Author: Stephanie

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal

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Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal is a thought-provoking, meaningful, and sexy book that was definitely not what I was expecting. Jaswal pairs funny, light, and lively touches with very serious themes like arranged vs. forced marriages and traditional vs. modern cultures. As I was scrolling through the Libby app, I found this title and checked the author’s website where I found this:

Entertainment Weekly:
Write a movie poster tagline for your Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows.

Balli Kaur Jaswal:
You’ll never look at root vegetables the same way again.

Nikki and Mindi are sisters who showcase differences between generations and traditions. Mindi is slightly more traditional than her more modern sister Nikki. The daughters of Indian immigrants, both Nikki and Mindi, are working to find their places in life. Needing a change, Nikki applies for and is hired to teach creative writing at the local Sikh community center. When she arrives for the first class though, she learns that the job posting was a lie. Her students are mostly older Punjabi widows who want to learn how to read and write. Quickly adjusting, Nikki starts teaching them English letters, but the widows become bored. The students soon find a book of sexy/erotic short stories that they read to each other before class starts. This devolves into the widows sharing their own stories. Chaos ensues with issues popping up all over the community and within their own class.

Even though the name of this book sounds scandalous, this book is not erotica nor romance. Yes, there are a couple erotic stories, but the stories presented are meant to appear like they are written by women who cannot read or write. Instead they are lived experiences or stories that come from the heart or from loneliness. These stories are presented in ways that show that these women want to feel equal or loved or wanting to feel pleasure or be able to be on equal terms as men. They add meaning to the book by showcasing issues that women have faced for centuries and are still facing today.

There are lots of triggers in this book: violent murders, threats, oppression of women, mention of rape, religious persecution, and social oppression.

This title is also available in spanish fiction and as a Libby eBook.

Simply Held July Authors: Mary Monroe and Louise Penny

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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 new highlighted authors from Simply Held. July’s authors are Mary Monroe for fiction and Louise Penny for mystery.

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Our July fiction author is Mary Monroe. Monroe was the first and only member of her family to finish high school. She never went to college or took any writing classes. Instead, she taught herself how to write and started writing short stories at the age of four. Her first novel, The Upper Room, was published in 1985. After that, it took her fifteen years before she landed a contract for her second book, God Don’t Like Ugly, which published in 2000. She has won the Oakland Pen Award for Best Fiction, the Best Southern Author Award, the Maya Angelou Lifetime Achievement Award, and the J. California Copper Memorial Award, amongst many others.

Monroe writes romance, general fiction, romantic suspense, and historical fiction.

Monroe’s newest book is Love, Honor, Betray, which is the third book in the Lexington, Alabama series. This book was published in March 2023.

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

Award-winning New York Times bestselling author Mary Monroe delivers the latest thrillingly scandal-filled novel in her Depression-era saga of a church-going lady and her oh-so-upstanding husband racing to cover up their many sins—and gambling on one scheme too many. . .

With mysterious serial murders putting peaceful Lexington, Alabama, on edge, Jessie and Hubert Wiggins’ steadfast calm and devotion to each other reassures everyone that faith will see them through. But Jessie and Hubert have paid a terrible hidden cost to maintain their devout facade and respectable standing. Nothing can allay the guilt they feel—or stop the growing distrust between them . . .

Hubert thought he and his secret lover, Leroy, could continue seeing each other on the down-low in peace. But when Leroy’s ex-wife moves back in with him, a heartbroken Hubert is driven to distraction trying to keep Jessie in the dark—and quell his mounting jealousy. And his need for satisfaction is driving Hubert to reckless extremes—and desperate risks. . .

Jessie believes the struggles between her and Hubert will all be worth it if she can connive him to finally consummate their marriage—no matter what she has to do. But his erratic behavior and her frustration soon has her trying yet another new lover, who is as charming as he is unreliable—and unexpectedly dangerous. . .

Now with their secrets out of control—and the police perilously near—Jessie and Hubert discover who might be behind the deaths plaguing their town. But can they risk a pursuit that could expose their own web of lies? When their only choice pits them and their suspicions against each other, their next move will either bury their deceptions deep for good—or reveal the one truth they can’t escape. . .

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

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Our July mystery author is Louise Penny. Penny is most well-known for her best-selling mystery series starring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec. This series started in 2005 with Still Life and has made it up to eighteen novels (so far). It is known as both the Three Pines books and the Chief Inspector Gamache series. Her late husband Michael was the inspiration for Armand Gamache. Outside of this series, Penny worked with Hillary Clinton to write State of Terror, a geopolitical thriller that was released in 2021.

Before becoming a published author, Penny worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) as a radio host and journalist for 18 years. In 1996, Penny quit working for the CBC at the encouragement of her husband, Michael Whitehead, in order to write a novel. After five years of struggles, she decided to start writing mysteries, stop writing for an imagined reader, and start focusing on what she would like to read. She made the characters people she would want to be friends with and based the setting on her town and the surrounding area. She was rejected by numerous publishers. Frustrated, she submitted her book for the Debut Dagger award in 2004, a British crime-writing contest for unpublished works. She placed second, but left with an agent. Her first book, Still Life, was published in 2005. Her Chief Inspector Gamache series has sold more than 10 million copies in North America. A miniseries and television show were also based on the series.

Penny is a New York Times and Globe and Mail bestselling author. She has won multiple awards, including multiple Agatha Awards, a Crime Writers’ Association Dagger, and was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Novel, plus many others not listed here. She currently lives outside a small village south of Montreal with her golden retrievers. Penny writes mysteries and thrillers.

Penny’s author website has many helpful parts – book club questions, reading order, literacy help, Three Pines character list, pronunciation guide, and so much more. I highly recommend you check it out.

Penny’s newest book is A World of Curiosities, book 18 in the Chief Inspector Ganache series. This book was published in November 2022.

Curious what this book is about? Below is a description provided by the publisher.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache returns in the eighteenth book in #1 New York Times bestseller Louise Penny’s beloved series.

It’s spring and Three Pines is reemerging after the harsh winter. But not everything buried should come alive again. Not everything lying dormant should reemerge.

But something has.

As the villagers prepare for a special celebration, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir find themselves increasingly worried. A young man and woman have reappeared in the Sûreté du Québec investigators’ lives after many years. The two were young children when their troubled mother was murdered, leaving them damaged, shattered. Now they’ve arrived in the village of Three Pines.

But to what end?

Gamache and Beauvoir’s memories of that tragic case, the one that first brought them together, come rushing back. Did their mother’s murder hurt them beyond repair? Have those terrible wounds, buried for decades, festered and are now about to erupt?

As Chief Inspector Gamache works to uncover answers, his alarm grows when a letter written by a long dead stone mason is discovered. In it the man describes his terror when bricking up an attic room somewhere in the village. Every word of the 160-year-old letter is filled with dread. When the room is found, the villagers decide to open it up.

As the bricks are removed, Gamache, Beauvoir and the villagers discover a world of curiosities. But the head of homicide soon realizes there’s more in that room than meets the eye. There are puzzles within puzzles, and hidden messages warning of mayhem and revenge.

In unsealing that room, an old enemy is released into their world. Into their lives. And into the very heart of Armand Gamache’s home.

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

Library Closed for Independence Day / 4th of July

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All three Davenport Public Library locations are closed on Tuesday, July 4th in observance of Independence Day. We will be open for regular hours and services on Wednesday, July 5th.

Even though Independence Day is a largely celebrated holiday, I wanted to focus on some smaller known holidays. I found a list on Holidays and Observances website, but I’m going to focus on a few!

Alice in Wonderland Day – Supposedly this is the day that Lewis Carroll, real name – Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, originally told his story to Alice Liddell for the first time before he wrote it down. This first telling would eventually become Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Boom Box Parade Day – In 1986, the local high school of Willimantic, Connecticut had to make budget cuts, which meant there would be no band to play in the July 4th parade. The local radio station 1400 AM WILI volunteered to play music instead. Now hundreds of people march through town with boom boxes tuned to WILI, which plays marching band classics.

Independence from Meat Day – According to sources, this day was created by the Vegetarian Awareness Network in Tennessee with the aim to take a day off from consuming meat. The irony that it takes place on a holiday marked by barbecues is not lost on me.

Sidewalk Egg Frying Day  – Every July 4th, a town in Arizona has an egg frying contest. The catch? You have to fry an egg outside without any electricity or fire! You can use mirrors or magnifying glasses though. Have you ever fried an egg on a sidewalk before?

I hope you’ve enjoyed this dive into unique July 4th traditions and holidays. If you any other favorites, share them in the comments below!

 

 

Online Reading Challenge – July

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Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge travels to suburbia. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, suburbia is ‘the outer parts of a town, where there are houses, but no large stores, places of work, or places of entertainment’. Miriam-Webster defines suburbs as ‘a smaller community adjacent to or within commuting distance of a city OR the residential area on the outskirts of a city or large town’. There are so many suburbia options for you to read, watch, or listen to! I can’t wait!

Our Main title for July is The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher.

Ann Patchett, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth, delivers her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are.

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.

The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.

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

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

Online Reading Challenge – June Wrap-Up

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Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

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

I read our main title: The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman. This book tore my heart out. The more I read, the more I was invested in what was going on in everyone’s lives. The prose is absolutely beautiful as the author describes the remote island setting (and all the other locations in the book). Honestly, I love any books set in Australia, especially narrators with Australian accents, so this was an almost guaranteed enjoyment for me. Let’s talk about the book!

Tom Sherbourn is a young World War I vet described by others as responsible, upstanding, and stalwart. The war ravaged him emotionally. After the war, Tom finds a job as a light-keeper on isolated Janus Rock off the western coast of Australia. During one of his shore leaves, Tom meets Isabel. Isabel is young and free-spirited. The two are soon married and set up house on Janus Rock to begin their life together as starry-eyed new lovers. Janus Rock is gorgeous. Tom starts to heal amongst the silence, solitude, and rumblings of the sea. The thing that would make their life complete is a baby, something that Isabel longs for intensely. Over several years, Isabel suffers two miscarriages and a devastating stillbirth. The couple are crushed.

One day a small boat washes up on Janus Rock. The two are stunned to find a dead body and a very much alive infant in the boat. Tom is required to record and report everything that happens on Janus Rock, but Isabel persuades a very reluctant Tom to not do so in this case. She reasons that the baby is most likely an orphan now. Isabel believes that this is a sign from the universe to reward them after the years of heartbreak the two have suffered in their attempts to have a child. Tom buries the dead man, sets the boat adrift, and tells himself the two are doing the right thing, although his conscience eats at him as time passes.

Tom, Isabel, and the baby have an almost perfect life on Janus Rock. Their trips back to shore to visit Isabel’s family however start to worry even more at Tom’s conscience. He broke the rules and omitted important information from his reports, something that could end his career and lead to him facing formal charges. Tom’s misgivings haunt him and soon enough, his worries actually amount to something. Their idyllic life comes crashing down. The family is forced to deal with the consequences of Tom and Isabel’s actions. Nothing will be the same.

I wasn’t sure what I expected when I started this book, but I was pleasantly surprised. I had never read this before (or seen the movie starring Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Rachel Weisz). The depth of emotion presented through written words tore at my heart. As I was reading, I thought I was going to be sympathetic one way, but reading from multiple points of view really had me second-guessing my judgments and feelings. I find myself thinking about this book long after I finished it – wondering what choices I would have made if I had been put in a similar position. This book, to me, was a good reminder that you never know what a person is going through. Everyone has their own reasons for doing something and just because you wouldn’t necessarily behave a certain way doesn’t mean that someone else won’t. All in all, I enjoyed this book and found myself running through a wide range of emotions as I listened.

In July we’re headed to suburbia!

Flung Out of Space by Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer

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This is a story I believe is worth telling. That being said, I want to be clear: The protagonist of this story is not a good person. In fact, Patricia Highsmith was an appalling person. – Grace Ellis, author’s note in the beginning of Flung Out of Space

Flung Out of Space: Inspired by the Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith by Grace Ellis and illustrated by Hannah Templer was a book that had my feelings twisted multiple directions. Patricia Highsmith is problematic. She was a comic book writer and a lesbian during a time when those things were very much frowned upon and seen of as wrong and immoral. Pat’s own feelings towards herself are not positive – she goes through conversion therapy during the book. She is portrayed more as an antihero that readers aren’t sure how they should feel towards. Throughout this book, she is portrayed as bitter, caustic, and lashes out to anyone who gets too close. Pat is deeply flawed. This graphic novel is full of casual sexism, a male-dominated hierarchy, antisemitism, and prejudice against homosexuality. The swirling issues surrounding homosexuality are never really called attention to, but instead are present in Pat’s intense self-loathing of herself amongst other things. Hence my twisty feelings.

This graphic novel begins with Pat working as a writer of low-brow comics. She knows she can do better, but doesn’t do so. She drinks, smokes, and generally goes about life with an immensely surly attitude. As she goes about her day to day, Pat is consumed with thoughts of the novel she should be writing, which will eventually become Strangers on a Train, which will then be adapted into a film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951.

While she works to write Strangers on a Train, Pat is consumed with self-hatred as she battles the fact that she is a lesbian. She tries conversion therapy, which instead provides her with more women to love and leave. One of those encounters plants the seed of another book in Pat’s head: a story of homosexual love that would give the lesbian protagonists a happy ending – a first! (this would eventually become the book, The Price of Salt).

As I talking about before, this title gave me conflicting emotions. Pat became an unintentional queer icon, but also held incredibly problematic views on multiple topics which made her legacy controversial. It’s a good read, but please read with care.

Sensory: Life on the Spectrum edited by Rebecca Ollerton

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Sensory: Life on the Spectrum: An Autistic Comics Anthology edited by Rebecca Ollerton was organized for autism acceptance month in 2021. It started as a Kickstarter campaign and was eventually traditionally published with Andrews McMeel and circulated around the world. Now that we’ve talked the nitty-gritty, let’s get into how/why this title caught my eye.

First off, I am a sucker for comics anthologies. I love being introduced to new writers’ styles and seeing what they choose to focus on. Thirty autistic creators contributed to this anthology, talking about a wide variety of topics related to autism and their own journeys, such as self-diagnosis, masking, and autistic joy. This isn’t a graphic novel talking JUST about the happy though. Many of the autistic people in this book do share how they love their life or how they have come to accept that autism is an inherent part of who they are. However, there are also stories from artists sharing their discomfort (or at times, their hatred) of being autistic. I appreciated that this story shared stories from a wide variety of experiences. I also loved how there were multiple different autistic perspectives shared and how they didn’t agree on the ‘correct’ autistic terminology. The different experiences, perspectives, and emotions made this book more realistic and authentic to me versus if it had been exclusively positive or negative.

Second, I found this title in our Literacy Collection when I was looking for resources on autism from autistic people. I specifically was looking for input on identity first language(autistic person) vs people first language(person with autism). I had found a resource from the Autistic Not Weird Autism Survey 2022 that talked about how the majority of autistic people prefer identity first language. It’s been an interesting research journey and I wanted to see where this book would take me.

Third, I wanted to see how perspectives were highlighted in the neurodivergent world versus how they perceive the allistic(people not on the autism spectrum) world. Emotions ran high in some of the stories, which is necessary as those emotions can be healing and start new conversations. I also wanted to check my privileges and perceptions as an allistic person and see how I can adjust my actions to be more inclusive. This book was an interesting read as it had something for every different neurotype. Definite recommend if you want to expand your thinking and inclusiveness.

Sensory: Life on the Spectrum can be found in the Literacy Collection at our Main and Fairmount Street locations.

Time Travel Books

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Time travel books are one of my favorite types of fiction to read (Here’s looking at you, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series). The real world can only move forward in a straight line, but thankfully there are time travel books where authors play with time as much as they want without worrying about physics. They play with time loops, time slips, and plots similar to Groundhog Day. Below I’ve gathered some of my favorite time travel books, as well as ones that are on my to-read list. Descriptions are provided by the publishers. Share your favorites in the comments below!

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Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore

A remarkably inventive novel that explores what it means to live a life fully in the moment, even if those moments are out of order.

It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn nineteen, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens thirty-two years in the future in her fifty-one-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger in a beautiful house she’s told is her own, Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at random. And so begins Oona Out of Order…

Hopping through decades, pop culture fads, and much-needed stock tips, Oona is still a young woman on the inside but ever changing on the outside. Who will she be next year? Philanthropist? Club Kid? World traveler? Wife to a man she’s never met? Surprising, magical, and heart-wrenching, Margarita Montimore has crafted an unforgettable story about the burdens of time, the endurance of love, and the power of family.

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This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

From award-winning authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone comes an enthralling, romantic novel spanning time and space about two time-traveling rivals who fall in love and must change the past to ensure their future.

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandment finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.

Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, becomes something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean the death of each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win. That’s how war works, right?

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The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.

Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.

So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.

And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.

Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.

Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.

After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.

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Faye, Faraway by Helen Fisher

Every night, as Faye puts her daughters to bed, she thinks of her own mother, Jeanie, who died when Faye was eight. The pain of that loss has never left her, and that’s why she wants her own girls to know how very much they are loved by her—and always will be, whatever happens.

Then one day, Faye gets her heart’s desire when she’s whisked back into the past and is reunited not just with her mother but with her own younger self.

Jeanie doesn’t recognize grown-up Faye as her daughter, even though there is something eerily familiar about her. But the two women become close friends and share all kinds of secrets—except for the deepest secret of all, the secret of who Faye really is. Faye worries that telling the truth may prevent her from being able to return to the present day, to her dear husband and beloved daughters. Eventually she’ll have to choose between those she loved in the past and those she loves in the here and now, and that knowledge presents her with an impossible choice.

If only she didn’t have to make it….

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Maybe Next Time by Cesca Major

It is an ordinary Monday and harried London literary agent Emma is flying out of the door as usual. Preoccupied with work and her ever growing to-do list, she fails to notice her lovely husband Dan seems bereft, her son can barely meet her eye, and her daughter won’t go near her. Even the dog seems sad.

She is far too busy, buried deep in her phone; social media alerts pinging; clients messaging with “emergencies”; keeping track of a dozen WhatsApp groups about the kids’ sports, school, playdates, all of it. Her whole day is frantic—what else is new—and as she rushes back through the door for dinner, Dan is still upset. They fight, and he walks out, desolate, dragging their poor dog around the block. Just as she realizes it is their anniversary and she has forgotten, again, she hears the screech of brakes.

Dan is dead.

The next day Emma wakes up… and Dan is alive. And it’s Monday again.

And again.

And again.

Emma tries desperately to change the course of fate by doing different things each time she wakes up: leaving WhatsApp, telling her boss where to get off, writing to Dan, listening to her kids, reaching out to forgotten friends, getting drunk and buying out Prada. But will Emma have the chance to find herself again, remember what she likes about her job, reconnect with her children, love her husband? Will this be enough to change the fate they seem destined for?

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Five First Chances by Sarah Jost

What would you do if you had one more chance for the life of your dreams?

Lou feels like she is stuck on the wrong path: alone, in a city far from home, watching other people be happy. When the man she’s in love with announces his engagement to someone else, Lou is consumed by ‘what ifs’.

That’s when she finds herself slipping back in time to a night two years ago, where one small decision changed everything…

Suddenly, Lou has a chance to fix her mistakes. But as her choices lead her down roads she never could have imagined, she finds herself stuck in a time loop of her own making. And with each slip, Lou notices her life intersecting with one person again and again. A friend of a friend who once lived on the periphery, who is slowly becoming the one person who makes her feel like she might finally be on the right track.

Lou is about to realize that our greatest love stories aren’t always the ones we expected, but are the ones we choose to fight for.

For anyone who has ever felt stuck on the wrong path comes a stunning, time-bending love story that challenges what it means to get things “right,” the kind of book that will pull at your heartstrings and make you realize that if you just open yourself up to the possibilities, our world is full of inspiring people poised to change everything…and you might just be one of them.

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What the Wind Knows by Amy Harmon

In an unforgettable love story, a woman’s impossible journey through the ages could change everything . . .

Anne Gallagher grew up enchanted by her grandfather’s stories of Ireland. Heartbroken at his death, she travels to his childhood home to spread his ashes. There, overcome with memories of the man she adored and consumed by a history she never knew, she is pulled into another time.

The Ireland of 1921, teetering on the edge of war, is a dangerous place in which to awaken. But there Anne finds herself, hurt, disoriented, and under the care of Dr. Thomas Smith, guardian to a young boy who is oddly familiar. Mistaken for the boy’s long-missing mother, Anne adopts her identity, convinced the woman’s disappearance is connected to her own.

​As tensions rise, Thomas joins the struggle for Ireland’s independence and Anne is drawn into the conflict beside him. Caught between history and her heart, she must decide whether she’s willing to let go of the life she knew for a love she never thought she’d find. But in the end, is the choice actually hers to make?

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Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen

To save his daughter, he’ll go anywhere—and any-when…

Kin Stewart is an everyday family man: working in I.T., trying to keep the spark in his marriage, struggling to connect with his teenage daughter, Miranda. But his current life is a far cry from his previous career…as a time-traveling secret agent from 2142.

Stranded in suburban San Francisco since the 1990s after a botched mission, Kin has kept his past hidden from everyone around him, despite the increasing blackouts and memory loss affecting his time-traveler’s brain. Until one afternoon, his “rescue” team arrives—eighteen years too late.

Their mission: return Kin to 2142 where he’s only been gone weeks, not years, and where another family is waiting for him. A family he can’t remember.

Torn between two lives, Kin is desperate for a way to stay connected to both. But when his best efforts threaten to destroy the agency and even history itself, his daughter’s very existence is at risk. It’ll take one final trip across time to save Miranda—even if it means breaking all the rules of time travel in the process.

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Sea of Tranquility  by Emily St. John Mandel

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

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Long Division by Kiese Laymon

Written in a voice that’s alternately humorous, lacerating, and wise, Long Division features two interwoven stories. In the first, it’s 2013: after an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, fourteen-year-old Citoyen “City” Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity. The next day, he’s sent to stay with his grandmother in the small coastal community of Melahatchie, where a young girl named Baize Shephard has recently disappeared.

Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book’s main characters is also named City Coldson—but Long Division is set in 1985. This 1985-version of City, along with his friend and love interest, Shalaya Crump, discovers a way to travel into the future, and steals a laptop and cellphone from an orphaned teenage rapper called…Baize Shephard. They ultimately take these items with them all the way back to 1964, to help another time-traveler they meet to protect his family from the Ku Klux Klan. City’s two stories ultimately converge in the work shed behind his grandmother’s house, where he discovers the key to Baize’s disappearance.

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Have you read any of these time travel books? Do you have any favorites? Share in the comments below.

Ronan and the Endless Sea of Stars written by Rick Louis and illustrated by Lara Antal

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Trigger warning for child loss.

It’s seldom that I read a book that leaves me in tears. Ronan and the Endless Sea of Stars written by Rick Louis and illustrated by Lara Antal emotionally devastated me and tore out my heart. This graphic novel memoir tells the story of one parent’s journey caring for his son with a terminal diagnosis. Rick Louis beautifully wrote this story about his life, while Lara Antal illustrated his words with sensitivity. The pallet of blues, whites, and blacks is breathtaking and tenderly adds to the story of the before, during, and after his son’s life.

Rick and Emily were overjoyed when she became pregnant. After their son Ronan was born and as his development progressed, they noticed a slight issue with his vision that necessitated a trip to the doctor. That visit led them down a rabbit hole of other doctors and ended with a devastating diagnosis for Ronan. Ronan has Tay-Sachs, an incurable neurological disorder. Rick and Emily have to deal with the practical issues of raising their son, while also paired with the emotional hurdles of loving their son under the shadow of their inevitable loss and his inevitable death. They are trapped in an impossible situation with very little positives.

This book was heartbreaking, yet told beautifully by a father destroyed by the loss of his young son. I strongly recommend this book (though have the tissues ready). While this story is sad, Rick also lightens his telling with comedy paired with gorgeous artwork. It’s full of warmth and heartbreak, sorrow and joy, as Rick discusses the importance of finding joy no matter how your life is at the moment.

More Than You’ll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez

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“When we’re shocked someone isn’t who we thought they were, it’s usually not because they hid it so well—more like, the closer we are to a person, the less clearly we see them.”
― Katie Gutierrez, More Than You’ll Ever Know

My latest read was a book that caught my attention because of the cover and then hooked me completely with the synopsis. More Than You’ll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez tells the story of a woman leading a double life, her exposure after one husband murders the other, and the true-crime writer who stumbles upon the story and becomes obsessed with figuring out the truth. This was a dream book for me.

Cassie Bowman is a true crime writer. She spends her days looking up crimes and writing up articles for a popular blog. One day, she comes across the story of Lore Rivera, a woman who was married to two men at once, until one day in 1986, when one of them found out about the other and murdered him. Lore was living a secret double life that ended in a tragic murder. While the story is fascinating, that wasn’t what caught Cassie’s attention. She wants to know more about Lore. After all, Cassie’s past was full of family tragedy. She wants to know how Lore kept up with the lies, how she balanced two full lives, and most of all, what really happened that disastrous day.

Cassie starts researching, reaching out to family members. When she approaches Lore, she’s surprised to find that Lore is willing to talk. She wants to finally tell her story, to set the record straight about what really happened, to detail her reasons. Lore’s tale begins with a dance which led to an affair, a marriage, and a murder. Lore isn’t telling her secrets for free though. For every question she answers, she demands something in return from Cassie. Soon Cassie is spilling her own deep, dark secrets whether she wants to or not. As her investigation continues, Cassie realizes that Lore may be hiding what actually happened the night of the murder. The truth may end up being messier than she thought, leading both women to have to decide if they can trust the other with the truth.

As Cassie says in the book, it’s usually the men who do the crime and the women who pay for it. This time, Lore was the one who set the crimes in motion. The news usually focuses on men as the perpetrators, so reading about a, albeit fictional, woman who did the crime was a nice break. Seeing the story play out from multiple different viewpoints also let me feel like I might eventually learn the truth, while also seeing the motivations for why people behaved the way that they did.

“History is written by those who have power and want to keep it.”
― Katie Gutierrez, More Than You’ll Ever Know

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