Online Reading Challenge – September

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge travels to New York City. Our Main title for September is The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis. (This book takes place partly in the New York Public Library!) Here’s a quick summary from the publisher.

In New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis’s latest historical novel, a series of book thefts roils the iconic New York Public Library, leaving two generations of strong-willed women to pick up the pieces.

It’s 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn’t ask for more out of life—her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open. As her studies take her all over the city, she is drawn to Greenwich Village’s new bohemia, where she discovers the Heterodoxy Club—a radical, all-female group in which women are encouraged to loudly share their opinions on suffrage, birth control, and women’s rights. Soon, Laura finds herself questioning her traditional role as wife and mother. And when valuable books are stolen back at the library, threatening the home and institution she loves, she’s forced to confront her shifting priorities head on . . . and may just lose everything in the process.

Eighty years later, in 1993, Sadie Donovan struggles with the legacy of her grandmother, the famous essayist Laura Lyons, especially after she’s wrangled her dream job as a curator at the New York Public Library. But the job quickly becomes a nightmare when rare manuscripts, notes, and books for the exhibit Sadie’s running begin disappearing from the library’s famous Berg Collection. Determined to save both the exhibit and her career, the typically risk-averse Sadie teams up with a private security expert to uncover the culprit. However, things unexpectedly become personal when the investigation leads Sadie to some unwelcome truths about her own family heritage—truths that shed new light on the biggest tragedy in the library’s history.

This title is also available in large print and as a Libby eBook.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell

“Baking, very much like life, is about formulating the best possible outcome with the variables you are given.”
― Jessa Maxwell, The Golden Spoon

Jessa Maxwell’s novel The Golden Spoon is a mix of Clue and the Great British Baking Show. This book is a baking show with murder – it was practically tailor made for me! Jessa Maxwell is actually the pseudonym for cartoonist and illustrator Jessica Olein, whose work can be found in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and others. The Golden Spoon is her first novel.

Betsy Martin is a celebrity baker. In an effort to bring in money to keep her family home, Grafton Manor, in working order, Betsy created Bake Week over ten years ago. Every year, a group of six bakers descend on Grafton for a competition held in a tent on the lawn. They compete for the title of American’s best baker, a cookbook deal, the coveted Golden Spoon, plus other perks. Once filmed, the show streams online for all to see. While Betsy is grateful for the money the show brings in, it still barely covers the manor’s upkeep, plus she has to deal with the crew and bakers crawling all over her family home. It’s almost not worth it, especially with the changes happening this season.

For ten years, Betsy has hosted Bake Week by herself. Now the producers have decided they need fresh blood in the form of a younger, more popular cohost: Archie Morris, an award-winning baker and host of the show Cutting Board. Betsy is less than thrilled. She dislikes Archie and all he represents. Watching him interact with the bakers confirms her distaste. As Bake Week progresses, each baker’s personality presents itself. The commonality between all present, besides their love of baking, is their ability to keep secrets.

While I enjoyed this novel, I did find myself blindly trusting that all of the characters were telling the truth – should not have done that! This is a hodge podge of unreliable narrators that the author has woven together with subtle hints about their actual truths. Each chapter is told from the point-of-view of a different character. For the whole chapter, readers see what that character is thinking and how they are reacting to each presented scenario. This story was engaging, while the characters have fleshed out backstories. This isn’t a light and fluffy book as it does dig into the dark side of baking competitions (and there’s the pesky murder). All in all, a good read if you’re a fan of multi point-of-view novels. Here’s hoping there’s a sequel!

This title is also available in large print, Libby eAudiobook, and Libby eBook.

New Historical Fiction

Do you need an escape? Have you tried historical fiction? Since we can’t travel through time yet, I choose to visit other time periods through books. Below I have gathered a list of popular historical fiction novels that were published in 2023 that we haven’t talked about on the blog before. My want-to-read list of historical fiction is so long that I limited myself to ten to share with you all! This list cuts across the whole of historical fiction: stories range across different times and places, as well as blurring genres and some crossover stories.

All of these titles can be found at the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions have been provided by the publisher and/or the author.

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Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See

According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.

From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.

But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, pluck instruments, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.

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The Paris Daughter by Kristin Harmel

Paris, 1939: Young mothers Elise and Juliette become fast friends the day they meet in the beautiful Bois de Boulogne. Though there is a shadow of war creeping across Europe, neither woman suspects that their lives are about to irrevocably change.

When Elise becomes a target of the German occupation, she entrusts Juliette with the most precious thing in her life—her young daughter, playmate to Juliette’s own little girl. But nowhere is safe in war, not even a quiet little bookshop like Juliette’s Librairie des Rêves, and, when a bomb falls on their neighborhood, Juliette’s world is destroyed along with it.

More than a year later, with the war finally ending, Elise returns to reunite with her daughter, only to find her friend’s bookstore reduced to rubble—and Juliette nowhere to be found. What happened to her daughter in those last, terrible moments? Juliette has seemingly vanished without a trace, taking all the answers with her. Elise’s desperate search leads her to New York—and to Juliette—one final, fateful time.

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Maddalena and the Dark by Julia Fine

Venice, 1717. Fifteen-year-old Luisa has only wanted one thing: to be the best at violin. As a student at the Ospedale della Pietà, she hopes to join the highest ranks of its illustrious girls’ orchestra and become a protégé of the great Antonio Vivaldi. Luisa is good at violin, but she is not the best. She has peers, but she does not have friends. Until Maddalena.

After a scandal threatens her noble family’s reputation, Maddalena is sent to the Pietà to preserve her marriage prospects. When she meets Luisa, Maddalena feels the stirrings of a friendship unlike anything she has known. But Maddalena has a secret: she has hatched a dangerous plot to rescue her future her own way. When she invites Luisa into her plans, promising to make her dreams come true, Luisa doesn’t hesitate. But every wager has its price, and as the girls are drawn into the decadent world outside the Pietà’s walls, they must decide what it is they truly want—and what they will do to pay for it.

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A History of Burning by Janika Oza

In 1898, Pirbhai, a teenage boy looking for work, is taken from his village in India to labor for the British on the East African Railway. Far from home, Pirbhai commits a brutal act in the name of survival that will haunt him and his family for years to come.

So begins Janika Oza’s masterful, richly told epic, where the embers of this desperate act are fanned into flame over four generations, four continents, throughout the twentieth century. Pirbhai’s children are born in Uganda during the waning days of British colonial rule, and as the country moves toward independence, his granddaughters, three sisters, come of age in a divided nation. Latika is an aspiring journalist, who will put everything on the line for what she believes in; Mayuri’s ambitions will take her farther away from home than she ever imagined; and fearless Kiya will have to carry the weight of her family’s silence and secrets.

In 1972, the entire family is forced to flee under Idi Amin’s military dictatorship. Pirbhai’s grandchildren are now scattered across the world, struggling to find their way back to each other. One day a letter arrives with news that makes each generation question how far they are willing to go, and who they are willing to defy, to secure their own place in the world.

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Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea

In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle.

After D-Day, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Their time in Europe will see them embroiled in danger, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald. Through her friendship with Dorothy, and a love affair with a courageous American fighter pilot named Hans, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope, which becomes more precarious by the day, is for all three of them to survive the war intact.

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The House is on Fire by Rachel Beanland

Richmond, Virginia 1811. It’s the height of the winter social season, the General Assembly is in session, and many of Virginia’s gentleman planters, along with their wives and children, have made the long and arduous journey to the capital in hopes of whiling away the darkest days of the year. At the city’s only theater, the Charleston-based Placide & Green Company puts on two plays a night to meet the demand of a populace that’s done looking for enlightenment at the front of a church.

On the night after Christmas, the theater is packed with more than six hundred holiday revelers. In the third-floor boxes sits newly widowed Sally Henry Campbell, who is glad for any opportunity to relive the happy times she shared with her husband. One floor away, in the colored gallery, Cecily Patterson doesn’t give a whit about the play but is grateful for a four-hour reprieve from a life that has recently gone from bad to worse. Backstage, young stagehand Jack Gibson hopes that, if he can impress the theater’s managers, he’ll be offered a permanent job with the company. And on the other side of town, blacksmith Gilbert Hunt dreams of one day being able to bring his wife to the theater, but he’ll have to buy her freedom first.

When the theater goes up in flames in the middle of the performance, Sally, Cecily, Jack, and Gilbert make a series of split-second decisions that will not only affect their own lives but those of countless others. And in the days following the fire, as news of the disaster spreads across the United States, the paths of these four people will become forever intertwined.

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Only the Beautiful by Susan Meissner

California, 1938—When she loses her parents in an accident, sixteen-year-old Rosanne is taken in by the owners of the vineyard where she has lived her whole life as the vinedresser’s daughter. She moves into Celine and Truman Calvert’s spacious house with a secret, however—Rosie sees colors when she hears sound. She promised her mother she’d never reveal her little-understood ability to anyone, but the weight of her isolation and grief prove too much for her. Driven by her loneliness she not only breaks the vow to her mother, but in a desperate moment lets down her guard and ends up pregnant. Banished by the Calverts, Rosanne believes she is bound for a home for unwed mothers. But she soon finds out she is not going to a home of any kind, but to a place that seeks to forcibly take her baby – and the chance for any future babies – from her.

Austria, 1947—After witnessing firsthand Adolf Hitler’s brutal pursuit of hereditary purity—especially with regard to “different children”—Helen Calvert, Truman’s sister, is ready to return to America for good. But when she arrives at her brother’s peaceful vineyard after decades working abroad, she is shocked to learn what really happened nine years earlier to the vinedresser’s daughter, a girl whom Helen had long ago befriended. In her determination to find Rosanne, Helen discovers a shocking American eugenics program—and learns that that while the war had been won in Europe, there are still terrifying battles to be fought at home.

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Weyward by Emilia Hart

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family’s grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

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Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall

2017: When Angela Creighton discovers a mysterious letter containing a life-shattering confession, she is determined to find the intended recipient. Her search takes her back to the 1970s when a group of daring women operated an illegal underground abortion network in Toronto known only by its whispered code name: Jane.

1971: As a teenager, Dr. Evelyn Taylor was sent to a home for “fallen” women where she was forced to give up her baby for adoption—a trauma she has never recovered from. Despite the constant threat of arrest, she joins the Jane Network as an abortion provider, determined to give other women the choice she never had.

1980: After discovering a shocking secret about her family, twenty-year-old Nancy Mitchell begins to question everything she has ever known. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she feels like she has no one to turn to for help. Grappling with her decision, she locates “Jane” and finds a place of her own alongside Dr. Taylor within the network’s ranks, but she can never escape the lies that haunt her.

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River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer

The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados gathers his slaves and announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. As of the following day, the Emancipation Act of 1834 will come into effect. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves; they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. They must work for him for another six years. Freedom is just another name for the life they have always lived. So Rachel runs.

Away from Providence, she begins a desperate search to find her children—the five who survived birth and were sold. Are any of them still alive? Rachel has to know. The grueling, dangerous journey takes her from Barbados then, by river, deep into the forest of British Guiana and finally across the sea to Trinidad. She is driven on by the certainty that a mother cannot be truly free without knowing what has become of her children, even if the answer is more than she can bear. These are the stories of Mary Grace, Micah, Thomas Augustus, Cherry Jane and Mercy. But above all this is the story of Rachel and the extraordinary lengths to which a mother will go to find her children…and her freedom.

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Do you have a favorite historical fiction novel? Share with us in the comments below!

We Are On Our Own: A Memoir by Miriam Katin

Miriam Katin was born in Hungary during World War II. She doesn’t remember much about the war except that this war reminded people of other wars and that other wars were going to also come. War was expected, intruders to the land were a given, and upheaval was just how she lived. Her young childhood was a jumble.

In an attempt to gather all she remembers, she wrote We Are On Our Own, a memoir about a mother and her daughter’s survival in World War II. Miriam writes and illustrates the story of her and her mother’s escape from the Nazis in Budapest, Hungary from 1944-1945. It’s compiled from her memories, her parents’ memories, as well as whatever primary source material she could find.

Miriam’s father was off fighting for the Hungarian army when she and her mother were forced out of their home. Desperate to survive, the two faked their deaths and fled to the countryside on foot with few possessions. Miriam was understandably confused and distraught about what was happening: where is her beloved dog, Rexy, after all? He would never leave her. Disguising themselves as illegitimate child and peasant servant woman, the two manage to stay steps ahead of the German soldiers. Miriam’s mother managed to hold onto hope that her husband would survive and that they would one day all be reunited.

Miriam was only a toddler when her world dissolved. Her childhood memories were fragmented, full of chocolate, forests, snow, strange men, and the noise and brutality of war. This memoir is her way of gathering those fragments and forming something that makes sense. Besides their physical crises, Miriam and her family go through a crisis of faith. The two contemplate God, His decisions, and why He would allow devastation and destruction across the world. This is a constant crisis for the two and for many other survivors of the Shoah/Holocaust. Miriam merges her broken pieces into a beautifully told story of her childhood innocence amidst unbelievable violence.

Books with Wedding Themes or Settings

I don’t know about you, but I go to many weddings in the summer! According to a survey done by The Knot, weddings hit peak season when the weather is more favorable. In European countries, late summer (August/September) is most popular. In the US, October is the top month. No matter when you have your wedding, there is practically guaranteed to be downtime for the guests at some point. If you’re like me, you never travel without a book, so having a wedding-themed book with you AT a wedding seems very fitting!

Below is a list of new and forthcoming books with wedding themes or settings that you can find at the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions have been provided by the publisher and/or author.

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Best Men by Sidney Karger

Max Moody thought he had everything figured out. He’s trying to live his best life in New York City and has the best friend a gay guy could ask for: Paige. She and Max grew up next door to each other in the suburbs of Chicago. She can light up any party. She finishes his sentences. She’s always a reliable splunch (they don’t like to use the word brunch) partner. But then Max’s whole world is turned upside down when Paige suddenly announces some huge news: she’s engaged and wants Max to be her man of honor. Max was always the romantic one who imagined he would get married before the unpredictable Paige and is shocked to hear she’s ready to settle down. But it turns out there’s not just one new man in Paige’s life—there are two.

There’s the groom, Austin, who’s a perfectly nice guy. Then there’s his charming, fun and ridiculously handsome gay younger brother, Chasten, who is Austin’s best man. As Paige’s wedding draws closer, Max, the introverted Midwesterner, and Chasten, the social butterfly East Coaster, realize they’re like oil and water. Yet they still have to figure out how to coexist in Paige’s life while not making her wedding festivities all about them. But can the tiny romantic spark between these two very different guys transform their best man supporting roles into the leading best men in each other’s lives?

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Jana Goes Wild by Farah Heron

Jana Suleiman has never really fit in—everyone always sees her as too aloof, too cool, too perfect. The one time she stepped out of her comfort zone she ended up with a broken heart and a baby on the way. Aaaand lesson learned. Now she’s a bridesmaid for a destination wedding in Serengeti National Park, and almost everyone she knows will be there. Her five-year-old daughter. Her mom. Her friends. Even her potential new boss. And of course (because who doesn’t love surprises!) her gorgeous-but-not-to-be-trusted ex.

Fortunately, Anil Malek is a great dad, even if Jana hasn’t quite forgiven him for lying to her all those years ago. Determined to show he has no effect on her whatsoever, she and the bridesmaids concoct a go-wild list to get Jana through the week. Sing karaoke? Sure. Perform their high school dance routine in front of strangers? Okay. But the more she lets down her guard, the less protection she has against her attraction to Anil. And Jana soon realizes it’s one thing to walk on the wild side . . . and quite another to fall for her ex all over again.

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Big Gay Wedding by Byron Lane

Barnett Durang has a secret. No, not THAT secret. His widowed mother has long known he’s gay. The secret is Barnett is getting married. At his mother’s farm. In their small Louisiana town. She just doesn’t know it yet.

It’ll be an intimate affair. Just two hundred or so of the most fabulous folks Barnett is shipping in from the “heathen coasts,” as Mom likes to call them, turning her quiet rescue farm for misfit animals into a most unlikely wedding venue.

But there are forces, both within this modern new family and in the town itself, that really don’t want to see this handsome couple march down the aisle. It’ll be the biggest, gayest event in the town’s history if they can pull it off, and after a glitter-filled week, nothing will ever be the same. Big Gay Wedding is an uplifting book about the power of family and the unconditional love of a mother for her son.

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Love at First Set by Jennifer Dugan

The gym is Lizzie’s life—it’s her passion, her job, and the only place that’s ever felt like home. Unfortunately, her bosses consider her a glorified check-in girl at best, and the gym punching bag at worst.

When their son, Lizzie’s best friend, James, begs her to be his plus one at his perfect sister Cara’s wedding, things go wrong immediately, and culminate in Lizzie giving a drunken pep talk to a hot stranger in the women’s bathroom—except that stranger is actually the bride-to-be, and Lizzie has accidentally convinced her to ditch her groom.

Now, newly directionless Cara is on a quest to find herself, and Lizzie—desperate to make sure her bosses never find out her role in this fiasco—gets strong-armed by James into “entertaining” her. Cara doesn’t have to know it’s a setup; it’ll just be a quick fling before she sobers up and goes back to her real life. After all, how could someone like Cara fall for someone like Lizzie, with no career and no future?

But the more Lizzie gets to know Cara, the more she likes her, and the bigger the potential disaster if any of her rapidly multiplying secrets get out. Because now it’s not just Lizzie’s job and entire future on the line, but also the girl of her dreams.

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The Plus One by Mazey Eddings

Some facts are indisputable. The sun rises in the east, sets in the west. Gravity exists. Indira doesn’t like Jude. Jude doesn’t like Indira. But what happens when these childhood enemies find the only thing they can rely on is each other?

On paper, Indira has everything together. An amazing job, a boyfriend, and a car. What more could a late twenty-something ask for? But when she walks in on her boyfriend in an amorous embrace with a stranger, that perfect on paper image goes up in flames.

Jude has nothing together. A doctor that’s spent the last three years traveling the world to treat emergencies and humanitarian crises, a quick trip home for his best friend’s wedding has him struggling to readjust.

Thrust into an elaborate (and ridiculously drawn out) wedding event that’s stressing Jude beyond belief and has Indira seeing her ex and his new girlfriend far more frequently than any human should endure, the duo strike a bargain to be each other’s fake dates to this wedding from hell. The only problem is, their forced proximity and fake displays of affection are starting to feel a bit…real, and both are left grappling with the idea that a situation that couldn’t be worse, is made a little better with the other around.

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Want some more books with wedding themes or settings? Try these:

Do you have a favorite book with a wedding theme or set at a wedding? Let us know in the comments.

 

 

The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer

“Grief, I’d come to realize was like dust. When you’re in the thick of a dust storm, you’re completely disoriented by the onslaught, struggling to see or breathe. But as the force recedes, and you slowly find your bearing and see a path forward, the dust begins to settle into the crevices. And it will never disappear completely- as the years pass, you’ll find it in unexpected places at unexpected moments.”
― Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover

Clover Brooks has always felt a stronger connection to the dying than she ever has to the living. It all started when her kindergarten teacher died during a story time in class. After that, Clover’s parents were killed in an accident while traveling. She then moved to New York City to live with her grandfather. Her connection to death informed her studies: she traveled the world studying different cultures’ relationships with death. On one of her travels, the grandfather who raised her dies alone back in New York City. Clover returns home and becomes a death doula. She cares for people at the end of their lives, working to give them a beautiful death. Clover has dedicated her life to peacefully helping people through their end-of-life process.

Outside of her work, Clover also frequents death cafes throughout New York City. Death cafes are meetings where people gather to discuss anything and everything to do with death. One of her trips to a death cafe leads her to an encounter that will change her life. She meets a young man with a dying grandma. This old woman is feisty and knows what she wants. Her secrets and final wishes send Clover on a cross country trip looking for a happy  ending. The more time Clover spends with her, the more she realizes that she doesn’t have a life of her own and no real possibility of her own happy ending. Clover’s trip to help this woman turns into a trip to turn her own life around. Her wants and needs are just as valid of those who are dying.

Are you interested in attending a Death Cafe? You’re in luck! The Davenport Public Library | Eastern Avenue Branch hosts a Death Cafe on the third Wednesday of every month. The next four dates are: August 16, September 20, October 18, and November 15.  Each Death Cafe runs from 5:30p – 7:30p.

At a Death Cafe, people, often strangers, gather to eat treats, drink coffee, and discuss death. Our objective is ‘to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives’.

A Death Cafe is a group directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives, or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counselling session. All are welcome to attend any/all sessions and can participate as much as they are comfortable.

For more information, visit the Death Cafe website at https://deathcafe.com/.

Simply Held August Author: Lisa See

Want the hottest new release from your favorite author? Want to stay current with a celebrity book club? Love nonfiction and fiction? You should join Simply Held. Choose any author, celebrity pick, nonfiction and/or fiction pick and the Davenport Public Library will put the latest title on hold for you automatically. Select as many as you want! If you still have questions, please check out our list of FAQs.

New month means a new highlighted author from Simply Held. August’s author is Lisa See for fiction.

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Our August fiction author is Lisa See. She is a New York Times bestselling author for her books showcasing strong bonds between women. Her books are heavily researched and tell beautifully written stories about Chinese cultures and characters. In addition to her historical fiction stand-alone novels and two series, she has written two nonfiction books, one being On Gold Mountain, the story of her Chinese American family’s settlement in Los Angeles. She was named the National Woman of the Year by the Organization of Chinese American Women in 2001. She was also the recipient of the History Maker’s Award from the Chinese American Museum in 2003 and the Golden Spike Award from the Chinese Historical Association of Southern California in 2017. She sits on multiple foundation boards and is very active in the Los Angeles art and museum scene.

Lisa’s books focus on stories that have been deliberately covered up, lost, or forgotten across history and in the present. She travels to explore the places she is writing about, while also pulling from her past and her family’s past. Lisa writes literary fiction, mystery, romance, historical fiction, and women’s fiction. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

Her latest book is Lady Tan’s Circle of Women. This book was published in June 2023.

Curious what this book is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher.

According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.

From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.

But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, pluck instruments, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.

How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions, go on to treat women and girls from every level of society, and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a captivating story of women helping other women. It is also a triumphant reimagining of the life of a woman who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.

This title is also available as a Libby eBook, Playaway audiobook, large print, and CD audiobook.

August’s Celebrity Book Club Picks

It’s a new month which means that Jenna Bush Hager and Reese Witherspoon have picked new books for their book clubs! Reminder that if you join Simply Held, these titles will automatically be put on hold for you.

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Jenna Bush Hager has selected Summer Sisters by Judy Blume for her August pick.

Curious what Summer Sisters is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher.

In the summer of 1977, Victoria Leonard’s world changes forever when Caitlin Somers chooses her as a friend. Dazzling, reckless Caitlin welcomes Vix into the heart of her sprawling, eccentric family, opening doors to a world of unimaginable privilege, sweeping her away to vacations on Martha’s Vineyard, an enchanting place where the two friends become “summer sisters.”

Now, years later, Vix is working in New York City. Caitlin is getting married on the Vineyard. And the early magic of their long, complicated friendship has faded. But Caitlin begs Vix to come to her wedding, to be her maid of honor. And Vix knows that she will go—because she wants to understand what happened during that last shattering summer. And, after all these years, she needs to know why her best friend—her summer sister—still has the power to break her heart.

This title is also available in large print.

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Reese Witherspoon has selected Tom Lake by Ann Patchett for her August pick.

Curious what Tom Lake is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

This title is also available as a Libby eBook, Libby eAudiobook, and in large print.

Join Simply Held to have Oprah, Jenna, and Reese’s adult selections automatically put on hold for you!

How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

“It’s a whole new beginning, you know? It’s that moment before the universe expanded, when all of matter is the size of a trillionth of a period, all hot and full of nothing but potential. I could be someone who isn’t always and completely eclipsed by my sister and kicked down by my mom. Who could I be? The skyline whips by us, the clouds white. Everything feels new right along with me. Who could I be? I could be anything. No, scratch that. I could be everything.” – How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe, Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

If you’re ever not sure to read, ask a librarian for a recommendation. That is how I ended up with my latest five-star read: How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland. This young adult novel with a romance twist was beautifully written and full of tiny bits of humor dropped throughout. Moon Fuentez is an adorably lovable, yet incredibly sarcastic Mexican American teen trying to figure out her place in the world and in her family while on a summer road trip across the country with a group of influencers.

As long as she can remember, Moon Fuentez has been the ugly, unwanted sister. Her twin, Star, has reached social media stardom with Moon tagging behind as her sister’s camerawoman and photo editor. When her mom announces that Star and Moon will be spending their summer touring the country as part of a social media tour with dozens of beautiful influencers, Moon is less than thrilled. She will be working as ‘the merch girl’, giving up her entire summer in service to her sister, yet again.

Moon’s fate starts to change as soon as the two arrive to start the tour. Moon accidentally offends Santiago Phillips, her bunkmate and now her nemesis. They work together since he is ‘the merch guy’. Santiago loves to workout, giving him a massive physique and making him the hottest guy Moon has ever seen. Too bad he can’t stand Moon – he is constantly grumpy and combative whenever they have to work together, which is ALL THE TIME. It’s fine though – she hates him as much as he hates her. (You know where this is going, right?) Their forced proximity leads Moon to think about whether or not their mutual dislike is really true or not. This also leads her to think about how she has been living her life and what she really wants her future to look like.

The descriptions are beautifully written, the characters fully developed, and the story is sweet and serious, yet entertaining. The characters also evolve as the story progresses. Their relationships also change, some in positive ways, others negatively. This book is told first-person from Moon’s point of view with glimpses into Moon’s past between chapters. The author doesn’t shy away from talking about hard topics that some young adult books treat with kid gloves. At the core, this is a book about learning to love yourself, knowing your self-worth, and understanding that you are so much more than you (and others) see yourself and give yourself credit for. This is a serious contender for my favorite book of 2023.

This title is also available as a CD audiobook, single book club books, Libby eBook, and Libby eAudiobook.

Want to talk about How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe with others? Join See YA! See YA is our adult book club with a teen book twist. See why so many teen books are being turned into movies and are taking over the best seller lists. Registration is not required. Books are available on a first-come, first-served basis at the Eastern Avenue library. We meet the first Wednesday of the month at Eastern at 6:30pm.  Our next four months of books are listed below:

September 6th –  How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe by Raquel Gilliland Vasquez​​​​​​​

October 4th – Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey​​​​​​​

November 1st – Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Online Reading Challenge – July Wrap-Up

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read something set in suburbia that you enjoyed? Share in the comments!

As I was making the displays full of suburbia books for each Davenport library, I realized that a lot of what I read is set in this location without me even realizing it – those cozy mysteries, generational fiction, thrillers, etc that keep me company day after day. For July, I read our main title: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. Well technically, I had already read this title for a previous virtual book club that happened during COVID. (Side question: do any of you re-read books? I generally only do if it’s an absolute favorite comfort read since there are so many other books out there & not enough time! Let me know in the comments.) Anyway, instead of re-reading the book, I spent time going over my review and learning more about Ann Patchett. My favorite fact about Ann is that she opened Parnassus Books, a bookstore in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2011. Visiting there is on my bucket list. Let’s get into the book!

” ‘Do you think it’s possible to ever see the past as it actually was?’ … ‘But we overlay the present onto the past,’ … ‘We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we’re not seeing it as the people we were, we’re seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered.’ ” – Ann Patchett, The Dutch House

Danny and Maeve Conroy’s mother left their house and never returned when the siblings were very young. Their father is not warm or caring, instead he’s taciturn and withdrawn. Luckily for Danny, his older sister Maeve steps in and becomes his champion and ally. Their bond grows as the two age, providing them with love that they didn’t receive from their father. Their bond gets even stronger when their father marries out of the blue.

Their new stepmother Andrea moves into the house with her two little girls. It quickly becomes apparent that Andrea has absolutely no interest in Danny or Maeve, despite the four children getting along. In fact, Andrea works to exclude the older two from the family, giving one of her girls Maeve’s bedroom and forcing the housekeepers, who raised Maeve and Danny, out of the way. Their father is noticably more distant, making excuses to be away more frequently.

What drew Andrea to the family is the beautiful Victorian house that Danny and Maeve’s father bought for their mother. It’s located in an upscale Philadelphia neighborhood. He purchased the house with the former owners’ family portraits and furniture still in it. He saw this house as a symbol of his own success, while their mother saw it instead as excessive and overwhelming opulence with way too many expensive furnishings. Ultimately the house is what drove her away – somewhere to donate her time to helping other people. Andrea, however, saw the house, wanting it and the status that it would give her. She married their father for the house, which eventually led to Danny and Maeve being forced to leave and being haunted by that action for years.

The Dutch House is told first person through Danny’s point-of-view with some input thrown in by Maeve. This is rare for Ann Patchett, but added a layer of mystery to the story as Danny is written as a somewhat clueless character. Readers only see what Danny wants them to see with Maeve providing more details about their upbringing.

This book is about obsessive nostalgia and real estate lust, which I found to be somewhat contradictory, but that nevertheless worked together. It’s incredibly sentimental, heart-warming, and full of themes of forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, redemption, and letting go of the past. This is a story of unconventional families, making due with what you have, and what happens when children are left to their own devices. It gave me strong fairy tale vibes with the theme of motherless children (ie. ‘Cinderella’, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘The Little Princess’). All in all, this book was hard for me to stop reading and left me thinking about the story long after I finished. I hoped you like this pick!

In August we’re headed to Japan!