Tag: Readers Advisory

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.

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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? 

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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.  

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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. 

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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.

–

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.

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

–

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.

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.

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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.

–

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 1, 2025

Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, Happy New Year!

And 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 8, 2025.

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The Champagne Letters by Kate Macintosh  

Goaded by the insulting presumptions of her unfaithful ex-husband, Natalie leaves the final details of the sale of their house to him and hops a plane to Paris. Last-minute plans leave her in a posh boutique hotel, with a verbal misstep giving the impression that she’s a widow, not divorced. At a bouquiniste along the Seine, she finds a copy of a book with letters in both French and English from the widowed Barbe-Nicole Clicquot (of Veuve Clicquot champagne fame) to her great-granddaughter. Though their lives are not parallel, the widow inspires Natalie to expand her conservative life, accepting the flirtatious companionship of a handsome wine merchant and the friendship of one of the hotel employees. The letters tell the story of a woman defying convention during the Napoleonic era, coping and plotting to ensure the success of her champagne venture. Readers will see danger for Natalie long before she does, but both women succeed in the end. The combination of history and contemporary narrative makes for a compelling read worthy of relationship-fiction collections. – Booklist Review  

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How to Steal a Galaxy by Beth Revis  

Picking up where Full Speed to a Crash Landing left off, this rollicking second installment of Revis’s intergalactic trilogy will keep readers glued to the page. Space looter Ada Lamarr infiltrates a Met Gala–esque fundraising event on a secret mission assigned to her by a mysterious rebel group—while also pursuing a hidden agenda of her own. There to intercept her is handsome bureaucrat Rian White, who readers will be delighted to see return. As before, Ada and Rian disagree over effective methods of enacting change while Rian works to stop Ada from putting into motion her secret plot, the details of which remain hidden from both Rian and the reader for much of the novel. The result is an un-put-downable page-turner helmed by a lovable heroine who is clever and passionate beneath her armor of sarcastic quips. Readers will need to come back for the concluding volume to fully understand all of Ada’s behind-the-scenes machinations—and to witness the culmination of Ada and Rian’s roller-coaster, cat-and-mouse romance. Revis makes the anticipation delicious. – Publishers Weekly Review  

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Inheriting Magic: My Journey Through Grief, Joy, Celebration, and Making Every Day Magical by Jennifer Love Hewitt  

When she lost her mother to cancer, everything changed for Jennifer Love Hewitt. 


In the pages of Inheriting Magic, she recounts her journey, sharing memories, photographs, recipes, and the magic-making ethos of a self-proclaimed “Holiday Junkie.” 


A heartfelt, candid chronicle that charts a course from sorrow to celebration, this unique memoir includes:  


• Never-seen-before family photos and vintage snapshots  


• Jennifer’s favorite recipes, from her grandmother’s chicken and dumplings to her husband’s holiday cocktail  


• An explosion of festive plans, including images, sure to inspire your decorating plans for Halloween, Christmas, Easter, birthdays, and a whole year’s worth of holidays  


• Foolproof strategies for adding magic to your family’s everyday routine, such as moon water, baskets of joy, glowing dinners, and more 

Inheriting Magic is about how grief, being a mom of three, having a deep love for party planning, and being passionate about the holidays turned what could have been an ordinary life into something enchanting. Through it, Jennifer inspires all readers to add more love, light, and the making of core memories into their everyday lives. 

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Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History by Olivia Campbell  

Campbell has crafted an enthralling narrative about four female scientists who managed to escape the Nazis but were never truly recognized for their work. Hedwig Kohn, Lise Meitner, Hertha Sponer, and Hildegard Stücklen were all distinguished researchers in Germany, yet their sex often hindered their progress in a male-dominated field. Once the Nazis came to power, being Jewish or anti-Nazi posed even greater obstacles. Kohn, Sponer, and Stücklen managed to make their way to the United States, where they continued their academic careers and made significant contributions to the field of physics through research and teaching. Meitner moved to Sweden, where she played a crucial role in the discovery of nuclear fission, a discovery that eventually led to the development of the atomic bomb. Despite her groundbreaking work, the Nobel Prize was instead awarded to her male colleague. The gripping story of the women’s experiences in Germany and their escape from the Nazis is remarkable. It’s unfortunate that their significant role in science was not widely recognized, but through this book, they finally receive their deserved acclaim. – Booklist Review  

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Where the Library Hides by Isabel Ibañez  

A young woman pursues a dangerous quest in late-1800s Egypt in this sequel to What the River Knows (2023). After Inez Olivera was nearly murdered while assisting with her uncle’s archaeological expedition in Egypt, Tío Ricardo is eager to ship her home to safety in Argentina. But Inez burns with the need to stay and make sure that those who committed crimes against her family are held responsible. Unfortunately, the law precludes Inez, as a young unmarried woman, from accessing her inheritance (needed to fund her quest for justice) without her guardian uncle’s permission. Whitford Hayes, a former British soldier and her tio’s aide-de-camp, proposes marriage, which could solve her problems. But can Inez trust the secretive Whit? More danger and intrigue lurk at every turn in this exciting duology closer, which fully addresses the first entry’s jaw-dropping cliffhanger. The well-paced plot encompasses many fresh, new adventures and betrayals in this reimagined historical setting in which ancient magic abounds and not everyone or everything is what it seems. Even more captivating, however, is the complicated, nuanced love story between Whit and Inez. Their chemistry sizzles, but their relationship is achingly layered with both profound loyalty and deep deception. As their journey unearths new enemies and priceless archaeological finds, the duo must try to trust each other enough to survive. A thrilling, beautifully written page-turner. – Starred Kirkus Review 

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.

–

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.