Author: Stephanie

A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tia Levings

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“When we are not free to say no, we are not free to say yes either.”
― Tia Levings, A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy

Tia Levings grew up surrounded by religion. She believed that in order to be a good Christian, she had to follow a set of life principles or rules that non-Christians weren’t allowed to know. These secret, special rules would guide her and her future family to salvation and protect their souls. As a young wife, Tia was recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement, guided by her new husband. Their relationship was rocky right from the start, but as she was raised to be silent and defer to the men in her life, Tia followed his directives. As a godly and submissive wife, Tia’s new routine centered around isolation, strict discipline, and living a wholesome life as the keeper of the home.

While their lives looked wholesome to outsiders, inside the home was another story. The fundamentalist teachings that she was raised with led her to an abusive marriage with little hope to escape. Thinking that what she was going through was somehow sanctioned by God and that other women were also going through this, Tia stayed. The longer she stayed married, the more dangerous and rocky her life became. Her husband laid down rules for the family that Tia had to follow, but also that could spell danger if anyone outside the home discovered. She wasn’t allowed to vote, visit doctors, put her children in school, or miss church sermons. Outside help was frowned upon.

While Tia struggled to keep the family together, her husband struggled to find his calling. He moved the family around the country searching for new churches that fit his religious beliefs. As a firm believer in patriarchy, he expected complete submission from Tia, perpetuating a cycle of patriarchal men and submissive women that Tia rebelled against. Through access to the internet, the library, and friends, Tia started to resist and question how she lived and the beliefs she as told to follow blindly. Having opinions proved dangerous. Her decision to learn more than what she was told eventually led Tia to a choice: she either had to face the consequences of her actions or escape with her children and start a new life.

This memoir broke me. Wanting to learn more about the teachings of Fundamentalist Christian religion and the struggles of women inside, I knew A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy would start me down that journey. Reading about her religious journey, her husband’s extreme views, and the details of the many churches they joined was difficult. I felt a wide-range of emotions while reading this book, at times crying with sadness, screaming with anger, and laughing with joy. The abuse and heartache that Tia endured destroyed me, but the fact that she was still able to discover her own thoughts, feelings, and her own voice that allowed her to leave and become her true self left me grateful she had the strength and will to write this book.

“Years later, on Instagram, I’d read a meme that read, ‘Why were we taught to fear the witches instead of the men who burned them?” And who were witches, anyway, but women with knowledge, skills, and names?’ “
― Tia Levings, A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy

May’s Celebrity Book Club Picks

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Bestsellers Club is a service that automatically places you on hold for authors, celebrity picks, nonfiction picks, and fiction picks. Choose any author, celebrity pick, fiction pick, and/or nonfiction pick and The Library will put the latest title on hold for you automatically. Select as many as you want! Still have questions? Click here for a list of FAQs.

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 Bestsellers Club, you can choose to have their selections automatically put on hold for you.

Oprah has selected Matriarch: A Memoir by Tina Knowles-Lawson for her latest pick.

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

A revealing personal life story like no other—enlightening, entertaining, surprising, empowering—and a testament to the world-making power of Black motherhood

“You are Celestine,” she said. She squatted to push the hair off my face and pull leaves off my pajama legs. “Like my sister and my grandmother.” And there, under the pecan tree, as she did countless times, that day my mother told me stories of the mothers and daughters that went before me.

Tina Knowles, the mother of iconic singer-songwriters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Solange Knowles, and bonus daughter Kelly Rowland, is known the world over as a Matriarch with a capital M: a determined, self-possessed, self-aware, and wise woman who raised and inspired some of the great artists of our time. But this story is about so much more than that.

Matriarch begins with a precocious, if unruly, little girl growing up in 1950s Galveston, the youngest of seven. She is in love with her world, with extended family on every other porch and the sounds of Motown and the lapping beach always within earshot. But as the realities of race and the limitations of girlhood set in, she begins to dream of a more grandiose world. Her instincts and impulsive nature drive her far beyond the shores of Texas to discover the life awaiting her on the other side of childhood.

That life’s journey—through grief and tragedy, creative and romantic risks and turmoil, the nurturing of superstar offspring and of her own special gifts—is the remarkable story she shares with readers here. This is a page-turning chronicle of family love and heartbreak, of loss and perseverance, and of the kind of creativity, audacity, and will it takes for a girl from Galveston to change the world. It’s one brilliant woman’s intimate and revealing story, and a multigenerational family saga that carries within it the story of America—and the wisdom that women pass on to one another, mothers to daughters, across generations. – One World

Jenna Bush Hager has selected The Names by Florence Knapp for her May pick.

Curious what The Names is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher.

The extraordinary novel that asks: Can a name change the course of a life?

In the wake of a catastrophic storm, Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son’s birth. Her husband, Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to name the infant after him. But when the registrar asks what she’d like to call the child, Cora hesitates…

Spanning thirty-five years, what follows are three alternate and alternating versions of Cora’s and her young son’s lives, shaped by her choice of name. In richly layered prose, The Names explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing.

With exceptional sensitivity and depth, Knapp draws us into the story of one family, told through a prism of what-ifs, causing us to consider the “one . . . precious life” we are given. The book’s brilliantly imaginative structure, propulsive storytelling, and emotional, gut-wrenching power are certain to make The Names a modern classic. – Pamela Dorman Books

Reese Witherspoon has selected Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry for her May pick.

Curious what Great Big Beautiful Life is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher.

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: to write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years—or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the twentieth century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication.

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad . . . depending on who’s telling it. – Berkley

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

Online Reading Challenge – May

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Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on graphic novels. Our main title for May is Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the coming-of-age story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.

Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane’s child’s-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love. – Pantheon

Looking for some other graphic novels? Try any of the following.

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

Online Reading Challenge – April Wrap-Up

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Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read a coming of age, or bildungsroman, novel? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. I went into this book not knowing much about it, other than it was a coming of age book, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and one of the New York Times 10 best books of the year. When I was selecting books for the Online Reading Challenge, I wanted to pick books that were outside the norm of what I would normally read and this sure fit that mold. The Topeka School won many accolades and awards, but I can honestly say that I would not have picked this book up on my own had it not been for the Online Reading Challenge.

Set in the American Midwest, this family drama begins in the 1990s with Adam Gordon, a senior at Topeka High School, the class of 1997. His parents both work at a psychiatric clinic in Topeka, Kansas that attracts patients from all over the world. His mother Jane is a famous author, while his father Jonathan is known for his ability to get lost young boys to open up. Jane’s book angers some members of the public who take out their outrage on Jane and her family by harassing them. Outside of school, Adam is a debater, who people expect to win a national championship. Despite his status on the debate team, Adam is one of the cool kids. He and his friends are told by their parents to be friendly to Darren Eberheart, a loner who also happens to be a patient of Adam’s father. Darren is awkward and his entrance into their social circle ends in a catastrophe.

While the summary I laid out above seems pretty straight-forward, the formatting of this book is anything but. The Topeka School shifts between time periods, perspectives, and narrators, which turned confusing. While I enjoyed the multiple perspectives, the jump in timelines made it difficult to know just where we were at in the story. The plot did end up making sense towards the end, but honestly I was so turned around in the middle that at parts I contemplated giving up. This book covers heavy topics: toxic masculinity, marital transgressions, abuse, public speech, and struggle for identity. Lerner isn’t afraid to pile on more and more topics within the changing timelines, but honestly the writing was so dense that I had trouble picking through to find the bones of the story. The characters are complex, somewhat dysfunctional, and written with an introspective feel. To me, this book was a complex web of stories, characters, and topics presented with dense language that I had trouble paying attention to for long periods of time. My main tip for reading this book: read small pieces at a time. Doing so made this book easier for me, even though it took me much longer to read it! All in all, I’m glad I read it, but it’s a 3 of 5 stars.

Next month, we will be reading a graphic novel!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!

Readalikes for Three Days in June

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If you’re anxiously waiting to read Anne Tyler’s newest novel, Three Days in June, I have gathered a list of readalikes to tide you over. This literary fiction tackles the challenges of love, the complexities of human relationships, and the ups and downs of marriage and family. Curious what Three Days in June is about? Check out the description below and then move on to our recommended readalikes.

Three Days in June by Anne Tyler

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life, Three Days in June is a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers. – Knopf

As of this writing, all of these titles are owned by the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions are provided by the publishers.

2024 Books

After Annie by Anna Quindlen

When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her children, and her closest friend are left to find a way forward without the woman who has been the lynchpin of all their lives. Bill is overwhelmed without his beloved wife, and Annemarie wrestles with the bad habits her best friend had helped her overcome. And Ali, the eldest of Annie’s children, has to grow up overnight, to care for her younger brothers and even her father and to puzzle out for herself many of the mysteries of adult life.

Over the course of the next year what saves them all is Annie, ever-present in their minds, loving but not sentimental, caring but nobody’s fool, a voice in their heads that is funny and sharp and remarkably clear. The power she has given to those who loved her is the power to go on without her. The lesson they learn is that no one beloved is ever truly gone.

Written in Quindlen’s emotionally resonant voice and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is about hope, and about the unexpected power of adversity to change us in profound and indelible ways. – Random House

This title is available in large print and CD audiobook.

I’ll Come to You by Rebecca Kauffman

A modern and classic story of family, with I’ll Come to You, beloved author Rebecca Kauffman explores overlapping narratives involving a couple whose struggle to become pregnant has both softened and hardened them, a woman whose husband of forty years has left her for reasons he’s unwilling to share and the man who is now disastrously attempting to woo her, a couple in denial about a looming health crisis, and their son who is fumbling toward middle age and can’t stop lying. Ultimately, these storylines crescendo and converge into a dramatic and harrowing turn of events. With heart, wit, and courage, and through pain, these characters traverse territory that both challenges and defines the bonds of family.

Sweeping yet compact, I’ll Come to You investigates themes of intimacy, memory, loss, grief, and reconciliation, and the wonder, terror, frustration, fear, and magic of brushing up against the unknowable—both around us and within us. – Counterpoint

Rental House by Weike Wang

Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,” says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign” wife.

Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together? – Riverhead Books

This title is also available in large print.

The Rich People Have Gone Away by Regina Porter

Brooklyn, 2020. Theo Harper and his pregnant wife, Darla, head upstate to their summer cottage to wait out the lockdown. Not everyone in their upscale Park Slope building has this privilege: not Xavier, the teenager in the Cardi B T-shirt, nor Darla’s best friend, Ruby, and her partner, Katsumi, who stay behind to save their Michelin-starred restaurant.

During an upstate hike on the aptly named Devil’s Path, Theo divulges a long-held secret—and when Darla disappears after the ensuing argument, he finds himself the prime suspect. As Darla’s and Theo’s families and friends come together to search for her, with Ruby and Katsumi stepping in to broker peace, past and present collide with startling consequences.

Set against the pulse of an ever-changing city, The Rich People Have Gone Away connects the lives of ordinary New Yorkers to tell a powerful story of hope, love, and inequity in our times—while reminding us that no one leaves the past behind completely. – Hogarth

Same as it ever was by Claire Lombardo

After a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, Julia resides on the placid plateau of her mid-50s. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, she believes she has a firm handle on things.

She’s unprepared, though, for a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which place her on the kind of razor’s edge that she knows all too well.

Same As It Ever Was traverses the rocky terrain of real life, exploring maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial cause-and-effect that governs us all. Delving into the core of relationships—how they grow, change, and sometimes end—Lombardo proves herself a true and definitive cartographer of the human heart and is, without doubt, among the finest novelists of her generation. – Vintage

This title is also available in large print.

Sandwich by Catherine Newman

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It’s one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves. – Harper Perennial

This title is also available in large print.

Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner

It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight until her stunning confidence becomes erratic and unpredictable, a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. None of that explains what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the mental illness that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed life.

As Amy comes of age and seeks to find her place—first in academics, then New York publishing, and through a series of troubled relationships—every step brings collisions with Ollie, who slips in and out of the Shred family without warning. Yet for all that threatens their sibling bond, Amy and Ollie cannot escape or deny the inextricable sister knot that binds them.

Spanning two decades, Shred Sisters is an intimate and bittersweet story exploring the fierce complexities of sisterhood, mental health, loss and love. If anything is true it’s what Amy learns on her road to self-acceptance: No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister. – Grove Press

2025 Books

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson

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. – Ballantine Books

This title is also available in large print.

Homeseeking by Karissa Chen

Haiwen is buying bananas at a 99 Ranch Market in Los Angeles when he looks up and sees Suchi, his Suchi, for the first time in sixty years. To recently widowed Haiwen it feels like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back.

Suchi was seven when she first met Haiwen in their Shanghai neighborhood, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossomed into soul-deep love, but when Haiwen secretly enlisted in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, she was left with just his violin and a note: Forgive me.

Homeseeking follows the separated lovers through six decades of tumultuous Chinese history as war, famine, and opportunity take them separately to the song halls of Hong Kong, the military encampments of Taiwan, the bustling streets of New York, and sunny California, telling Haiwen’s story from the present to the past while tracing Suchi’s from her childhood to the present, meeting in the crucible of their lives. Throughout, Haiwen holds his memories close while Suchi forces herself to look only forward, neither losing sight of the home they hold in their hearts. – G.P. Putnam’s Sons

We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall and her love life is . . . complicated. So when her real dad—a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago—suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach you: about love, and what it actually means to be family. – Pamela Dorman Books

This title is also available in large print and Playaway audiobook.

Counting the Cost by Jill Duggar

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“It’s like roses and thorns, justice and grace. You can recognize the beauty and happy parts of your story while also recognizing the more difficult parts. The two can coexist. The highs aren’t automatically erased or invalidated by the lows.”
― Jill Duggar, Counting the Cost

In 2008, the world was introduced to the Duggar family, headed by parents Jim Bob and Michelle. This traditional Christian family followed the teachings of the Institute in Basic Life Principles founded by Bill Gothard. To viewers, the family presented a happy God-fearing front eventually having nineteen children who all followed a strict model of patriarchy. Men were superior, while women are discouraged from higher education and expected to become wives and mothers. They also believed in an umbrella of protection which essentially means that parental authority over children extended into adulthood overruling marriage covenants. The show stayed on the air until 2015 when an arrest shattered their world, drudging up painful memories yet again.

Jill Duggar, the responsible second daughter, never questioned her parents. When her father introduced Jill to Derick Dillard, she knew she had found her match. As the two progressed in their relationship, growing older, getting married, traveling the world, and having children of their own, Jill started noticing some red flags about her childhood, her family, and their beliefs. The two tried to be obedient and not rock the boat, but when family restrictions butted up against business commitments, Jill and Derick knew they needed to break free. The cost of staying silent was too high. Jill decided it was time to talk about the intimidation, secrets, and manipulation that were a part of her life for too long. Relying on time, therapy, and God to help them, they started the process of finding themselves outside what they had always known. Finding healing is excruciatingly difficult, but through honesty they are able to build a life all of their own. Counting the Cost is their story of breaking free.

Racing Romances

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Walking the new shelves, I discovered a new trend in sports romance I haven’t yet read: racing romances! I’m talking car racing, mostly Formula 1. Determined to find one that I would like, I searched the catalog for some romances will have your heart racing while the characters race around the track.

As of this writing, all titles are owned by the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions are provided by the publishers.

Cross the Line by Simone Soltani, book 1 in Lights Out series

Formula 1 driver Dev Anderson’s career is on the line. After a social media disaster leaves him with an angry team and sponsors threatening to jump ship, he needs someone to help save his image. At a party in Monaco, he bumps into the woman who can fix it all. There’s just one problem: she’s his best friend’s little sister. And, okay, maybe there’s another problem—he kissed her last year and hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it since.

Recent college grad Willow Williams needs a job. She may have a talent for seeing the bright side of any bad situation, but it’s hard to stay positive when she’s struggling to get hired. So when Dev offers her a temporary solution, she can’t help but say yes. Even if it means ignoring the crush she’s had on him since childhood.

Willow and Dev are determined to keep things strictly professional, regardless of old feelings and the blazing chemistry between them. But in the glittering and high-stakes world of Formula 1, some lines are meant to be crossed… – Berkley

Drive by Tamara Lush, book 1 in Pretenders series

Determined to win. Destined to fall.

Savannah “Savvy” Jenkins is no stranger to the crude comments and leering looks she gets in the pit. Out to prove that she can succeed in a man’s world, she thinks she knows what to expect when she joins Formula World champion Dante Annunziata’s crew.

Dante is determined to finish his season on top. And Savvy is nothing but a distraction that threatens to get in the way. Convinced Savvy has no business on the team, Dante’s prepared to do anything to get her off.

But when a paparazzo catches the two in a compromising position, Dante and Savvy are in for a fauxmance for the ages. As their fake attraction turns real, they realize that there may be more to life than simply speeding through it. – W by Wattpad Books

Offtrack  by Esha Patel, book 1 in Offtrack series

Diana Zahrani is Formula One’s first female racing driver this century. All the other drivers are told to race carefully around her, and leave her to her real job: being a pretty face and good advertising for a hypermasculine sport. But Diana’s not worked this hard her whole life just to be a mascot.

World Championship favourite Miguel de la Fuente is not taking any rookie seriously, let alone a woman. With his first championship win looming, all he has to do is stay focused – and make sure Diana stays out of his way.

But motorsports is a small world, and as Diana and Miguel race their way through the season, they’re forced to face each other again and again. When sparks fly, Miguel and Diana must decide for the sake of their teams where their priorities lie: on track, with the championship, or offtrack, with each other… – Avon

Pole Position by Rebecca J. Caffery

Kian Walker has always been the golden boy of motorsport. The four-time Championship winner has racing in his DNA – his father was a legend on the track, just don’t let him catch you comparing the two. As reckless and unreliable at home as he was behind the wheel, there’s nothing Kian wants less than to be just like his dad.

Enter Harper James. This year’s rookie called up to compete with the big boys – and Kian’s new teammate. Cocky, hot-headed and with a reputation for breaking as many hearts as he does new track records, Harper’s the opposite of Kian in every way. But when the season starts, there’s no getting away from him.

This might be one of the most dangerous sports in the world, so why then does Kian’s heart feel safer flying around the track at 220mph than when he’s anywhere near his teammate? – One More Chapter

Throttled by Lauren Asher, book 1 in Dirty Air series

Noah: Maya Alatorre is the sister of my teammate… and my new obsession. Keeping my distance during the Formula 1 season should be easy, except I always find ways to see her: press tours, pre-race rituals, sponsor events and black-tie galas. The more time we spend together, the stronger my desire grows.

Sneaking around with her is one thing, but wanting more? Never going to happen. She might be a distraction dressed like a daydream, but no woman is worth risking the championship title over. Or so I thought.

Maya: Noah Slade is Formula 1 royalty and my brother’s biggest rival. When I’m invited to join my sibling while he competes for the World Championship, I promise to avoid Noah at all costs. Twenty-one races, two drivers who hate each other, and one forbidden attraction I can’t ignore.

Developing feelings for Noah wasn’t part of my plan. But then again, neither was anyone finding out. Turns out the man I was warned about happens to be the one I can’t stay away from – even if he breaks my heart once the season comes to an end. – Simon & Schuster

The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers by Sarah Tomlinson

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The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers by Sarah Tomlinson is the story of Mari Hawthorn, a ghostwriter hired to write a tell-all memoir that could make or break her career. Her last book contract didn’t end well so when she’s contacted about ghostwriting for Anke Berben, a famous model and fashion/style icon whose fame began in the 1960s, Mari must tread carefully. Anke was associated with three members of the rock band, The Midnight Ramblers. She had romances with all three members, Mal, Dante, and Jack, grabbing headlines and stirring controversies for years. The men were famous on stage and off, weaving tangled webs of relationships, betrayals, and secrets. The biggest mystery: the death of Mal in 1969. Mal was the band’s lead singer and Anke’s husband at the time of his death. He was found floating in a swimming pool with massive quantities of drugs and alcohol in his system.

Coming up on the 50th anniversary of Mal’s death, Anke’s memoir has the possibility to clear up all the rumors. Did he kill himself or was he murdered? Did Anke have something to do with his death or was it someone else in the band? Everyone in the band has kept silent for decades. As Anke’s ghostwriter, Mari needs to convince her to share stories that will make her memoir what people expect. In addition to writing Anke’s story, Mari is determined to find the truth about Mal’s death. After suffering a setback while writing Anke’s memoir, Mari decides to work her way into the world of the band. Their charm and fame enchant Mari, luring her into a false sense of security where she is tempted to compromise herself.

The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers is described as perfect for fans of Daisy Jones & The Six, Almost Famous, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. This doesn’t quite lift to that level for me, but I still enjoyed the stories told by the band members and their entourage. I felt like this book was missing something, but I can’t put my finger on it. I had difficulty connecting to the characters at their current ages, but the stories and flashes to the past hooked me in. It’s not for me, but I know many others who would enjoy this.

April’s Bestsellers Club Fiction and Nonfiction Picks

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Simply Held is rebranding to Bestsellers Club. No change in services, just a name change! If you’ve been with us for a while,  you might notice that this was our original name for this service, and now we’re back to it!

Simply Held is now Bestsellers Club, a service that automatically places you on hold for authors, celebrity picks, nonfiction picks, and fiction picks. Choose any author, celebrity pick, fiction pick, and/or nonfiction pick and The Library will put the latest title on hold for you automatically. Select as many as you want! Still have questions? Click here for a list of FAQs.

It’s a new quarter and that means new fiction and nonfiction picks have been selected for you courtesy of Bestsellers Club! Four fiction picks are available for you to choose from: diverse debuts, graphic novel, historical fiction, and international fiction. Four nonfiction picks are available for you to choose from: biographies, cookbooks, social justice, and true crime. Our fiction and nonfiction picks are chosen quarterly and are available in regular print only. If you would like to update your selections or are a new patron who wants to receive picks from any of those four categories, sign up for Bestsellers Club through our website!

Below you will find information provided by the publishers and authors on the titles we have selected for January from the following categories in fiction: diverse debuts, graphic novel, historical fiction, and international fiction and the following categories in nonfiction: biographies, cookbooks, social justice, and true crime.

Acronym definitions
BIPOC: Black, Indigenous, and people of color.
LGBTQ+: Lesbian, gay, transgender, queer, and more.

FICTION PICKS

Diverse Debuts:

Diverse Debuts: Debut fiction novel by a BIPOC author, LGBTQ+ author or an author from another marginalized community.

Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine

Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master’s daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, while she spends her nights secretly roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie.

When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie’s life, she commits a desperate act—one that rouses Minnie’s spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her. She enlists the aid of Caleb, the guests’ coachman, and their friendship soon becomes something more. Yet as long-held truths begin to crumble, she realizes Bellereine is harboring dark and horrifying secrets that can no longer be ignored.

With time ticking down, Junie begins to push against the harsh current that has controlled her entire life. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we choose love and liberation, what must we leave behind? – Ballantine Books

This title is also available in large print.

Graphic Novel:

Graphic Novel: Fiction novel for adults of any subgenre with diverse characters depicted by color illustrations, sketches, and photographs.

Woman, Life, Freedom edited by Marjane Satrapi

An urgent, groundbreaking and visually stunning new collection of graphic storytelling about the present Iranian revolution, using comics to show what would be censored in photos and film in Iran.

Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis, returns to graphic art with this collaboration of over 20 activists, artists, journalists, and academics working together to depict the historic uprising, in solidarity with the Iranian people and in defense of feminism.

On September 13th 2022, a young Iranian student, Mahsa Amini, was arrested by the morality police in Tehran. Her only crime was that she wasn’t properly wearing the headscarf required for women by the Islamic Republic. At the police station, she was beaten so badly she had to be taken to the hospital, where she fell into a deep coma. She died three days later.

A wave of protests soon spread through the whole country, and crowds adopted the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom”—words that have been chanted around the world during solidarity rallies.

In order to tell the story of this major revolution happening in her homeland, Marjane Satrapi has gathered together an array of journalists, activists, academics, artists, and writers from around the world to create this powerful collection of full-color, graphic-novel-style essays and perspectives that bear witness:

  • Contributing artists: Joann Sfar, Coco, Mana Neyastani, Catel, Pascal Rabate, Patricia Bolanos, Paco Roca, Bahareh Akrami, Hippolyte, Shabnam Adiban, Lewis Trondheim, Winshluss, Touka Neyastani, Bee, Deloupy, Nicolas Wild, and Marjane Satrapi.
  • 3 expert perspectives on Iran: long-time journalist for Libération and political scientist Jean-Pierre Perrin; researcher and Iran specialist Farid Vahid; and UC Berkeley historian Abbas Milani, Director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University.

Woman, Life, Freedom demonstrates that this is not an unexpected movement, but a major uprising in a long history of women who have wanted to affirm their rights. It will continue. – Seven Stories Press

Historical Fiction:

Historical Fiction: Historical fiction novel written by a BIPOC author, LGBTQ+ author or an author from another marginalized community, with main character(s) from a marginalized community.

The Filling Station by Vanessa Miller

Two sisters. One unassuming haven. Endless opportunities for grace.

Sisters Margaret and Evelyn Justice have grown up in the prosperous Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma–also known as Black Wall Street. In Greenwood, the Justice sisters had it all–movie theaters and entertainment venues, beauty shops and clothing stores, high-profile businesses like law offices, medical clinics, and banks. While Evelyn aspires to head off to the East Coast to study fashion design, recent college grad Margaret plans to settle in Greenwood, teaching at the local high school and eventually raising a family.

Then the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre upends everything they know and brings them unspeakable loss. Left with nothing but each other, the sisters flee along what would eventually become iconic Route 66 and stumble upon the Threatt Filling Station, a safe haven and the only place where they can find a shred of hope in oppressive Jim Crow America. At the filling station, they are able to process their pain, fill up their souls, and find strength as they wrestle with a faith in God that has left them feeling abandoned.

But they eventually realize that they can’t hide out at the filling station when Greenwood needs to be rebuilt. The search for their father and their former life may not give them easy answers, but it can propel them–and their community–to a place where their voices are stronger . . . strong enough to build a future that honors the legacy of those who were lost. – Thomas Nelson

International Fiction:

International Fiction: Fiction novel originally written in another language with main character(s) from marginalized communities.

Hunchback by Saō Ichikawa

Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka spends her days in her room in a care home outside Tokyo, relying on an electric wheelchair to get around and a ventilator to breathe. But if Shaka’s physical life is limited, her quick, mischievous mind has no boundaries: She takes e-learning courses on her iPad, publishes explicit fantasies on websites, and anonymously troll-tweets to see if anyone is paying attention (“In another life, I’d like to work as a high-class prostitute”). One day, she tweets into the void an offer of an enormous sum of money for a sperm donor. To Shaka’s surprise, her new nurse accepts the dare, unleashing a series of events that will forever change Shaka’s sense of herself as a woman in the world.

Hunchback has shaken Japanese literary culture with its skillful depiction of the physical body and its unrepentant humor. Winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, it’s a feminist story about the dignity of an individual who insists on her right to make choices for herself, no matter the consequences. Formally creative and refreshingly unsentimental, Hunchback depicts the joy, anger, and desires of a woman demanding autonomy in a world that doesn’t always grant it to people like her. Full of wit, bite, and heart, this unforgettable novel reminds us all of the full potential of our lives, regardless of the limitations we experience. – Hogarth

NONFICTION PICKS

Biography pick

Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leapng, Road-racing life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman by Mallory O’Meara

Helen Gibson was a woman willing to do anything to give audiences a thrill. Advertised as “The Most Daring Actress in Pictures,” Helen emerged in the early days of the twentieth-century silent film scene as a rodeo rider, background actor, stunt double, and eventually one of the era’s biggest action stars. Her exploits on motorcycles, train cars, and horseback were as dangerous as they were glamorous, featured in hundreds of films and serials–yet her legacy was quickly overshadowed by the increasingly hypermasculine and male-dominated evolution of cinema in the decades that would follow her.

Award-winning author Mallory O’Meara presents her life and career in exhilarating detail, including:

  • Helen’s rise to fame in The Hazards of Helen, the longest-running serial in history
  • How Helen became the first-ever stuntwoman in American film
  • The pivotal role of Helen’s contemporaries–including female directors, stars, and stuntwomen who shaped the making of cinema as we know it.

Through the page-turning story of Helen’s pioneering legacy, Mallory O’Meara gives readers a glimpse of the Golden Age of Hollywood that could have been: an industry where women call the shots. – Hanover Square Press

Cookbook pick

Pretty Delicious: Simply, Modern Mediterranean, served with style by Alia and Radwa Elkaffas

Born and raised in the Midwest to parents originally from Egypt, sisters Alia and Radwa Elkaffas created their Food Dolls platform to answer the question of how to put an exciting and healthful meal on the table without spending hours in the kitchen. And that’s what Pretty Delicious is all about: flavor-packed, Mediterranean-inspired, and super simple recipes, all dolled up and plated with style.

Start with the How to Make Your Kitchen Your Happy Place chapter (life-bettering shortcuts! organizing and styling tips!) and then fall in love with dishes like:

  • Breakfast, Brunch, or Anytime: Banana Bread-Baked Oatmeal Three Ways; Baklava Cinnamon Rolls
  • Just Getting Started: Sumac Chicken Wings; Crispy Baked Halloumi with Hot-Honey Drizzle
  • Double-Duty Dips: Whipped Feta; Roasted-Tomato Baba G
  • Pretty Delicious Salads: Mediterranean Cobb Salad; Pasta Salad with Green Goddess Dressing
  • What’s for Dinner?: Shrimp Tagine with Garlicky Tomatoes and Peppers; Spiced Chickpea & Coconut Stew; Chicken Kofta Burgers; Steak Shawarma Bowls
  • Pretty Sweet: Turkish Coffee Tiramisu; Croissant Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce

And since serving with style is what Food Dolls perhaps love the most, they also share an entire chapter of menus and inspired ideas to zhush up the dinner table, with 120 beautifully styled photos throughout. Fresh, streamlined, healthful, and proven family-friendly, Pretty Delicious will inspire you with dozens of ingenious ways to level up dinner. – Clarkson Potter

Social Justice pick

Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition by Silky Shah

Drawing from over twenty years of activism on local and national levels, this striking book offers an organizer’s perspective on the intersections of immigrant rights, racial justice, and prison abolition.

In the wake of post-9/11 xenophobia, Obama’s record-level deportations, Trump’s immigration policies, and the 2020 uprisings for racial justice, the US remains entrenched in a circular discourse regarding migrant justice. As organizer Silky Shah argues in Unbuild Walls, we must move beyond building nicer cages or advocating for comprehensive immigration reform. Our only hope for creating a liberated society for all, she insists, is abolition.

Unbuild Walls dives into US immigration policy and its relationship to mass incarceration, from the last forty years up to the present, showing how the prison-industrial complex and immigration enforcement are intertwined systems of repression. Incorporating historical and legal analyses, Shah’s personal experience as an organizer, as well as stories of people, campaigns, organizations, and localities that have resisted detention and deportation, Shah assesses the movement’s strategies, challenges, successes, and shortcomings. Featuring a foreword by Amna A. Akbar, Unbuild Walls is an expansive and radical intervention, bridging the gaps between movements for immigrant rights, racial justice, and prison abolition. – Haymarket Books

True Crime pick

Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II by Abbott Kahler

At the height of the Great Depression, Los Angeles oil mogul George Allan Hancock and his crew of Smithsonian scientists came upon a gruesome scene: two bodies, mummified by the searing heat, on the shore of a remote Galápagos island. For the past four years Hancock and other American elites had traveled the South Seas to collect specimens for scientific research. On one trip to the Galápagos, Hancock was surprised to discover an equally exotic group of humans: European exiles who had fled political and economic unrest, hoping to create a utopian paradise. One was so devoted to a life of isolation that he’d had his teeth extracted and replaced with a set of steel dentures.

As Hancock and his fellow American explorers would witness, paradise had turned into chaos. The three sets of exiles—a Berlin doctor and his lover, a traumatized World War I veteran and his young family, and an Austrian baroness with two adoring paramours—were riven by conflict. Petty slights led to angry confrontations. The baroness, wielding a riding crop and pearl-handled revolver, staged physical fights between her two lovers and unabashedly seduced American tourists. The conclusion was deadly: with two exiles missing and two others dead, the survivors hurled accusations of murder.

Using never-before-published archives, Abbott Kahler weaves a chilling, stranger-than-fiction tale worthy of Agatha Christie. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the march to World War II, with a mystery as alluring and curious as the Galápagos itself, Eden Undone explores the universal and timeless desire to seek utopia—and lays bare the human fallibility that, inevitably, renders such a quest doomed. – Crown

Join Bestsellers Club to have the newest fiction and nonfiction picks automatically put on hold for you every quarter.

Find Her by Ginger Reno

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Have you ever had a book cover capture your interest and demand you read it? That’s how I felt when I saw Find Her by Ginger Reno while scrolling Libby late one night. The red hand covering the mouth is the identifying symbol for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons movement. This movement seeks to bring focus to the alarming issue surrounding the high rate of missing and murdered Indigenous people in the United States, particularly women and girls. Knowing that Find Her is middle grade fiction, I wanted to see how the MMIP movement would be showcased to a younger audience, so I decided to give this a read.

Twelve-year-old Wren’s mother has been missing for over five years. Sadly she is one of the hundreds of missing and murdered Indigenous people in Oklahoma alone. Even though her father is the chief of police in her small town, this hasn’t helped them find her any quicker. Some days it feels like Wren and her grandmother are the only two who care that her mom is missing. Wren has a secret weapon though: her finder sense. Looking for ways to help find her mom, Wren decides she needs to sharpen her finder sense. She starts a pet finding business and soon finds her detective skills tested.

When one of the missing pets is found badly hurt, Wren is devastated. When more are found injured, Wren grows worried. Who is behind this animal abuse? Why aren’t the police moving faster? With the help of a friend, Wren decides she is going to find the person behind these crimes. If she can solve these cases, maybe then she’ll be able to find her mother. Taking this on means Wren is going to have to keep secrets from the two most important people in her family: her grandmother and her father. Hopefully they will understand.

This book destroyed me. Even though Find Her is middle grade fiction, it dealt with heavy topics that had me up late at night wondering why and how people could behave so cruelly to other humans and to animals. While I expected this book to wrap up all its threads in a neat bow, I was pleasantly surprised when the author left some questions unanswered. Definitely recommend for people of all ages!