With Our Blessing by Jo Spain

 With Our Blessing by Jo Spain is one of those books that provide a bonus – an insight into a piece of history that may have been completely unknown to a reader. Such was the case with this book –  for me. (I’d never before heard of the Magdalene laundries).  For more than a hundred years, these laundries were operated for profit by the church with the help of the Irish government.  Locals and families were often unaware that the girls, predominantly unmarried mothers, were in fact free labor, more or less imprisoned in sometimes very harsh conditions.

That’s the premise for this mystery. A team of Dublin police (or garda, as they’re known in Ireland) is sent to a Limerick convent and former laundry after a local murder is linked to the site. Detective Laura Brennan’s aunt was sent to the convent in the seventies, which personalizes for Brennan the abuse these girls endured. Brennan discovers that her aunt was victimized by the town’s most prominent family and then by the laundry operators. The secrecy that allowed this abuse to go on until the 1990’s stymies the current murder investigations, as well.

This is the first in the Inspector Tom Reynolds series, which features members of the Dublin Murder Squad. Reynolds is the unassuming cool head of the team; Brennan, and other detectives provide a mix of temperaments, skills and backstories that add yet another layer to the already multilayered novel.

 

The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren

‘Statistics can’t tell us what will happen, they can only tell us what might happen.’ – Christina Lauren, The Soulmate Equation

Christina Lauren’s latest published novel, The Soulmate Equation, is an exploration into love, science, and how the two intertwine. This romantic comedy is a delightful romp about what you would do if your soulmate ended up being the last person you expected them to be.

Jess is a freelance statistician. She has always loved numbers. They make sense to her when nothing else in her life does. A single mother to a young girl named Juno, Jess has managed to make life work with the help of her grandparents and her best friend Fizzy. While she finds fulfillment raising seven-year-old Juno and running stats for her clients, her love life has been basically non-existent. After yet another failed date, Jess decides she doesn’t need to find love to feel complete.

When Jess and Fizzy learn about a new matchmaking company called GeneticAlly whose chief science officer frequents the same coffee shop as them, Fizzy decides they need to discover more about what the company is actually offering. The two are invited to the company’s headquarters where they learn about the science behind GeneticAlly’s new love app. This startup claims to find your soulmate based on DNA compatibility rating thousands of  emotional and biological markers. In a desperate sad moment, Jess spits into the DNADuo kit, sends it in, and promptly forgets about it.

When a notification pings on her phone alerting her that the company has requested a meeting with her, her initial reaction is that they might want her to help running statistics. As soon as she shows up though, it’s clear that there is something else they need to discuss. Jess learns that she has 98% compatibility with another subject in the database, a number that is hard for her to believe to be true. Another item to add to her skepticism: Jess has matched with GeneticAlly’s founder and chief science officer, Dr. River Pena. River seems just as skeptical as her, but the two turn to the numbers to verify what they have been told. After all, numbers never lie.

Jess has a hard time believing that River is her soulmate, mostly because she already knows him. He is the stuck up and stubborn man who has come into the coffee house she frequents for months. How could he be her soulmate?! Genetically has a deal for her though: They will pay her to get to know River. They will expect her to go to events, do interviews, and spend one-on-one time with River. The more time the two spend with each other, the more Jess realizes why River behaves the way he does. The science doesn’t necessarily have to be at odds with the love and emotional aspect of life. River is more than she seems and so is his life’s work.

‘Destiny could also be a choice, she’d realized. To believe or not, to be vulnerable or not, to go all in or not.’ – Christina Lauren, The Soulmate Equation

This book is also available in the following formats:

Cozy Mystery Reads: Magic Garden Mystery series by Amanda Flower

Amanda Flower has a clear grip on the cozy mystery genre, having published many different cozy series covering Amish mysteries, magical mysteries, and contemporary mysteries. She is a USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author with over thirty-five mystery novels published. Besides being a writer, Amanda was a librarian for fifteen years. She currently lives with her husband and their cats in Ohio where they own a farm and recording studio.

(Also of note, Michelle wrote a blog post about Farm to Trouble, the first book in the Farm to Table Mystery series by this same author that you should check out!)

Today I am going to be talking about a cozy mysteries series by Amanda Flower called the Magic Garden Mystery series. The first book in the Magic Garden Mystery series is Flowers and Foul Play. This book introduces readers to the beautiful Scottish countryside and the people who call it home.

Fiona Knox has lost everything. Her fiance left her for their cake decorator and not far after that, her flower shop closed. When she found out that her godfather Ian MacCallister had died and left her his cottage in Scotland, Fiona jumped on the first flight out of Nashville to restart her life. When Fiona arrives at the cottage, she is greeted by Hamish MacGregor, the cottage’s elderly caretaker. He walks her to the property’s garden and they find that it is almost completely dead with the exception of a lone blooming rose and ivy that seems to come to life in front of their eyes. As they are walking around the garden however, the two find a dead body splayed on the ground.

Police are called. Fiona finds herself being questions by Chief Inspector Neil Craig who also seizes her passport. Craig is convinced that Hamish is the killer, which worries Fiona. The more Fiona explores the town, the more she realizes just how many enemies the victim actually had. Hamish isn’t the only one who had reason to want the victim dead, but it’s up to Fiona to prove he couldn’t have done it.

Magic Garden Mystery series

  1. Flowers and Foul Play (2018)
  2. Death and Daisies (2018)
  3. Mums and Mayhem (2020)

The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf

Heather Gudenkauf is an author of eight novels. She is Edgar Award nominated, which honors the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, and television. Heather is also a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Her debut novel was an instant bestseller and spent 22 weeks on the New York Times list. Her books have been published in over 20 countries and have appeared on many book lists.

Heather was born in South Dakota, but moved to Iowa at the age of three with the rest of her family. Heather was born with a profound unilateral hearing impairment. As a result, she turned to books as a way to relax and retreat. She read many many books as a child, which helped fuel her desire to become a writer. Heather currently lives in Iowa with her family and her dog, Lolo.

Her latest book, The Overnight Guest, is the story of a true crime writer searching for answers. Suffering from writer’s block while working on her latest book, Wylie Lark decides to escape to an isolated farmhouse in Iowa to hopefully finish her book. She has worked to keep her distance from the residents of Burden in order to not have to answer questions about what she’s doing there and why she’s staying at such an isolated location. When Wylie learns that a big snowstorm is rolling in, she isn’t too worried. After all, she came prepared. She has a fireplace, silence, and a dog to keep her company. She also needs to finish writing her book which is more than enough to keep her busy. The only hiccup to her perfect plan: twenty years ago in the house that she is staying, two people were murdered and a girl disappeared without a trace.

The storm becomes much worse than Wylie expected. She finds herself trapped in this haunted house, trapped with the secrets of who killed those two people and trapped with her own reasons for wanting to escape her family back home. On one of her trips outside, Wylie makes a shocking discovery: a small child lying in the snow. When Wylie brings the child inside to warm them up, she immediately starts searching for answers as to why and how they ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere outside the farmhouse. While she questions them, the storm rages outside bringing more than snow, wind, and ice to her door. Wylie discovers that she isn’t as isolated as she thought she was and what she thought was true was all a lie.

This book is also available in the following formats:

Author photo credit: Erin Kirchoff

Hurrah! It’s Spring!

While an Iowa spring is usually a bit slow and hesitant to appear, it is on the way! Time to start planning your garden. Here are the latest books available at the library to inspire you.

Four Season Food Gardening by Misilla Dela Llana. Unlike most other vegetable gardening books this one approaches the subject through the lens of what you can grow during each of the four seasons, even if you live in a cold climate. Using season-extension techniques, such as cold frames, mini hoop houses, and thick mulches, combined with a thoughtful mixture of annual and perennial crops, you’ll discover that eating from your backyard through all 12 months is possible.

The Garden Refresh: how to give your yard a big impact on a small budget by Kier Holmes. This is a thoughtful, accessible, and creative guide for the savvy home gardener on how to create a beautiful, productive and healthy garden without spending crazy amounts of cash or using an excess of Earth’s valuable natural resources.

Grow More Food : a vegetable gardener’s guide to getting the biggest harvest possible from a space of any size by Colin McCrate. How to plan your garden carefully, maximize production in every bed, get the most out of every plant, scale up systems to maximize efficiency, and expand the harvest season with succession planting, intercropping, and season extension

Grow Now: how we can save our health, communities and planet – one garden at a time by Emily Murphy. We now recognize that plots in towns and cities are critical to supporting planetary diversity, and by instituting organic, regenerative practices and growing some of our own food, we can sequester carbon as well as shift toward living in a more ecologically responsible way.

Midwest Gardener’s Handbook: all you need to know to plan, plant and maintain a Midwest garden by Melinda Myers.  gardeners in the north central US are handed all the know-how they’ll need to grow a lush, productive garden.

 

The Elegant and Edible Garden: design a dream kitchen garden to fit your personality, desires and lifestyle by Linda Vater. Learn how to create a one-of-a-kind food garden that’s just as beautiful as it is functional.

 

Gardening for Everyone: growing vegetable, herbs and more at home by Julia Watkins. An author and sustainability expert shares how to grow vegetables, fruits, and herbs in a backyard garden, providing detailed information on creating and caring for a garden including planning, building, planting, tending, and harvesting.

Best Sellers Club March Authors: Tami Hoag and George RR Martin

Want the hottest new release from your favorite author? Want to stay current with a celebrity book club? Love nonfiction? You should join the Best Sellers Club. Choose any author, celebrity pick, and/or nonfiction 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 the Best Sellers Club! March’s authors are Tami Hoag for fiction and George RR Martin for science fiction.

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Our March fiction author is Tami Hoag. Hoag writes primarily mystery, romance, and romantic suspense. She is an international bestselling author with more than thirty books that are published in more than thirty languages all over the world. Hoag is known for writing thrilling plots with character-driven suspense. She prides herself on research-based realism and accurate police procedure. Hoag has done research in many of the fields she writes about in order to be as accurate and true as possible.

Hannah’s newest book is The Boy, published in 2018. This is the second book in the Broussard and Fourcade series.

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

An unfathomable loss or an unthinkable crime? #1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag keeps you guessing in her most harrowing thriller yet.

A panic-stricken woman runs in the dead of night, battered and bloodied, desperate to find help…

When Detective Nick Fourcade enters the home of Genevieve Gauthier outside the sleepy town of Bayou Breaux, Louisiana, the bloody crime scene that awaits him is both the most brutal and the most confusing he’s ever seen. Genevieve’s seven-year-old son, KJ, has been murdered by an alleged intruder, yet Genevieve is alive and well, a witness inexplicably left behind to tell the tale. There is no evidence of forced entry, not a clue that points to a motive. Meanwhile, Nick’s wife, Detective Annie Broussard, sits in the emergency room with the grieving Genevieve. A mother herself, Annie understands the emotional devastation this woman is going through, but as a detective she’s troubled by a story that makes little sense. Who would murder a child and leave the only witness behind?

When the very next day KJ’s sometimes babysitter, twelve-year-old Nora Florette, is reported missing, the town is up in arms, fearing a maniac is preying on their children. With pressure mounting from a tough, no-nonsense new sheriff, the media, and the parents of Bayou Breaux, Nick and Annie dig deep into the dual mysteries. But sifting through Genevieve Gauthier’s tangled web of lovers and sorting through a cast of local lowlifes brings more questions than answers. Is someone from Genevieve’s past or present responsible for the death of her son? Is the missing teenager, Nora, a victim, or something worse? Then everything changes when Genevieve’s past as a convicted criminal comes to light.

The spotlight falls heavily on the grieving mother who is both victim and accused. Could she have killed her own child to free herself from the burden of motherhood, or is the loss of her beloved boy pushing her to the edge of insanity? Could she have something to do with the disappearance of Nora Florette, or is the troubled teenager the key to the murder? How far will Nick and Annie have to go to uncover the dark truth of the boy?

This book is also available in the following formats:

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Our March science fiction author is George RR Martin. Martin is most well-known for the Song of Ice and Fire series, which the television show Game of Thrones is based on. Martin writes science fiction, fantasy, horror, and urban fantasy. He started writing when he was young, selling monster stories to other neighborhood children. Martin’s first professional sale was when he was 21. He became a full-time writer in 1979. Martin currently lives in New Mexico.

Martin’s latest book is Joker Moon, published in July 2021. This is the book 29 in the Wild Cards series.

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

The return of the famous shared-world superhero books created and edited by George R. R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire

For decades, George R.R. Martin – bestselling author of A Song of Ice and Fire – has collaborated with an ever-shifting ensemble of science fiction and fantasy icons to create the amazing Wild Cards universe.

In the aftermath of World War II, the Earth’s population was devastated by a terrifying alien virus. Those who survived were changed for ever. Some, known as Jokers, were cursed with bizarre mental and physical deformities; others, granted superhuman abilities, are known as Aces.

Wild Cards tells the stories of this world.

Cozy Mystery Reads: Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series by Raquel V Reyes

Raquel V. Reyes is an accomplished writer who has had many short stories published in various anthologies. Latina characters are the main subjects of her stories. Her own Cuban-American heritage features strongly in her writing, as do the locations of Miami and the Caribbean. Reyes is also the co-chair for SleuthFest, a writing craft conference. Her debut novel is Mango, Mambo, and Murder, the first book in the Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series.

Mango, Mambo, and Murder is a delight, not just because of the recipes that are featured at the end of the book! In this kickoff to a new series, food anthropologist Miriam Quinones-Smith and her family have moved from New York to Coral Shores, Miami, Florida. It isn’t exactly the move that she wanted. She was promised actual Miami, not a rich elite subdivision with her opinionated (and honestly racist) mother-in-law living just a couple houses down. Her husband was offered a very good, well-paying job and with her in-laws helping to buy them a house, moving out of their cramped New York apartment seemed like a good idea at the time. Only now, Miriam is forced to put her academic career on hold to stay at home with her young son while her mother-in-law pops in whenever she feels and her husband stays out all day and night rekindling a friendship (and maybe a romance?) with his ex.

The bright spot? Miriam’s best friend, Alma, a local realtor who knows all the best spots to go and has all the connections Miriam could need. Soon enough Alma has hooked Miriam up with a job as a Caribbean cooking expert on a Spanish-language mornng show. Despite her reservations, the job ends up being something she enjoys.

When Miriam and Alma attend a Women’s Club luncheon as a way to network, things go astray. A socialite sitting at their table falls face-first into her lunch. She’s dead. Rumors start flying, especially when a second woman dies soon after. Suspicions swirl around town that maybe the deaths are connected. Cuban herbalist, Dr. Fuentes, is thrust into the spotlight when the morning show’s host collapses while interviewing him live on air. His methods are controversial after all.

When detectives learn that the first woman died as a result of a drug overdose though, Alma finds herself a suspect when an anonymous tip points to her. Detective Pullman turns to Miriam to help him solve the crime since she has an in with the Coral Shores community. She starts poking around to find the killer and to clear Alma’s name. The closer she get to the truth, the more Miriam learns that Coral Shores is full of secrets. People are not what they seem.

This book is also available in the following format:

Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series

  1. Mango, Mambo, and Murder (2021)
  2. Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking (set to be published in November 2022)

The Best of Me by David Sedaris

An anthology of David Sedaris’ work, The Best of Me is a great introduction to his style for the new reader, or a type of “greatest hits” album for his longtime fans. It abridges his former books including Me Talk Pretty One Day, Calypso, Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls, among others. As you read, you move through Sedaris’ whole life up to the present (or just about), laughing all the way.

The effect is interesting because where each of his previous essay collections had individual moods, this book has all of them– just about every conceivable feeling is present. The bittersweet feeling of aging and loss from Calypso is there, alongside the whimsical and sardonic tone of Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. His iconic struggle with learning French, full of self-deprecation and humility, is present, as are plenty of childhood reminiscences and portraits of his activities and fixations as a settled, partnered adult (shopping for taxidermy and terrible clothes, living abroad, collecting trash, etc.). This is probably the closest a book can come to a portrait of a life and a representation of a body of work — and, typical of Sedaris, the result is readable, funny, soothing, thought-provoking, and relatable in different ways.

Besides being funny, and easier to carry around than a collection of 5 to 7 individual books, this book is honest, and for me it served as a comforting reminder that no matter how quirky your tastes may be, it’s always possible to craft a life that works for you. For that matter, it’s also good to be reminded that none of us are quite as saintly as we may like to think we are; Sedaris is an expert at giving voice to the less altruistic feelings and motives we all secretly relate to – while not trying to justify them or rally readers behind these feelings. Also interesting is the thread running through several essays about how different it was for Sedaris to grow up as a gay man than it is to be in the LGBTQ community now.

Basically, this book is full of good humor and helpful reminders about the realities of human nature – including not to take yourself too seriously. Highly recommended for those wanting to revisit, or discover, the unique reading experience that is David Sedaris.

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

Liane Moriarty is known currently for her book, Nine Perfect Strangers, which was made into a limited Hulu series. She has nine adult novels that have been translated into forty languages and have sold more than 20 million copies all over the world. Moriarty has also written three books for children. Her latest adult novel had me on my toes until the very end.

Once you’ve hit a ball there’s no point watching to see where it’s going. You can’t change its flight path now. You have to think about your next move. Not what you should have done. What you do now. – Liane Moriarty, Apples Never Fall

Apples Never Fall is her newest novel, published in 2021. The above quote stuck with me throughout the book as it served as a metaphor both for tennis, which features predominantly in this book, and for life. This is a novel about marriage, siblings, and family, and the confusion and betrayal we feel when those we cherish lash out and hurt us.

The Delaney siblings are at a loss. Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke are all grown and out of their parents’ home, yet they all have a strong pull back to where they grew up, especially now that their mother has gone missing, seemingly without a trace and for no good reason.

The Delaneys are well known in their community. Stan and Joy, the parents, are tennis stars who set up their own tennis academy. They have been married for fifty years and people constantly talk about what a good match they are both on and off the court. Now they have sold the tennis academy and aren’t quite sure what to do with the rest of their lives. Their four children were all tennis stars, in their own right, of course, but Stan never truly believed any of them had the ability to truly make it. It’s okay though because they are all, mostly, settled into their adult lives and seem to have a handle on the future. At least on the surface they are, but even the happiest surfaces can be hiding secrets underneath.

Everything starts to bubble up when a strange young woman named Savannah shows up on Stan and Joy’s doorstep begging for help, bleeding after a domestic violence incident with her boyfriend. Stan and Joy take her in with almost no questions asked, much to their children’s chagrin.

Flash forward: Joy goes missing and Savannah is also nowhere to be found. All the children and Stan have been questioned. The police immediately hone in on Stan because he seems to be hiding something. Their children are also not being fully honest with the police and with each other. It doesn’t help that two of them think their father is innocent while the other two think that he may have hurt their mother. The more questions that are asked, the more each family member is forced to closely reexamine what they believe to be their family truths and core memories.

I particularly enjoyed this novel because it flashes back and forth between past and present. Each major characters’ point of view is also presented, including some peripheral random characters to add some color to the story. I listened to the audiobook version and really enjoyed the Australian narrator Caroline Lee.

This book is available in the following formats:

Cozy Mystery Reads: Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery series by Vicki Delany

Vicki Delany is a crime writer. She has written more than forty books, ranging from cozies, Gothic thrillers, police procedurals, historical fiction, to novellas to help with adult literacy. Delany is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Tea by the Sea mysteries, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Catskill Resort mysteries, and the Lighthouse Library series (as pen name Eva Gates). Her previous works include The Year Round Christmas series, Constable Molly Smith series, Klondike Mystery series, Ray Robertson series, Ashley Grant Mystery series, and several stand alone titles.

Vicki Delany is considered one of Canada’s most prolific crime writers. She is also a national bestseller in the US. Delany is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada as well as the co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival.  Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Vicki was the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada.

Delany’s Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery series caught my eye on the new shelves, so I decided to give it a try. I enjoy the original Sherlock Holmes novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so I wanted to see how Delany tackled this popular fandom. Elementary, She Read is the first book in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery series.

Gemma Doyle has returned to West London from England to help manage her Great Uncle Arthur’s Sherlock Holmes Bookshop & Emporium. When Gemma finds an incredibly rare and valuable magazine that contains the first Sherlock Holmes story hidden on one of the store’s bookshelves, she is immediately concerned. You see, Gemma is highly perceptive and knows her entire store’s inventory off the top of her head. Gemma and her friend Jayne, who runs Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room, begin searching for answers. What they find instead is a dead body. Gemma is the police’s first suspect, which confounds her. She begins her investigation and what she finds leads her into a confusing world full of people with concealed motives and greed. Add in a second murder scene and Gemma and Jayne must search for any clues to clear their names.

This title can be found in the following format:

A list of the books in this series can be found at the end of this blog. Many of these titles can be found in another format: large print.

Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery series

  1. Elementary, She Read (2017)
  2. Body on Baker Street (2017)
  3. The Cat of the Baskervilles (2018)
  4. A Scandal in Scarlet (2018)
  5. There’s a Murder Afoot (2020)
  6. A Curious Incident (2021)
  7. A Three Book Problem (2022)