Cozy Mystery Reads: Magic Garden Mystery series by Amanda Flower

March 23, 2022March 1, 2022 - Stephanie Leave a comment

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

The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf

March 22, 2022March 18, 2022 - Stephanie Leave a comment

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!

March 21, 2022March 19, 2022 - Ann Leave a comment

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

March 18, 2022March 1, 2022 - Stephanie Leave a comment

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

March 16, 2022March 1, 2022 - Stephanie Leave a comment

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:

OverDrive eBook

Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series

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

The Best of Me by David Sedaris

March 15, 2022March 7, 2022 - Callen Leave a comment

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

March 14, 2022March 1, 2022 - Stephanie Leave a comment

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

March 9, 2022February 9, 2022 - Stephanie Leave a comment

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:

Large Print

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

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee

March 8, 2022February 25, 2022 - Callen Leave a comment

If you like queer-inclusive stories of scrappy coming-of-age superheroes such as The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune, All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault by James Alan Gardner, and Hero by Perry Moore, you may want to try the Not Your Sidekick series by C.B. Lee. I recently read the first volume, and it’s a fun YA story of longing for superpowers, landing mysterious (but well-paid) internships, navigating first might-be-mutual crushes, feeling like a disappointment to your parents, learning to distrust the government, and just generally missing what’s right in front of your face.

Jess is almost seventeen, and it looks like she’s never going to have superpowers. Most people manifest their powers by their seventeenth birthday, including Jess’ ultra-perfect sister Claudia, but despite testing herself on every potential power she can think of, Jess has got nothing. This would be a bummer even if her parents weren’t low-level superheroes Shockwave and Smasher, even if Jess wasn’t already the mediocre middle child between Claudia and super-genius Brendan. But Jess decides to make the best of it, and looks for an internship instead. She ends up working for a company owned by her parents’ villain nemeses, the Mischiefs, partly because she thinks it’s both rebellious and hilarious to work for her parents’ enemies, but mostly because she’s working with her longtime crush, Abby. Their growing friendship is great, but the longer she works there the more Jess starts to suspect there’s more going on underneath the surface – with Abby, at the internship, in her edited history textbooks, and with her suddenly elusive friend Bells. And where are the Mischiefs, anyway?

I recommend this to fans of The Extraordinaries partly because it’s a similar universe, and partly because Jess is very similar to Nick in her lovable cluelessness. Readers will probably start to suspect things long before Jess does, but they’ll root for her as she figures it all out – especially with Abby. Another great aspect of this book is the thoughtfully-assembled post-apocalyptic universe; the explanations of solar flares, WWIII, and societal restructuring, are plausible and well-sprinkled through the story. Some of the writing and dialogue comes off stilted at times, but the plot and messaging is on point.

The cast of characters, and society as a whole, is heartwarmingly queer-inclusive; Jess, her friends, and the school not only include the LGBTQ individuals, but bigotry is also notably absent in their experiences. All the same, this utopian vision has its share of social commentary – the Rainbow Club at Jess’ school is critiqued as primarily a clique of the school’s gay boys and their friends, which translates to issues in the real world with whose voices are heard and represented in LGBTQ spaces and media exposure. There’s also some racial and ethnic diversity; Jess’ Vietnamese and Chinese heritage is explicitly explored, and Bells’ family owns a Creole restaurant in honor of their Louisiana heritage.

If you want a light-hearted opening to a government-overthrowing superhero saga, don’t miss Not Your Sidekick. This first series installment is available through our Mobius interlibrary loan system, with its sequels through our Rivershare system.

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

March 7, 2022February 23, 2022 - Stephanie Leave a comment

Ali Hazelwood’s debut novel The Love Hypothesis is the start to a new contemporary romance series. Hazelwood’s books all center around women in STEM and academia, which represents her life. Hazelwood is originally from Italy, then lived in Japan and Germany, and after that she moved to the US to pursue a PhD in neuroscience. She is now a professor (and author).

Olive Smith is a third-year PhD candidate at Stanford. She’s not a fan of romantic relationships – they just aren’t her thing. Science has always been there for her, so lasting romance doesn’t interest her. Slight problem though: she did have a boyfriend for a while that it turns out her best friend has a major crush on. In order to finally convince her best friend that she really doesn’t care if she dates Olive’s ex-boyfriend, Olive needs to get a new boyfriend stat. A ‘real’ boyfriend isn’t in the cards, so Olive does the next best thing: she panics and kisses the first man she sees.

Utter disaster. Well, the kiss wasn’t that bad, but the man she kissed – a whole other story. She planted her lips on Adam Carlsen, a young professor who is known throughout her department to be utterly rude and condescending, especially to the students in his labs. Forced to explain why she forced herself upon him, Olive is stunned when Dr. Carlsen agrees to keep up the pretense and be her fake boyfriend. Rumors swirl around campus, putting Adam and Olive into very awkward positions with other faculty, students, and friends.

The more they get to know each other, the more Olive thinks that this experiment may not be a bad idea. Especially when they are thrown together at a big conference and in addition to the surprise of his six-pack abs, Adam proves to be incredibly supportive when Olive’s life starts to crumble. There are bigger things at play than just biology: Olive may have to deal with the feelings that are starting to creep into their relationship.

The second book in this series, Love on the Brain, is set to be published in August 2022.