holiday, or the library is closed a day due to inclement weather, and then they are published later in the week.

–

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.

–

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.

–

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).

–

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.

–

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.

–

Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

New York Times Bestsellers: June 15, 2025

Linda Reimer

All titles can be requested/checked out through the library.

If you’d like to go the traditional route to request a title on this list and drop by the library, or give us a call – please do!

Our telephone number is: 607-936-3713

You can also request titles through StarCat found at https://starcat.stls.org

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THE BESTSELLERS

FICTION

1. NEVER FLINCH by Stephen King: Holly Gibney does double duty by helping head off acts of retribution and protecting a women’s rights activist.

2. HIDDEN NATURE by Nora Roberts: After recovering from a gunshot, a Natural Resources police officer investigates a woman’s disappearance.

3. PROBLEMATIC SUMMER ROMANCE by Ali Hazelwood: Things get complicated between an older biotech guy and a struggling graduate student who go to a destination wedding.

4. RELEASING 10 by Chloe Walsh: In the first New Adult book set in the Boys of Tommen universe, the bond between Lizzie and Hugh is tested.

5. NIGHTSHADE by Michael Connelly: The Los Angeles County sheriff’s detective Stilwell gets reassigned to Catalina Island, where he investigates a poaching case and a Jane Doe found in the harbor.

6. GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL LIFE by Emily Henry: A writer looking for her big break competes against a Pulitzer winner to tell the story of an octogenarian with a storied past.

7. ONE GOLDEN SUMMER by Carley Fortune: A photographer returns to a place where she spent a summer as a teenager and runs into the guy she had a crush on back then.

8. THE TENANT by Freida McFadden: Things take an unsettling turn when a marketing executive loses his job and a woman rents a room in his brownstone.

9. BEAUTIFUL VENOM by Rina Kent: Getting close to the captain of an elite hockey team comes at a cost.

10. IRON FLAME by Rebecca Yarros: The second book in the Empyrean series. Violet Sorrengail’s next round of training under the new vice commandant might require her to betray the man she loves.

11. THE KNIGHT AND THE MOTH by Rachel Gillig: Sybil Delling, who is gifted with the power of foresight, forms an alliance with a heretical knight when her sister Diviners disappear.

12. RETURN TO SENDER by Craig Johnson: The 21st book in the Longmire series. An otherworldly cult might be connected to the disappearance of a mail person who handles a 300-mile daily route.

13. REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES by Shelby Van Pelt: A widow working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium is aided in solving a mystery by a giant Pacific octopus living there.

14. MY FRIENDS by Fredrik Backman: A young woman looks into the story behind a painting that was made 25 years ago and a small group of teens depicted in it; translated by Neil Smith.

15. ONYX STORM by Rebecca Yarros: The third book in the Empyrean series. As enemies gain traction, Violet Sorrengail goes beyond the Aretian wards in search of allies.

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NON-FICTION

1. ORIGINAL SIN by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson: An account of Joe Biden’s initial decision to run for re-election in 2024 and its numerous consequences.

2. THE ANXIOUS GENERATION by Jonathan Haidt: A co-author of “The Coddling of the American Mind” looks at the mental health impacts that a phone-based life has on children.

3. THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE by Bessel van der Kolk: How trauma affects the body and mind, and innovative treatments for recovery.

4. MARK TWAIN by Ron Chernow: The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer portrays the life and career of the literary celebrity and political pundit.

5. ABUNDANCE by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson: A New York Times opinion columnist and a staff writer at The Atlantic evaluate obstacles to American progress.

6. APPLE IN CHINA by Patrick McGee: A journalist depicts the development of Apple’s supply chain and its increasingly precarious relationship with China.

7. THE FATE OF THE DAY by Rick Atkinson: The author of “The British Are Coming” portrays the middle years of the American Revolution.

8. BIG DUMB EYES by Nate Bargatze: The Grammy Award-nominated comedian shares snippets from his life and career.

9. UNCOMMON FAVOR by Dawn Staley: The three-time Olympic gold medalist and six-time W.N.B.A. All-Star, who is the head coach for the South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball team, describes obstacles she encountered on and off the court.

10. ON TYRANNY by Timothy Snyder: Twenty lessons from the 20th century about the course of tyranny.

11. EVERYTHING IS TUBERCULOSIS by John Green: The author of “The Anthropocene Reviewed” chronicles the fight against the deadly infectious disease tuberculosis.

12. WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR by Paul Kalanithi: A memoir by a physician who received a diagnosis of Stage IV lung cancer at the age of 36.

13. MY NEXT BREATH by Jeremy Renner: The Academy Award-nominated actor tells the story of the accident he had with a snowplow and his efforts to recover from it.

14. EMPIRE OF AI by Karen Hao: An examination of the disruptions made and resources taken by artificial intelligence.

15. THE WAGER by David Grann: The survivors of a shipwrecked British vessel on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain have different accounts of events.

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Have a great Sunday!

Linda

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New York Times Bestseller lists are shared via blog post on Sundays.

–

THE CATALOGS:

(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 (it is the same catalog!), 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.

–

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.

–

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).

–

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.

–

For more information on library materials and services, including how to get a library card call the library at 607-936-3713.

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*The Southern Tier Library System includes the public libraries in Steuben, Chemung, Yates, Schuyler & Allegheny counties.

Suggested Reading Five: January 29, 2025

Linda Reimer

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, February 5, 2024.

–

Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry  

National Book Award-winner Perry (South to America, 2022) offers an impressionistic cultural history of the African diaspora through its connections to the color blue, from the Congo to Haiti, Jamaica, and the American South, in music, dance, folklore, art, and literature. As enslaved Black people in the U.S. fought to affirm their humanity, the color blue was key: “Blue porches, planted blue flowers, written blue scriptures, blue attire, trees festooned with blue bottles: these became the cultivated habits and rituals of people denied civil society and legal recognition.” In Black bodies, blue evoked “two distinct forms of power,” for “the least degraded among Black people were the ones who had the bluest veins beneath the palest skin,” while a “blue-gummed woman . . . held the power of conjure and deep ways of knowing.” Enslaved Blacks were freed by the Union “boys in blue,” yet those uniforms would morph into the blue of “‘Blue Lives Matter,” the police clapback to “Black Lives Matter.” Perry suggests an implied choice “between Black life and police survival . . . And that is a blues song indeed.” Packed with cultural references to Nina Simone, Zora Neale Hurston, Miles Davis, and Picasso’s African-inspired Blue Period, this is a fascinating and creative work of popular anthropology. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With each trailblazing book, Perry extends her readership, and this original and affecting improvisation has tremendous appeal. – Starred Booklist Review  

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Good Dirt: A Novel by Charmaine Wilkerson  

The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick 

When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well. 
The crime was never solved—and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby’s high profile romance falls apart without any explanation, that’s exactly what they get. 

So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what’s happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family’s history—it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future. 
In this sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs our present. 

– 

The Oligarch’s Daughter by Joseph Finder 

Nobody does man-on-the-run, excruciatingly suspenseful thrillers better than Joseph Finder, author of many stand-alone thrillers and the Boston private eye Nick Heller series. Finder’s latest is a combination spy story, financial mystery, and survival-evasion tale, with the propulsive plot set in motion by one man’s costly mistake. The narrative shuttles between the present, with small-town boat builder Grant Anderson hiding for his life in the New Hampshire woods as Russian agents and the FBI try to track him down, and the past, when Anderson, then an on-the-rise New York financial analyst, got himself into a world of trouble falling in love with a Russian oligarch’s daughter. Finder’s granular details about what it takes for the hunted Anderson to survive and evade his pursuers (using the dimly remembered precepts of his survivalist father), along with the added complications of hunger, thirst, and injury, are fascinating, as are the details from his earlier life in cutthroat finance. Finder adds another layer of suspense with Anderson’s false identity, reminiscent of Cary Grant’s imperiled character in North by Northwest. Deep characterization, cliffhanger suspense, and a wealth of information ranging from Russian spies to survival in the woods and in public spaces make this one of Finder’s best. – Booklist 

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Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros  

After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty. 
Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust. 

Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him. 

 
Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. 
They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. 
But a storm is coming…and not everyone can survive its wrath.  

The Empyrean series is best enjoyed in order. 
Reading Order: 
Book #1 Fourth Wing 
Book #2 Iron Flame 
Book #3 Onyx Storm 

– 

We Do Not Part by Han Kang  

 Nobel laureate Kang’s latest protagonist–also an author, perhaps Kang’s stand-in–recalls her 2014 title “about the massacre in G–,” which is exactly when Kang’s Human Acts, about the 1980s Gwangju Uprising, debuted in Korea. Plagued now by nightmares, Kyungha, as her name is revealed, berates herself. “Having decided to write about mass killings and torture, how could I have so naively–brazenly–hoped to soon shirk off the agony of it?” The nightmares’ intensifying vividity inspires her to contact a close friend, photographer and documentary filmmaker Inseon, about the possibility of the two women collaborating on a film adaptation of these indelible images. Four years pass, until Inseon summons her to a Seoul hospital after a horrific accident, imploring Kyungha to go to Jeju Island to care for her precious budgie. Despite severely dangerous winter conditions, Kyungha finally arrives. Then what seems impossible happens. Inseon’s spirit joins Kyungha to reveal horrific historical truths about the Jeju Massacre (1948-49), which Inseon’s mother miraculously survived while “upward of thirty thousand civilians were slaughtered” by the U.S.-backed Korean military. Once more, Kang brilliantly examines the breadth of human relationships–from unconditional mother-child bonds to timeless friendship to heinous inhumanity. e.yaewon, who cotranslated Kang’s Greek Lessons (2023) as Emily Yae Won, returns here with Morris to gift English-reading audiences with tragic terror, luminous insight, and ethereal glimmers of hope.

HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With Kang receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature this fall, interest in her work will skyrocket, with special interest in this forthcoming novel. – Starred Booklist Review  

–

Happy reading!

Linda Reimer, SSCL

–

Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.

–

Information on the three library catalogs

The Digital Catalog: 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.

–

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.

–

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.

–

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.

–

Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

Suggested Reading Five: January 22, 2025

Linda Reimer

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, January 29, 2025.

–

Boudicca by P. C. Cast  

After the death of her husband, Boudicca is crowned queen of the Iceni tribe. In Roman-occupied Britannia, the idea of a woman ruler is one of weakness, and the Roman tax collector Catus Decianus leads an attack on the tribe’s stronghold, to deadly and personally damaging results. However, instead of folding, Boudicca calls a war council, determined to strike back at the Romans. With the help of childhood friend and Druid seer Rhan and horse master Maldwyn, Boudicca finds strength, her goddess’s support, and love. With success in brutal attacks against wealthy Roman-held cities, the Iceni prepare to wait out the icy winter and plan their final attacks. When traitors emerge and destiny is bleak, Boudicca must place her faith in the powers beyond to ensure the survival of her people.

VERDICT The real history of the red-haired warrior queen is given new life in Cast’s (Out of the Dawn) well-told reimagining and worldbuilding, with prose that allows readers to see both a battle-hardened leader and a mother fighting for those she loves. – Library Journal Review 

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The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia

“A stunning and accomplished debut, with hugely relatable characters and an addictive storyline that kept me turning the pages well into the night. Bravo!” —BA Paris, New York Times bestselling author 

“Wow, The Business Trip was nonstop twists and turns. I loved the unusual way that the story was told, and I kept reading all day long because I couldn’t wait to see how it ended!” — Freida McFadden, New York Times bestselling author 

THE BUSINESS TRIP is the gripping, page-turning debut from author Jessie Garcia. 

Stephanie and Jasmine have nothing and everything in common. The two women don’t know each other but are on the same plane. Stephanie is on a business trip and Jasmine is fleeing an abusive relationship. After a few days, they text their friends the same exact messages about the same man—the messages becoming stranger and more erratic. 

And then the two women vanish. The texts go silent, the red flags go up, and the panic sets in. When Stephanie and Jasmine are each declared missing and in danger, it begs the questions: Who is Trent McCarthy? What did he do to these women— or what did they do to him? 

Twist upon twist, layer upon layer, where nothing is as it seems, The Business Trip takes you on a descent into the depths of a mastermind manipulator. But who is playing who? 

– 

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor  

Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing than a lucrative career in medicine or law, Zelu has always felt like the outcast of her large Nigerian family. Then her life is upended when, in the middle of her sister’s lavish Caribbean wedding, she’s unceremoniously fired from her university job and, to add insult to injury, her novel is rejected by yet another publisher. With her career and dreams crushed in one fell swoop, she decides to write something just for herself. What comes out is nothing like the quiet, literary novels that have so far peppered her unremarkable career. It’s a far-future epic where androids and AI wage war in the grown-over ruins of human civilization. She calls it Rusted Robots. 

When Zelu finds the courage to share her strange novel, she does not realize she is about to embark on a life-altering journey—one that will catapult her into literary stardom, but also perhaps obliterate everything her book was meant to be. From Chicago to Lagos to the far reaches of space, Zelu’s novel will change the future not only for humanity, but for the robots who come next. 

A book-within-a-book that blends the line between writing and being written, Death of the Author is a masterpiece of metafiction that manages to combine the razor-sharp commentary of Yellowface with the heartfelt humanity of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Surprisingly funny, deeply poignant, and endlessly discussable, this is at once the tale of a woman on the margins risking everything to be heard and a testament to the power of storytelling to shape the world as we know it.  

– 

The Last Room on the Left by Leah Konen  

The latest from the author of Keep Your Friends Close (2024) is set at a remote motel that Kerry, a struggling author, has agreed to look after while she attempts to make progress on her latest novel. Kerry is also hiding from the break-up of her marriage to Frank; her split with her best friend, Siobhan; and the cause of both of those ruptures, her struggle with alcoholism. Kerry arrives at the Twilite Motel at the beginning of February and finds much more than she bargained for when she sees the hand of a dead woman sticking out of the snow. With no cell service, Kerry seeks the help of the two closest neighbors, only to learn they’re both in a land dispute with the motel’s owner. Once Kerry returns to the motel, she discovers not only that the body has been moved, but that, to her horror, the dead woman is someone she knows. Though Kerry’s reliability, particularly concerning the victim’s identity, stretches credulity at times, this is a fast-paced and engrossing read. – Booklist Review 

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Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth): A Memoir by Markus Zusak  

In this poignant, funny, and disarmingly honest memoir, one of the world’s most beloved storytellers, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book Thief, tells of his family’s adoption of three troublesome rescue dogs—a charming and courageous love story about making even the most incorrigible of animals family. 

There’s a madman dog beside me, and the hounds of memory ahead of us . . . It’s love and beasts and wild mistakes, and regret, but never to change things. 

What happens when the Zusak family opens their home to three big, wild, street-hardened dogs—Reuben, more wolf than hound; Archer, blond, beautiful, destructive; and the rancorously smiling Frosty, who walks like a rolling thunderstorm? 

The answer can only be chaos: There are street fights, park fights, public shamings, property damages, injuries, hospital visits, wellness checks, pure comedy, shocking tragedy, and carnage that must be read to be believed. 

There is a reckoning of shortcomings and failure, a strengthening of will, but most important of all, an explosion of love—and the joy and recognition of family. 

Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth) is a tender, motley, and exquisitely written memoir about the human need for both connection and disorder, a love letter to the animals who bring hilarity and beauty—but also the visceral truth of the natural world—straight to our doors and into our lives and change us forever. 

–

Happy reading!

Linda Reimer, SSCL

–

Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.

–

Information on the three library catalogs

The Digital Catalog: 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.

–

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.

–

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.

–

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.

–

Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.

Suggested Reading Five: January 15, 2025

Linda Reimer

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, January 22, 2025.

–

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire  

Giant turtles, impossible ships, and tidal rivers ridden by a Drowned girl in search of a family in the latest in the bestselling Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Wayward Children series from Seanan McGuire. 

Nadya had three mothers: the one who bore her, the country that poisoned her, and the one who adopted her. 

Nadya never considered herself less than whole, not until her adoptive parents fitted her with a prosthetic arm against her will, seeking to replace the one she’d been missing from birth. 

It was cumbersome; it was uncomfortable; it was wrong. 

It wasn’t her. 

Frustrated and unable to express why, Nadya began to wander, until the day she fell through a door into Belyrreka, the Land Beneath the Lake—and found herself in a world of water, filled with child-eating amphibians, majestic giant turtles, and impossible ships that sailed as happily beneath the surface as on top. In Belyyreka, she found herself understood for who she was: a Drowned Girl, who had made her way to her real home, accepted by the river and its people. 

But even in Belyyreka, there are dangers, and trials, and Nadya would soon find herself fighting to keep hold of everything she had come to treasure. 

–

 

Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman by Brooke Shields  

From generational icon Brooke Shields comes an intimate and empowering exploration of aging that flips the script on the idea of what it means for a woman to grow older 

Brooke Shields has spent a lifetime in the public eye. Growing up as a child actor and model, her every feature was scrutinized, her every decision judged. Today Brooke faces a different kind of scrutiny: that of being a “woman of a certain age.” 

And yet, for Brooke, the passage of time has brought freedom. At fifty-nine, she feels more comfortable in her skin, more empowered and confident than she did decades ago in those famous Calvin Kleins. Now, in Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old, she’s changing the narrative about women and aging. 

This is an era, insists Brooke, when women are reclaiming agency and power, not receding into the shadows. These are the years when we get to decide how we want to live—when we get to write our own stories. 

With remarkable candor, Brooke bares all, painting a vibrant and optimistic picture of being a woman in the prime of her life, while dismantling the myths that have, for too long, dimmed that perception. Sharing her own life experiences with humor and humility, and weaving together research and reporting, Brooke takes aim at the systemic factors that contribute to age-related bias. 

By turns inspiring, moving, and galvanizing, Brooke’s honesty and vulnerability will resonate with women everywhere, and spark a new conversation about the power and promise of midlife. 

– 

Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney  

Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back–but all, of course, is not what it seems. Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails–first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident–and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story. “Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying. – Kirkus Review  

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The Big Empty by Robert Crais  

Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner, Joe Pike, race to find a terrifying, unidentified killer in this twisting, unpredictable thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Crais. 

Traci Beller was thirteen when her father disappeared in the sleepy town of Rancha, not far from Los Angeles. The evidence says Tommy Beller abandoned his family, but Traci never believed it. Now, ten years later, Traci is a high-profile influencer with millions of followers and the money to hire the best detective she can find: Elvis Cole. 

Elvis heads to Rancha where an ex-con named Sadie Givens and her daughter, Anya, might have a line on the missing man.  But when Elvis finds himself shadowed by a gang of vicious criminals, the missing persons cold case becomes far more sinister. 

Elvis calls his ex-Marine friend, Joe Pike, for help, and they follow Tommy Beller’s trail into the depths of a monstrous, hidden evil. The case flips on its head, victims become predators, predators become prey, and the question becomes:  Can Elvis Cole save them all from this nightmare? 

Reader’s Note: The Big Empty is the twentieth book in the Elvis Cole & Joe Pike series. If you’d like to start reading from the beginning, check out book one: The Monkey’s Raincoat. 

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Presumed Guilty by Scott Turow  

Turow’s latest wraps up the story of Rusty Sabich, Sandy Stern’s unjustly accused client in Presumed Guilty, Turow’s first novel, published in 1987, and in Innocent (2010). Here he transports readers to retired judge Rusty’s quiet life in Mirror Lake with his fiancée, Bea. Rusty and Bea have agreed to supervise her adopted son Aaron’s probation and are proud that he’s maturing into a responsible young man. Unfortunately, Aaron can’t kick his volatile relationship with Mae Potter, the magnetic but self-destructive daughter of a prominent local family. Both families are alarmed when Aaron and Mae drop off the radar; then Aaron finally returns alone. He claims they had a fight while camping and that he hitchhiked home and doesn’t know where Mae is. Mae’s body is soon found, and her autopsy reveals that she was strangled. When Aaron is arrested, Rusty agrees to defend him even though it places his future with Bea on the line. He’ll be fighting uphill. Aaron is Black, has a record, and the population in that section of the state is overwhelmingly white. The trial that follows is a master class in legal suspense as Turow weaves together the devastation of Aaron and Mae’s families, simmering racial prejudice, and the impact of small-town politics within a framework of deliciously tense courtroom dynamics. This is manna for legal-thriller fans.

HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Given the hit Apple TV+ adaptation of Presumed Innocent, readers will be avid for this conclusion to the trilogy. – Starred Booklist 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 three library catalogs

The Digital Catalog: 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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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.

Book Sandwiched In Book Review: January 8, 2025

Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, just in case you missed it, the first Book Sandwiched In program of 2025 was yesterday; and here is the video recording of the book talk.

Enjoy!

Linda Reimer, SSCL

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For information on the entire BSI 2025 series: https://ssclibrary.org/bsi-2025/

Video recordings of each weekly book talk will be available on the library’s YouTube page shortly after the Wednesday afternoon programs, and I will also share the links each week via blog post.

Suggested Reading Five: January 8, 2025

Linda Reimer

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, January 15, 2025.

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Holmes Is Missing by James Patterson  

The second in bestselling Patterson and frequent collaborator Sitts’s “Holmes, Margaret & Poe” series (starring Auguste Poe, Margaret Marple, and Brendan Holmes) sees the three detectives involved in an abduction case: not only have six children gone missing but so has Holmes and a number of A-listers. It will be up to Poe and Marple to put together the clues. – Library Journal Review 

Reader’s Note: As noted, this is the second book in the Holmes, Margaret & Poe series, if you’d like to start reading the series from the beginning check out book one: Holmes, Marple & Poe. 

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The Life of Herod the Great by Zora Neale Hurston  

Zora Neale Hurston aficionados are in for a surprise, a historical novel inspired by Herod the Great. Though widely known as the evil king who ordered the Massacre of the Innocents at the time of Jesus’ birth, Hurston explains in her lengthy preface that Herod was actually a popular and extremely capable ruler. Having fictionalized the Exodus story in Moses, Man of the Mountain, Hurston planned her Herod novel as a sequel. But it was rejected by her publishers, and her original manuscript was badly damaged in a fire. Recovered and edited by scholar Plant, Hurston’s tale of the Judean king emphasizes the conflict between East and West, “palace and priesthood,” modernity and resistance to change, conflicts she believed had risen anew in the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Her villains are not the conquering Romans and the westernized, assimilated Judeans, but the sly, devious Hasmoneans, descendants of the Maccabees, who are determined to remain in power. Herod, his noble father Antipater, and his brother Phasaelus are continually beset and threatened by the cravenly high priest Hyrcanus and his scheming relatives; even after Herod marries into the family, he is not safe from their schemes. Full of adventure, glamour, and historical figures, including Herod’s close friends Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, this is a fascinating addition to the Hurston canon.

HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Another resurrected Hurston work, this portrait reframing a ruler of old is sure to inspire requests and discussion. – Starred Booklist Review  

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The Note by Alafair Burke  

In the latest stand-alone from Burke (Find Me), a girls’ weekend in the Hamptons, a stolen parking space, and a note left on a windshield put into motion a series of events that leave one man dead and a trio of friends embroiled in a murder investigation. When the three friends learn of the disappearance of the man who took their parking spot, May, the nosy do-gooder of the group, wants to call the police, but Lauren and Kelsey convince her not to get involved. Hoping to determine whether she made the right decision, May takes it upon herself to make sure the parking-spot thief and the missing man were one and the same. It’s a decision that lands her and her friends on a detective’s radar. Then the missing-person case becomes a murder investigation, and Kelsey’s relationship with the deceased comes to light. The novel gets off to a slow start but builds gradually, gaining momentum in the second half. Multiple perspectives and timeline shifts dribble out details that add context to the friendship as well as offering clues about the killer. VERDICT Burke’s trademark style creates tension and suspense, but the deeply flawed protagonists might turn off some readers. – Publishers Weekly Review

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A Sea of Unspoken Things by Adrienne Young  

Bestselling Young’s (The Unmaking of June Farrow) newest features a set of twins. James has always been deeply connected to her brother Johnny, to the point that she can feel what he feels. Upon his death, she travels to California to settle his estate; there she meets again the only man she has ever loved and dives into a web of secrets. – Library Journal Review  

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See How They Hide by Allison Brennan  

No matter how far you run, some pasts never let you go… 

Two people were murdered—at the exact same time, in the same gruesome manner, bodies covered in the same red poppies…but on opposite sides of the country. 

With Detective Kara Quinn investigating in Oregon and Special Agent Matt Costa in Virginia, the Mobile Response Team digs deep to uncover more about each victim. What is the link between the two, and why were they targeted? 

Yet their search unearths more questions than answers—until they meet Riley Pierce, the only person still alive who might be able to help them find the killers. 

Soon, it becomes clear this case is nothing like they’ve seen before as their investigation leads them to the hallowed grounds of Havenwood—an eerily beautiful place rooted in a terrifying past. 

As more bodies turn up, all tied to the same community, Kara and Matt are desperate to piece the puzzle together before Havenwood’s leader sacrifices everything to keep her secrets buried. 

A Quinn & Costa Thriller 

Book 1: The Third to Die 

Book 2: Tell No Lies 

Book 3: The Wrong Victim 

Book 4: Seven Girls Gone 

Book 5: The Missing Witness 

Book 6: See How They Hide 

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Happy reading!

Linda Reimer, SSCL

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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.

–

Information on the three library catalogs

The Digital Catalog: 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.

–

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.

–

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.

–

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.

–

Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.