Category: Staff Picks

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann

- Stephanie Leave a comment

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp is the first book in the Agnes Sharp Murder Mysteries series written by Leonie Swann. This book is dark, but also funny and full of twists and turns. If you’re looking for a cozy mystery series featuring a group of senior citizens trying to solve a murder, this is for you!

Agnes Sharp has always wanted to be able to control her own life. Wanting to be surrounded by like-minded people, she created Sunset Hall, a house share for the elderly in the sleepy English countryside. At Sunset Hall, they all can control how they live and how they choose to spend their time. They may have mobility issues, misplaced reading glasses, different dietary tastes, and many other problems, but the most important fact is that the residents of Sunset Hall are all there for each other.

When a police officer knocks on their door one morning, nothing could prepare them for what he says: a dead body has been discovered at a house close to them. Quickly taking in this news, the group is relieved that the officer is there to tell them about their neighbor’s dead body and not the body that they are currently hiding in their shed out back. Confused about what to do with the dead body in their shed, the discovery of their dead neighbor couldn’t have come at a better time. They just have to find out who murdered their neighbor and then pin that murder on them (after all, said person has already murdered their neighbor, there’s nothing to say that they wouldn’t have murdered again, given the chance). Easy, right? With a plan in place, Agnes and her cohorts start looking for clues, venturing outside their comfortable norms and head to the village where they will have to interview locals and steer clear of the authorities to find the killer.

This book follows an eccentric group of seniors who are attempting to solve one murder while covering up another. The author mixes multiple sub-plots amongst the different points-of-view, which I enjoyed. The residents of Sunset Hall, alongside their pets, Hettie the tortoise and Brexit the dog, are delightful. The author portrayed the characters from their own point of view, which I appreciate in cozy mysteries. Readers are then allowed to see why these senior citizens choose to live on their own terms, alongside the challenges of aging and all the associated needs that come along with it. The twist at the end was also unexpected! I am intrigued enough to read more of their work.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, illustrations by Rovina Cai

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“To dwell on death, especially a premature and violent end, burdens the soul.”
― Darcie Little Badger, Elatsoe

When I started working on this blog, I found the following starred review quote from Shelf-Awareness describing Elatsoe as “A Lipan Apache Sookie Stackhouse for the teen set.” I couldn’t agree more. If you have ever read the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris or watched the television show True Blood, which was based on said series, this book is for you.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, illustrations by Rovina Cai, tells the story of Elatsoe, Ellie for short, a Texas teen from the Lipan Apache tribe. She lives in an alternate America where magic shapes their past and present. Her family’s connection to their Indigenous traditions also plays a very important role in her day-to-day life. This manifests through magic and supernatural curses. The people in Ellie’s family have gifts: hers is the ability to raise the spirit of dead animals, particularly that of her dead dog, Kirby. Even in death, he serves as her protector and helper. Her gift is both a blessing and a curse.

Ellie’s family comes together in tragedy when they learn of her cousin’s death. After being told he died in an accidental car crash, Ellie is shocked when his ghost comes to her to say that he was murdered AND drops the name of his killer. Wanting to find the truth, Ellie travels to his town and enlists the help of her family, best friend Jay, and the stories of her ancestors. The mysterious killer proves to be more than they all bargained for. Combine the killer’s behavior with that of the townsfolk and Ellie and Jay are left wondering what exactly is happening in this creepy town and what are they hiding.

This book kept me hooked from start to finish. While it jumps from past to present in a startling manner, that feeds into the narrative that history is closely entwined in our present in a way we cannot escape. Indigenous traditions are woven throughout every little bit of this story, sometimes through actions and other times through storytelling. The author talks about racism and colonialism in America in such a way that even younger readers are able to understand. It is a dark read, but the magical realism throughout adds distance from the tragedy and heartbreak.

“People cope with tragedy in different ways. That’s important, Ellie. There’s no one right method of grieving.”
― Darcie Little Badger, Elatsoe

Online Reading Challenge – March

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge travels back in time to the 1920s & 1930s. Our Main title for March is The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

In this magical debut, a couple’s lives are changed forever by the arrival of a little girl, wild and secretive, on their snowy doorstep.

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart — he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season’s first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone — but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.

This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them. – Back Bay Books

Looking for some other books set in the 1920s & 1930s? Try any of the following.

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

Together We Read

- Stephanie Leave a comment

If you use Libby through the library, you can participate in Together We Read, a book club connecting readers in the United States! The current title is One Summer in Savannah by Terah Shelton Harris. This book will be available until March 6th with no waitlists or holds.

Curious what One Summer in Savannah is about?

A compelling debut that glows with bittersweet heart and touching emotion, deeply interrogating questions of family, redemption, and unconditional love in the sweltering summer heat of Savannah, as two people discover what it means to truly forgive.

It’s been eight years since Sara Lancaster left her home in Savannah, Georgia. Eight years since her daughter, Alana, came into this world, following a terrifying sexual assault that left deep emotional wounds Sara would do anything to forget. But when Sara’s father falls ill, she’s forced to return home and face the ghosts of her past.

While caring for her father and running his bookstore, Sara is desperate to protect her curious, outgoing, genius daughter from the Wylers, the family of the man who assaulted her. Sara thinks she can succeed—her attacker is in prison, his identical twin brother, Jacob, left town years ago, and their mother are all unaware Alana exists. But she soon learns that Jacob has also just returned to Savannah to piece together the fragments of his once-great family. And when their two worlds collide—with the type of force Sara explores in her poetry and Jacob in his astrophysics—they are drawn together in unexpected ways. – Sourcebooks

Looking for more information? Try the following:

Happy Place by Emily Henry

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“I want my life to be like-like making pottery. I want to enjoy it while it’s happening, not just for where it might get me eventually.”
― Emily Henry, Happy Place

Emily Henry is one of those romance authors that never disappoints, for me at least. Her latest book, Happy Place, is a dual timeline, forced proximity, found family, second chance romance that tugs at your heart strings.

What would you do if you started dating someone from your friend group, got engaged, and then broke off your engagement? How would you tell the other people in your friend group? How would you handle figuring out all the relationships with this change after ten years? These questions are what Harriet ‘Harry’ Kilpatrick and Wyndham ‘Wyn’ Connor have to deal with now that they aren’t together anymore.

Harriet and Wyn are the perfect couple, have been since they met in college. Well except for now and they don’t want to talk about it. The issue? They broke up five months ago and haven’t told their best friends. Harriet and Wyn have a plan that might work if it wasn’t for their yearly friend vacation. Their plans come crashing down when both end up at their annual weeklong vacation despite the plan that this year would be Harriet’s turn to vacation by herself.

Well shoot. Harriet and Wyn now have to share a bedroom and pretend they are still together for the sake of their friends. They have been vacationing at this Maine cottage for their friend group’s yearly vacation for the last decade. For this one week, they are all together without the pressures of their daily lives. When they were younger in college, they spent copious amounts of time together, but as they got older, this one week became the only time when they could count on seeing everyone together. It’s tradition. A tradition hanging on delicate strings as it becomes clear that their friends have secrets to tell on this year’s vacation.

Harriet and Wyn only have to keep their secret for one more week, but this proves even more difficult as they are forced together after not seeing each other in person OR talking in over five months. They were in love for years, so faking it for one more week shouldn’t be that hard, right?

What I enjoyed the most in this book is watching the characters grow as individuals and in their relationships. A lot of romance I have read doesn’t necessarily show growth and if it does, it tends to gloss over what led to the changes. In this title, Emily Henry gives her characters room to grow and has them explain their choices both in their heads and out loud to others. The characters are well developed and even the ‘side characters’ don’t feel like side characters. They are key players and all have their own important story arcs. Well done.

This book is also available in large print, CD audiobook, and Playaway audiobook.

“Things change, but we stretch and grow and make room for one another. Our love is a place we can always come back to, and it will be waiting, the same as it ever was. You belong here. ”
― Emily Henry, Happy Place

Stressed? Try these nonfiction titles!

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Are you stressed? I can always tell trends in society based on trends in book publishing. Lately there has been an uptick in stress-busting titles at the library. This sent me down a rabbit hole of looking up stress-relief books: what’s considered a classic title and what’s new. If you’re a person like me who finds help within books, the below titles will provide practical and somewhat immediate relief to the stressful situations in your life.

As always, the titles in this list have not been talked about on the blog before. They are also owned by the Davenport Public Library, so click on the titles and put a hold on today! The descriptions have been provided by the publisher or author.

Titles published in 2023 and 2022

Awe by Dacher Keltner

From a foremost expert on the science of emotions and consultant to Pixar’s Inside Out, a groundbreaking and essential exploration into the history, science, and greater understanding of awe

Awe is mysterious. How do we begin to quantify the goose bumps we feel when we see the Grand Canyon, or the utter amazement when we watch a child walk for the first time? How do you put into words the collective effervescence of standing in a crowd and singing in unison, or the wonder you feel while gazing at centuries-old works of art? Up until fifteen years ago, there was no science of awe, the feeling we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that transcend our understanding of the world. Scientists were studying emotions like fear and disgust, emotions that seemed essential to human survival. Revolutionary thinking, though, has brought into focus how, through the span of evolution, we’ve met our most basic needs socially. We’ve survived thanks to our capacities to cooperate, form communities, and create culture that strengthens our sense of shared identity—actions that are sparked and spurred by awe.

In Awe, Dacher Keltner presents a radical investigation and deeply personal inquiry into this elusive emotion. Revealing new research into how awe transforms our brains and bodies, alongside an examination of awe across history, culture, and within his own life during a period of grief, Keltner shows us how cultivating awe in our everyday life leads us to appreciate what is most humane in our human nature. And during a moment in which our world feels more divided than ever before, and more imperiled by crises of different kinds, we are greatly in need of awe. If we open our minds, it is awe that sharpens our reasoning and orients us toward big ideas and new insights, that cools our immune system’s inflammation response and strengthens our bodies. It is awe that activates our inclination to share and create strong networks, to take actions that are good for the natural and social world around us. It is awe that transforms who we are, that inspires the creation of art, music, and religion. At turns radical and profound, brimming with enlightening and practical insights, Awe is our field guide, from not only one of the leading voices on the subject but a fellow seeker of awe in his own right, for how to place awe as a vital force within our lives. – Penguin Random House

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The Creative Act by Rick Rubin

From the legendary music producer, a master at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book many years in the making that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us.

“I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be.” —Rick Rubin

Many famed music producers are known for a particular sound that has its day. Rick Rubin is known for something else: creating a space where artists of all different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. He has made a practice of helping people transcend their self-imposed expectations in order to reconnect with a state of innocence from which the surprising becomes inevitable. Over the years, as he has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn’t, he has learned that being an artist isn’t about your specific output, it’s about your relationship to the world. Creativity has a place in everyone’s life, and everyone can make that place larger. In fact, there are few more important responsibilities.

The Creative Act is a beautiful and generous course of study that illuminates the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It distills the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime’s work into a luminous reading experience that puts the power to create moments—and lifetimes—of exhilaration and transcendence within closer reach for all of us. – Penguin Random House

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Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr. Julie Smith

Drawing on years of experience as a clinical psychologist, online sensation Dr Julie Smith provides the skills you need to navigate common life challenges and take charge of your emotional and mental health in her debut book.

Filled with secrets from a therapist’s toolkit, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before teaches you how to fortify and maintain your mental health, even in the most trying of times. Dr Julie Smith’s expert advice and powerful coping techniques will help you stay resilient, whether you want to manage anxiety, deal with criticism, cope with depression, build self-confidence, find motivation, or learn to forgive yourself. Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before tackles everyday issues and offers practical solutions in bite-sized, easy-to-digest entries which make it easy to quickly find specific information and guidance.

Your mental well-being is just as important as your physical well-being. Packed with proven strategies, Dr. Julie’s empathetic guide offers a deeper understanding of how your mind works and gives you the insights and help you need to nurture your mental health every day. Wise and practical, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before might just change your life. – HarperCollins

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The Power of Regret by Daniel H. Pink

“No regrets.” You’ve heard people proclaim it as a philosophy of life. That’s nonsense, even dangerous, says Daniel H. Pink in his latest bold and inspiring work. Everybody has regrets. They’re a fundamental part of our lives. And if we reckon with them in fresh and imaginative ways, we can enlist our regrets to make smarter decisions, perform better at work and school, and deepen our sense of meaning and purpose.

In The Power of Regret, Pink draws on research in psychology, neuroscience, economics, and biology to challenge widely-held assumptions about emotions and behavior. Using the largest sampling of American attitudes about regret ever conducted as well as his own World Regret Survey—which has collected regrets from more than 16,000 people in 105 countries—he identifies the four core regrets that most people have. These four regrets, Pink argues, operate as a “photographic negative” of the good life. By understanding what people regret the most, we can understand what they value the most. And by following the simple, science-based, three-step process that he sets out, we can transform our regrets in a positive force for working smarter and living better.

With Pink’s signature blend of big ideas and practical takeaways, captivating stories and crisp humor, The Power of Regret offers an urgent and indispensable guide for a life well lived. – Daniel H. Pink

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Happier Hour by Cassie Holmes

Learn how to reframe your time around life’s happiest moments to build days that aren’t just full but fulfilling with this “joyful guide” (Eve Rodsky, New York Times bestselling author) that is the antidote to overscheduling.

Our most precious resource isn’t money. It’s time. We are allotted just twenty-four hours a day, and we live in a culture that keeps us feeling “time poor.” Since we can’t add more hours to the day, how can we experience our lives as richer?

Based on her wildly popular MBA class at UCLA, Professor Cassie Holmes demonstrates how to immediately improve our lives by changing how we perceive and invest our time. Happier Hour provides empirically based insights and easy-to-implement tools that will allow you to:

-Optimally spend your hours and feel confident in those choices
-Sidestep distractions
-Create and savor moments of joy
-Design your schedule with purpose
-Look back on your years without regrets

Enlivened by Holmes’s upbeat narrative and groundbreaking research, Happier Hour “is filled with loads and loads of practical, evidence-based advice for how to live better by investing in what really matters. It’s the kind of book that can change your life for the better” (Laurie Santos, Yale professor and host of The Happiness Lab podcast). – Simon & Schuster

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Titles published in 2021 and before

Burnout by Emily Nagoski

Chatter by Ethan Kross

The Comfort Book by Matt Haig

Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke

Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

Unwinding Anxiety by Judson Brewer

What Lives in the Woods by Lindsay Currie

- Stephanie Leave a comment

What Lives in the Woods by Lindsay Currie may be a juvenile fiction book, but parts still left me scared, checking my back seat for ghosts, my basement for shadows, and jumping at noises. Did that stop me from reading? No way!

Ginny Anderson has her summer all figured out. She will be spending time with her best friend at a mystery writing workshop. The kink to her plan: her dad. He works as a restoration expert in Chicago, traveling and restoring old buildings. He has surprised the family with a month-long trip to Michigan where they will be staying at Woodmoor Manor, a twenty-six room mansion surrounded by a dense forest.

In case being separated from her best friend isn’t bad enough, the grounds and the mansion are supposedly haunted! It’s not just a falling apart mansion determined to ruin this vacation – it’s the rumors swirling around town. The locals are leery of Woodmoor Manor. They believe that the surrounding woods are home to mutated creatures with glowing eyes. Locals say that many campers set foot in the woods, disappearing, never to be seen again. Great place to vacation, right?

The forest around Woodmoor Manor can’t be the only reason that locals want to tear the mansion to the ground though. From the moment Ginny sets foot inside, weird things start happening. The mansion seems to have a life of its own. Creaky floors, unexplained shadows, ticking clocks, power surges, and much more increase in frequency the longer they stay. Wanting to head back to Chicago as quickly as possible, Ginny seeks to learn the history of Woodmoor Manor and the surrounding areas with the help of her brother and a new friend. What they discover is certainly not what they expected.

If you’re looking for a spooky mystery book with a strong female protagonist, this is for you. Currie has crafted a story that won’t leave readers scared, perfect for juvenile fiction! This book ends with all the creepy elements tied up neat and tidy. Readers will also explore strong themes of family, bravery, and friendship – essential topics for readers of all ages.

This title is also available as a CD audiobook.

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

- Stephanie Leave a comment

‘And a man without dreams is just a meaty machine with a broken gauge.’ – Cherie Dimaline, The Marrow Thieves

Are you looking for book recommendations? Ask a librarian! My latest read came courtesy of one of our Youth Services Librarians. The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline tells the story of the indigenous people of North America and their struggle to survive in a futuristic climate-change ravaged world.

People on Earth have lost the ability to dream, sending them all to madness. Desperate to find a solution, the government looks into who is still able to dream. They discover that the only people who can dream are North America’s Indigenous people. Wanting to understand why, the government looks for a cure, finding that the Indigenous people’s bone marrow holds the ability to save the dreamless. In order to get the marrow though, the donors must die. Schools are established across the country with recruiters sent out to round up the Indigenous people to harvest their marrow. This has far-reaching repercussions for all Indigenous people. On the run, Frenchie yearns to find his family, even though he fears they are lost to him. He and his travel family spend years struggling to survive as they make their way up north, looking for friends and family. Their search for refuge is dangerous, but may lead to joyous reunions.

I was left wanting more from this book. I wanted more history of the character, of the government, what exactly is happening to the people that are taken, and how/why the lands were so ravaged and destroyed. Luckily, The Marrow Thieves is the first in a series AND the second book, Hunting by Stars, is out! I’m hoping this second book will give me the answers to my questions from the first book. Nevertheless, I’m glad I decided to read The Marrow Thieves – it feels like a book that should be required reading.

‘Sometimes you risk everything for a life worth living, even if you’re not the one that’ll be alive to live it.’ – Cherie Dimaline, The Marrow Thieves

The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Do you have a favorite romance novel trope? Some examples of the most common tropes are friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, forbidden lovers, secret identities, forced proximity, second chance, and fake relationships. This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the romance tropes, instead these are ones that have popped up in the romance books I have read in the past couple months. My latest romance read, The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon, featured two of these tropes: enemies to lovers and fake relationship.

Shay Goldstein has been working at a Seattle public radio station for almost a decade. Hired on for an internship when she was 19, Shay has worked her way up to producing her own show. Working at PPR is her dream and she can’t imagine working anywhere else. The one wrinkle: working with Dominic Yun, her newest colleague who just graduated with his masters in journalism and who will not shut up about having his masters. He’s the hot new thing at the station and Shay can’t stand him.

At a pitch meeting for new ideas, Shay proposes a new show where two exes talk about their relationship and deliver relationship advice on air. Their boss decides Shay & Dom should host, despite the fact that they have never dated and frankly can’t stand each other(though the hatred feels more fueled by Shay than Dom). Their new show, The Ex Talk, skyrockets to fame, their popularity soars, and their lie grows bigger and bigger. The more time Shay and Dom spend together, the more they realize they might not actually hate each other. Their deception looms, leaving the two knowing that if the truth comes out, their careers and budding relationship will end.

This title is loosely related to the book, Business or Pleasure by the same author, which I read last year and LOVED. I have yet to read a title by this author that I haven’t enjoyed.

XOXO Children’s Picture Books

- Brittany Leave a comment
a young child hugging a mailbox with a pink background.

February is the month of love! Below is a curated list of titles that are not specifically Valentine’s Day but more focused on the most popular ways to show affection – hugs and kisses! If you have read any of the titles below, I would love to hear what you thought of them!

porcupine on a blue backgroundI Need a Hug by Aaron Blabey
Porcupine wants something simple, a hug. After asking many other animals for a hug, Porcupine is told time after time no. Downtrodden and about to give up, Porcupine finds an unlikely friend.

This story is sweet and written in rhyme! You can share this title to teach empathy and inspire your young poets.

a young child hugging a mailbox with a pink background.The Hug Machine by Scott Campbell
The Hug Machine loves to give hugs, there is nothing that the Hug Machine will not hug. Yes, you can hug the Hug Machine, the Hug Machine is always open for business.

I enjoy sharing this title each year with young people. It is fun to spot the unlikely animals and objects that the Hug Machine hugs.

seal on a rock with a small birdSealed with a Kiss by Beth Ferry
Seal is new to the zoo after arriving from a zoo in France. While sitting in her enclosure, Seal is greeted by a little bird who plants a sweet peck on her cheek. After her snack of sardines, Seal sets out to greet the other zoo animals and give them each a smackeroo. Little does she realize, the sardines that she had for snack gave Seal terrible breath.

This story teaches compassion with a side of silly!

a grumpy cactus in a windowsill Nobody Hugs a Cactus by Carter Goodrich
Hank is a cactus who lives in a pot in the windowsill who enjoys his quiet life. Hank’s quiet life is interrupted by a coyote, a tumbleweed named Rosie, a tortoise, and more who cause Hank to get crankier and crankier. Finally, after being chastised for stepping on his lawn, a man tells Hank that he needs a hug. Hank scoffs at first but later decides that maybe a hug is just what he needs. Now who will hugs a cactus?

This is such a sweet book and I hope that you enjoy it as well!

birds hugging outsideDuck & Goose: Goose Needs a Hug by Tad Hills
Goose is feeling sad. Hoping to cheer up their friend, Goose’s friends perform a series of acts hoping to garner a smile.

Sometimes, all we need to do with our loved ones is to ask them what they need instead of assuming. What they say might surprise you!

Two kitties hugging in a heart. Hug Time by Patrick McDonnell
There once was a kitten who was so full of love who wanted nothing more than to hug the entire world. The dreamer makes a list and embarks on a quest that takes him to Africa to hug the unhuggable.

This book is perfect for the little lovebug in your house!

animals hugging one anotherGroup Hug by Jean Reidy
One little slug causes a series of adorable animal hugs.

Full of gorgeous artwork and adorable characters, this story is a treat!

 

 

dinosaur running Dinosaur Kisses by David Ezra Stein
Little Dina hatches from her egg and discovers the magic of the kiss. Trying desperately to kiss everything in sight, Dina struggles because it isn’t easy for a t-rex to give a kiss!

This silly book is sure to delight young readers.