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Book Recommendations

Hello to all the book people out there! I hope you'll enjoy my recommendations!
Be sure to check out my book columns that ran in the El Dorado News-Times. Find the columns at the bottom of the page.

Book Club Recs
4.22.25
Last night was book club night and naturally there was lots of discussion about what everyone was reading.

I’ve just finished reading The 7 ½ deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton, a book that several of us read. Opinions were divided : one loved it and read it twice; one did not finish it, and two of us finished it but were relieved when it was over. I was one of them. This was an odd book that you either love or hate, and I tried to find some middle ground but really didn't care that much. Just my opinion, but it was a weird mash-up of Agatha Christie, Groundhog Day, and something else, oh yes, monotony.

What we all agreed on: We were really glad that one of our newbies just read A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and joined its many fans!

Deanna Raybourn’s newest, Kills Well With Others got a thumbs up from our book clubbers of a certain age.

Some in the group were sorry to see the end of the Department Q series by Jussi Adler-Olsen, but Locked In is a fantastic finish!

If you want to know everything we’re reading now find out here.

Margo’s got money troubles
by Rufi Thorpe
4.14.25

Never judge a book by its cover.
Normally I would have skipped right over a book with this kind of cover and thought “ not my thing.” But that would have been a big mistake and I would have missed out on one of the best books of my reading year.
Meet Margo – college freshman, young, single mom with a newborn, no job and no money, desperate to make rent and pay bills. The father of her baby has checked out, her mom is a self-absorbed flake and her dad, a retired professional wrestler, has never been a part of her life. In a wildly bold move, she launches a career online and soon has cash on hand. But there are some scary bumps along the road for this loveable heroine and her adorable baby, as well as her collection of eccentric buddies.
What I loved about this book was of course Margo and her baby Bodhi, her strength and gutsiness, but also the author who surprisingly moved from third and first person, using the third to allow Margo (instead of I) to tell the story of her most painful moments. Unique, heartwarming, and funny - just what I was looking for right now.
The first paragraph of the book is a stunner.

National Library Week, April 6-12, 2025
Instead of a book recommendation, I'm recommending libraries. Visit your library. Get a library card if you don't have one. Take a child to story time. Return your overdue books. Attend a program at your library. If the library is important to you, let us know!

Old books and new books - bring them on!
3.31.25

Book Sale

Did you know our library has a book sale? Hardcovers are $2.00 and paperbacks are $1.00. We have a wide variety of donated books including cookbooks, inspirational books, fiction of all kinds, lots of textbooks, biographies, and a few children’s books.
Today I picked up a couple that I want to read and have somehow missed over the years:
Shogun by James Clavell, and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

Can't wait for these coming later this year!

Circle of Days by Ken Follet (September 2025)
Today I read about a new book by one of my favorite authors, Ken Follett. It’s a historical fiction about Stonehenge. His most celebrated series, beginning with The Pillars of the Earth, is one of my top ten books. I'm not sure if this is the start of a new series, but it looks promising.

The CIA Book Club by Charlie English (July 2025)
Here’s another one that sounds so good. Non-fiction about a secret CIA operation that secretly sent millions of books across the Iron Curtain during the years after World War II. The CIA “book club” used all kinds of ways to smuggle books, and then they were circulated among readers in Poland and other Cold War countries. Demand for the books was so great that dissidents began to publish underground copies. I even found a list of the banned books. You can click on the image to enlarge it.

Get a clue about some great detective novels
3.24.2025

Love detective novels as much as I do?

I’m always watching for the latest book in one of these exciting series.
Joe Leaphorn, Cork O’Connor, Lynley and Havers, Armand Gamache, Edie Kiglatuk, and Cormoran Strike: I really enjoy reading about their investigations and the world of police procedurals.
One of the best is author Elizabeth George. She’s written over twenty mysteries featuring the dashing, urbane Metropolitan Police Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner, Barbara Havers, socially awkward but a brilliant detective. Two complete opposites who somehow make a successful team.
Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache is also a debonair type, residing in Quebec but usually ending up in the bucolic village of Three Pines. Even though it seems like a quiet, serene place to live, there are an astounding amount of murders occurring in the area. And to make it more interesting, there are a wealth of quaint and quirky regular characters to keep things amusing. The series is available in our library.
I’ve only read one Joe Leaphorn novel, The Blessing Way, but I know I’ll be reading more very soon, since we have several in the library.
Another good one is William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series. We have this complete series in our library, as well as his two stand-alone novels that are also highly recommended.
Recently I recommended the Edit Kiglatuk series. Loving it for many reasons including the plucky heroine, Edie, and learning about the Inuit culture and mythology.
One of my absolute favorite reads is always the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith. Fair warning, each one is a huge brick of a book but completely worth it. Engrossing mysteries that are so interesting, but it also includes all the tedious day to day boredom of investigations. And if you didn’t know, Robert Galbraith is the pseudonym of a wildly popular children’s book author. We have this series in our library as well.

The Blessing Way
by Tony Hillerman
3/17/2025

I’m always drawn to anything involving Native American culture, and The Blessing Way is full of Navajo stories, traditions, and life. It also introduces Joe Leaphorn, who is the main protagonist of the series of eighteen books. Leaphorn is a detective working for the Navajo Tribal police. The story begins with Bergen McKee, professor and cultural anthropologist investigating Navajo culture. He happens to be a friend of Joe, which is how he gets involved in a murder investigation while on a research/camping trip in the desert. It all leads to a thrilling confrontation that I didn’t expect.
During the course of their investigation, Bergen and Joe question various friends and associates of the victim, gaining a little information but mostly a sense of evil and something very wrong.  Joe attends an Enemy Way ceremonial, which is a common practice in the Navajo community and used to protect the people and also help rid returning soldiers from harmful spirits. As well as the spiritual aspect, ceremonials are also a social event, including a large gathering, dancing, singing, and chanting, and Joe uses his time well by questioning as many people as he can about the murder.
Piece by piece, he and Bergen are finding out a lot of information but keep getting stalled in their quest. Joe’s patience serves him well as he had a lot of time to think, driving through the desert canyons and mountains. Meanwhile, Bergen is about to go on a campout that he’ll never forget.
Although this series has been around a while, I’ve never read it and finally decided I would dig in. It reminded me a little of William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’ Connor series, which are set in the North Woods of Minnesota. They also feature a lawman, Cork O’ Connor, whose heritage is part Irish and part Ojibwe. Their culture and traditions are a large part of these books. This one was slower paced but very thoughtful and suspenseful.
Plus, if you want to go down a rabbit hole, you can visit The Tony Hillerman Portal. Maps of the locations, learning resources and other materials about Hillerman’s books are all there.
Our library has eleven books in the series available for checkout. We also have the entire Cork O’Connor series too.

What Follows is True: Crescent Hotel
by Sean Fitzgibbon
3/10/2025
A combination of art, history and storytelling, What follows is true: Crescent Hotel is more than a graphic novel. The Crescent Hotel is well known, but the details of its years as a hospital and the scandalous story of Norman Baker are a fascinating hidden history. Although he was not a doctor, Norman Baker claimed to have a cure for cancer and other diseases. After setting up the hotel as a hospital, he was overrun with patients for a time. Like many other con men, he was caught and eventually charged with mail fraud. But that’s just a fraction of the incredible story of the Crescent Hotel and Norman Baker. The book has references to oral histories, news stories, newspaper articles and a wealth of research that’s available if you want to dig into it. But the real stars of the book are the pages of beautiful illustrations done by the author. They set up a dark, ominous atmosphere throughout the story. I was fortunate to see the author/artist talk about his book last fall at our library conference. After reading it, I wanted to dig deeper into this forgotten part of Arkansas history.

The Parable of the Sower
by Octavia E. Butler
3.3.2025

Octavia Butler's vision of a California in 2025:
Wildfires spreading out of control; addicts and unhoused people on every street corner, forcing families and groups to band together in gated communities for safety. If you're lucky enough to have a gun, you'll carry it discreetly.
Water is more scarce and even more expensive than gasoline, but who has a car? Packs of wild dogs roam, looking for food, too dangerous to be domesticated. Many people, including adults, are illiterate.
Civilization is crumbling, as infrastructure, government, and law and order, are ignored as survival takes precedence.

Even though it's not quite California of today, there are some similarities to our country at the present time. Parable of the Sower was written by Octavia Butler in 1993, over thirty years ago. This surprisingly prophetic story follows Lauren, raised by a preacher in a Los Angeles enclave where her family and others were lucky enough to have a mostly safe existence. However, despite their vigilance, the compound was robbed again and again and eventually burned. Lauren’s family would never be the same, so she struck out on her own with a burning desire to create a better life for herself and others: She would call it Earthseed.

I got this recommendation from a book club friend. It's a scary and thought provoking book that everyone should read and it's available in our library.

The queen of comfort reading – Rosamunde Pilcher
2.25.25

Snow days, and any other days that might call for a warm blanket - are a perfect excuse to escape to the world of Rosamunde Pilcher. If you’ve never read any of her writing, it’s rather old-fashioned, kind of sweet, syrupy and completely different from anything I usually read. But that’s the beauty of it. It always involves families with ancient, huge country homes in the English or Scottish countryside where you can stroll through enviable gardens that you don’t have to tend. Imagine the cozy teatimes on winter afternoons around a crackling fireplace. Then you’re whisked off to London to visit friends, shop and live mostly charmed lives while doing a minimum of work. Even though sad reality, drama, and heartaches occur sometimes, they’re still a great comfort read and I’ve re-read them several times. Last week I read Voices in Summer and The Carousel, two short novels.
My favorites are her long novels, September; The Shell Seekers; Coming Home.

The boy in the snow
(Edie Kiglatuk #2)
by M.J. McGrath

2/17/2025

Although she can be maddening, Edie Kiglatuk has quickly become one of my favorite characters. There’s no one that I’d rather have with me if I was in a survival situation. Who else could find and kill food, build a snow shelter, and fend off enemies, human or animal?

This time Edie and her friend Derek are in Alaska supporting Edie’s ex-husband as he competes in the Iditarod sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome. That could be a time consuming effort, but of course, Edie is diverted. Immediately after their arrival, Edie makes a grisly discovery in the forest and, true to her nature, is immediately plunged into the search for a killer. She has a passion for seeing justice done, and this time her cause is an important one: victims of human trafficking.

Although the mystery is interesting, I was really intrigued by all the cultural aspects that I learned about along the way. In the last book, White Heat, one of my favorite things was reading about all the exotic foods Edie loves. However, being in Alaska instead of her home of Ellesmere Island, this time she’s unable to get her favorite dishes. She realizes this immediately in a diner when she orders “seal meat soup and roast flipper", but must settle for hamburgers without the buns or condiments. Later we’re treated to a midnight snack of graham crackers and seal blubber, to finish another day above the Arctic Circle.

The characters in this series are what stand out and make it above average for me, as well as the descriptions of place and culture.

Prophet Song
by Paul Lynch
2.12.2025

Unsettling, frightening, and a horror story that’s all too real.

Ireland is broken – an Ireland of a future time. A tyrannical regime is taking control of the government, and we watch helplessly as an ordinary family is caught in the crossfire. Eilish and her four kids can only pray after her husband, Larry, vanishes after a visit from the secret police. Slowly, things begin to fall apart. Eilish struggles to care for the kids and her aging father, and eventually she’s faced with an agonizing choice.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a refugee, the last part of this book probably comes close to describing that experience, as what’s left of the family tries to escape through any means they can.

Although it has many passages that are difficult and heart-rending, Prophet Song is a reading experience that I won’t forget. The writing is spare and plain as if to say, “this is what happened, no frills, just the facts”. And the chilling facts are all you really need.
Prophet Song is available in the Mahony Family Library.

Mickey 7
by Edward Ashton

2/3/2025

If you’re a fan of science fiction or even if you’re not, you’ll probably enjoy Mickey 7 – plus, the film version is coming to a screen near you in March.

Mickey 7 is fun, witty and has an interesting twist. Mickey Barnes is desperate for a job – so he signs up to be an expendable on a ship to one of the space colonies. Expendables are sent on all the most dangerous and suicidal missions, with the idea that if you don’t come back, you’ll be regenerated or cloned into a new version of yourself with mostly the same memories and everything else. Which is what happened to Mickeys 1 through 6.

After landing on the ice planet Niflheim, the crew goes on a scouting mission and Mickey 7 gets in trouble, returning to camp much later than everyone else. But when he does finally make it back, he's in for a big surprise: his bunk is already being used by none other than a brand new Mickey 8. Bad news for our friend 7, since it's against regulations to harbor a duplicate. He also doesn’t want to end up in the recycling bin - now Mickey 7 has to keep his existence a secret. A difficult task in such close quarters and with an ever-dwindling supply of food.
I would recommend this to anyone who enjoyed The Martian by Andy Weir or possibly John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War Series.

Challenger: A true story of heroism and disaster at the edge of space
by Adam Higginbotham
1/27/2025

After reading just a few chapters I wondered, how did anything ever succeed in the space program? So many things went wrong, all the missteps, the billions of dollars that were spent and more importantly, the human lives that were lost – after all that, there were still many dedicated and brilliant minds who were passionate about their mission.

It’s full of fascinating details about the people and events surrounding the space shuttle program, Challenger, the Apollo program, recruiting astronauts and their training. Finally, the last section covers the Challenger disaster in detail, as well as the Rogers Commission which investigated the event.

Next year will be forty years since the space shuttle Challenger disaster, and yep, I remember it. There was no internet or 24-hour news, so people were just talking about it at work because someone had called them from home. How else would we get news in 1986?( Wait a minute - maybe the radio.) No one saw the video of the launch until we got home. It was a shocking and sad event in a day that was supposed to be a triumph. Another vivid memory of that day for me was President Reagan appearing on television that night and reciting a line from John G. Magee’s poem, "High Flight".

Reading non-fiction can be a tough slog for me. But I really enjoyed this one.

All Good People Here
by Ashley Flowers
01/21/2025
Love watching a creepy true crime show? This page turner is just as bingeworthy, maybe because the author is the creator and host of the Crime Junkie podcast.

Here’s the setup: On returning to her hometown, reporter Margot is shocked to hear about a shocking crime that just occurred involving a missing child. Horrible as it may be, the event is even more traumatizing for her because of something that happened during her childhood. Margot's friend and neighbor, six-year-old January Jacobs, was taken and later found lifeless in a nearby ditch. No one else in the small town has forgotten the little girl, even though it happened many years ago. Now Margot feels a compulsion to find the answer to the latest mystery about a missing child of the same age, also missing. Is there a link between the two? As a reporter, Margot feels there’s a story there. but she’s short on time, between helping out her elderly uncle Luke and trying to keep her own head above water – and there are those scary messages someone keeps leaving for her. Is there anyone she can trust?

The Lindbergh Nanny
by Mariah Fredericks
1/13/2025
I had honestly never seen this one in our library and decided to take it home before our non-snow days last week. It was a nice surprise and made me want to learn a lot more about “The Crime of the Century” - that’s what the Lindbergh kidnapping was called at the time it happened in 1932. Of course, this is a fictionalized account but is based on biographies, history and many other sources, according to the author. We have several other books about it and the major players including The Ghosts of Hopewell: Setting the record straight in the Lindbergh Case by Jim Fisher and Scapegoat: the lonesome death of Bruno Richard Hauptmann by Anthony Scaduto. Hauptmann was the man found guilty and eventually executed for the crime, although questions, rumors and theories persist even now. Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg is also available in our library. It's considered an excellent biography about the man who was celebrated as a hero but also had a dark side.

We Solve Murders
by Richard Osman
1/06/2025
Meet Amy Wheeler, private security dynamo, whose everyday life is sort of like a Bond movie. But she likes it that way, in dangerous and sketchy situations, protecting the super-rich, always with her gun close by and hopefully with a chance to punch somebody in the near future. Although her job has a lot of perks, it can still sometimes get her in harm’s way. Like now, when Amy is afraid she’s being framed for a series of murders. Is there anyone she can trust to figure out what’s going on? An unlikely back up man is her father-in-law Steve Wheeler, a happily retired investigator who spends an occasional evening at trivia night with friends at his local pub. Mostly he’s content to stay home with his cat, but if Amy is in trouble, he can be dragged out of the country and maybe onto a plane, reluctantly. Just don’t say anything about his clothes. Honestly, some of the characters in this book are just as funny as the Murder Club crew. And you’ll never meet anyone like her client, best-selling author Rosie D’Antonio, a lady past her prime but who’s always on the lookout for a man or a party. It’s another winner from the Thursday Murder Club author!

My favorites of 2024
12/16/2024

Ok, since everybody is sharing their lists of the best books, I had a think about mine. Each of these books was a standout for me beyond just their genre. Here they are.

James by Percival Everett
(See the review below from last week)

The Three-Body Problem
by Cixin Liu
Sci-fi fans, fasten your seat belts and get ready to blast off! Starting with the Chinese cultural revolution in the 1960s and spanning centuries into the future, this epic journey answers humanity’s most intriguing question: what is out there? And even more compelling, how will mankind deal with an alien invasion? I've read the first two of the series, and they are a challenge, but full of big ideas that I never encountered before.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
by James McBride
What was so special about a dumpy little grocery store in the small town of Chicken Hill? Maybe the people who lived there, like Moshe, Fatty, Monkey Pants and others who formed a community and supported each other in a world of prejudice. People of all colors and from many countries, mostly different but all human. One important thing they shared was a secret they carried in their hearts, one that wouldn’t be revealed for many years. This one will make you laugh and might make you cry too, but it will definitely warm your heart.

The God of the Woods
by Liz Moore
Connections, from the present and the past, are everywhere in The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. I raced through this big book about a summer camp in the summer of 1975. It’s an ordinary morning when a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk in her cabin. But the missing girl is not just a regular camper. She’s Barbara Van Laar, whose family owns the summer camp and employs most of the locals. A frantic search begins and amid the chaos of searching for Barbara, questions arise about an earlier unsolved disappearance – Barbara’s brother, Bear, who went missing back in 1961. A coincidence or a connection? Moore keeps the reader in suspense as she takes us back and forth between 1961 and 1975, pulling in the various parts of the story and introducing characters with connections. This is one of the best books I’ve read all year, and all I could think at the ending was just “wow”.

All these are available in the Mahony Family Library.

What were your favorite books this year?

James
by Percival Everett
12/09/2024

You may have seen lots of buzz about this book lately. James by Percival Everett has won several awards and after reading it, I think it's a book that everyone should read. If you’ve read its inspiration, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, you know the story. The new book is a modern retelling, with the focus on the character of Jim, the escaped slave who goes on the journey with Huck. This is a very different Jim - he’s literate, articulate, and knows how to read and write, skills that could be the death of a slave. In spite of having to be on guard with his secret knowledge, Jim trusts and becomes friends with Huckleberry Finn. Huck is in trouble as well, and runs away from his abusive father. After he's threatened with separation from his family, Jim escapes, and eventually teams up with Huck on a perilous journey down the Mississippi.
In spite of all the dangers and perils of life on the river, there are many funny moments in the book too. Some of the people that Huck and James run into are downright ridiculous. It’s an exciting story full of action, narrow escapes, dark humor and irony. But we never forget that James is always in danger of being captured because of his status – an escaped slave.

I really enjoyed this and recommend it for everyone.

The Disquieting Death of Emma Gill: Abortion, Death, and Concealment in Victorian New England /Marcia Biederman 12/02/2024

One of the many new non-fiction books that we’ve added, the story of Emma Gill is an eye-opener. You may be surprised to read about how prevalent the practice of abortion was back at the turn of the century. But it's no surprise to read how dangerous the procedure was in that era. Lacking qualifications and training, almost anyone could hang out a shingle and call themselves a “Dr.” for “Women’s problems”. The issue was shoved squarely in the public eye when a couple of boys found wrapped body parts in a river near Bridgeport Connecticut. The dismembered corpse was traced back to Nancy Guilford, who practiced “medicine" with her husband Henry, another dubious con artist. Soon afterward the trial and arrest of Nancy and Henry began, but they were released and moved on. It's a story you won't read in the history books, but one that deserves attention.

The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz (Sequel to The Plot) 12/02/2024
Over the Thanksgiving break I read The Sequel and it was convoluted to say the least. Sometimes I was unsure who was in the real story or the fictional story, because it’s a story about a story, or really many stories. It’s held together by one person whose identity is slowly revealed. See? But I really love that kind of crazy, so it was perfect holiday reading.
It was fun reading about what’s it’s like to be a published author and life on a book tour. Also there’s probably a lot of truth in the story of the internet harassment that plagues both authors in the books.
Will there be a sequel to The Sequel? I did read that these may be a TV series.

Re-read of The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz 11/26/2024

You would think I could remember every plot from every book. But that’s sadly not true. My memory is just not great about keeping up with all the books I read. So every now and then I have to do a re-read, especially if I’m reading a series. The Plot is one I just had to re-read, in order to read its sequel, conveniently called The Sequel. (Yes, the books are more original than their names).

I read The Plot about 3 years ago and remembered that I really liked it. Last month I heard someone at book club talking about it and it's sequel coming soon. I was anxious to read it but I had to re-read the first book to refresh my memory. So I listened to the audiobook while on vacation last week. It’s true, I don’t usually enjoy audiobooks, but this one worked out for me . It was entertaining in the car and I’m so glad I read/listened to it because I had forgotten the whole blessed thing. The premise of the story revolves around Jake Bonner, struggling novelist and writing teacher, who at last has a moderately successful first novel. After that he never achieves anything else with his later work. He’s resigned to teaching and running creative writing workshops. For the most part, his students are entirely ordinary until the day Evan Parker comes in with the introductory pages of an outrageous plot. An obnoxious blowhard, he’s convinced this novel (when it’s finished) will be a runaway bestseller and a blockbuster movie that breaks all records. Although Evan is over-the-top annoying, Jake has to admit he has a knack for writing. And the story is a knockout. Being in the middle of a writer’s block, Jake seethes with envy at this undeserving show-off, even while he smiles and makes like a professor giving suggestions and encouragement.

Time passes and a couple of years later, Jake is still in more or less the same situation. To his surprise, he discovers that Evan has died without publishing his novel. Although it's the end for Evan, it's just the beginning of Jake's story.
Anything else would be a spoiler!

Sleeping Beauties
Stephen King and Owen King
11/11/2024

I’m always ready to get recommendations from others, because I can't read everything! Somehow I missed a big book from one of my long-time favorites, Stephen King. A friend told me about Sleeping Beauties, a huge book by Stephen King and his son Owen King from back in 2017. After her enthusiastic review, I tried it and was instantly caught up in the fast-moving story. A sleeping sickness enters the world and infects only women, enveloping them in a cocoon: sleeping but still alive. If anyone tries to wake them up, the sleepers turn on their rescuer in a deadly rage. And no wonder: while they sleep, they’re living in another world, a better world of peace and harmony. However, there’s one woman who hasn’t been affected by the virus: Evie. No one knows who she is or where she came from, or even what she is, but she’s able to sleep and wake up in a normal way, unlike every other woman on earth. Witch, demon, goddess, or all three, Evie is the key to restoring normalcy to earth. Because without women keeping everything in order, you can imagine that things are not going well.

This super long book had its draggy moments, like the fighting scenes that I really kind of skipped. But it gave me a lot to think about anyway and otherwise I really enjoyed it.
Sleeping Beauties is available in the Mahony Family Library.

The Ministry of Time
by Kaliane Bradley 11/4/2024
After reading a bunch of different time travel novels, it’s nice to find something a bit different. Not the same old scenario where the characters stumble into the wrong rock (a magical or mystical rock) and BAM, they’re thrown back three centuries and they wind up in the middle of a gruesome battle, wearing totally inappropriate clothes. Seems like that happens in a lot of time travel stories.
Here it’s all very methodical and businesslike. The Ministry is a government agency overseeing portal movements and rescues. The goal is to investigate whether time travel is attainable, safe for humans, and doesn’t mess with history too much. The Ministry’s mission is extracting people from the past – people who would normally have died in their own timeline. How is it done? Don’t think too much about science. Let’s just say it involves going through some kind of portal or door to find the lucky/unlucky person and drag them back to our time. Now they must learn about cell phones, social media, fast food, washing machines and a thousand other things (depending on when they’re from) just to be able to make a new life. That’s the job of the “handlers” assigned to each person rescued – the enormous task of helping them assimilate into their new world.
Why are these people, the lucky souls who get rescued from disaster? It could be a victim of the great Plague of London, or the deadly battle of the Somme, or Commander Graham Gore, rescued from freezing to death while looking for the Northwest Passage in 1847. Are they glad to be out of their own time? It varies. Meanwhile, life goes on. Tempers fray, romances happen and as always with the government, spying and dishonesty are everywhere. It’s a thoroughly satisfying and sometimes sad mix of spy novel, speculative fiction, romance and humor.
The Ministry of Time is available in the Mahony Family Library.

The Cliffs
by J. Courtney Sullivan 10.28/24
Looking for something scary? There are plenty of frightfully good horror books out there, but I never expected to be haunted by this one. When I picked up The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan, I expected it to be a big family saga with lots of drama and maybe a wedding. Not exactly what I would suggest when it’s time to recommend a creepy Halloween month book, but The Cliffs is haunting in many ways.
Sometimes it’s good to go into a book without knowing anything about it. I was totally absorbed by this story and all the rabbit holes it went down. It all began when a teenage Jane Flanagan wandered onto a deserted property and found an abandoned house full of everything but people. Local legends told some of the story and she became fascinated with “The Cliffs” and its legends. However, Jane is unaware of the fascinating, ghostly history of the home and the people who lived there through the centuries. Years later, when she returns after her mother’s death, Jane finds out the house has been purchased and renovated beyond recognition. Some traces of its eerie past still remain, and the new owner, Genevieve, insists on seeking help from a medium. Jane is eager to help, still enthralled by the house and its legends, but also to escape from her problems. Her coveted position as an archivist at Harvard is in jeopardy, and her marriage is probably on the rocks because of her ongoing issues with alcohol. Did Jane’s troubled past and her family history wreck her dream life?
The old, decrepit mansion overlooking the ocean was just the tip of the iceberg! After reading, I wanted to learn about the Fox sisters, the Spiritualism movement, the Shaker religion and the legends of indigenous people of Maine. There’s a lot going on in this book but she ties it all together in a wonderfully readable and not too scary way.
And, if you’re looking for something more traditionally spooky, we have lots of choices!
The Cliffs is available in the Mahony Family Library.

White Heat by M.J. McGrath 10/21/24
Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See
After I read these two books, I couldn’t stop thinking about the women and their very different worlds. The highly secluded and protected life of Chinese nobility alongside the story of an Inuit woman struggling to survive above the Arctic circle.
So many people have recommended Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See that I was excited to read it. Her other books are Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love, but I think this one is my favorite. In this book, Lisa See steps inside the world of the Ming Dynasty period, and it’s a fascinating place to explore. It was hard for me to imagine the cloistered existence of women from an elite family in 15th century China. They might never leave the palace or see any man other than a family member until they were married.   For Lady Tan, life is for the most part was ruled by long-standing traditions. But not in every way: In a surprising break from the norm, her family allowed its women to be educated as physicians. Along with her friend, who’s trained as a midwife, they’re able to help women inside and outside of the palace walls with childbirth, illnesses and even death.
Another woman who’s just as interesting is Edie Kiglatuk of the novel White Heat by M.J. McGrath. Her world is the bleak, icy landscape of Ellesmere Island, near the Arctic Circle.
This happens to be a convoluted mystery that I love, but what I remember most is Edie, a tremendously gutsy, resourceful and determined Inuit woman seeking justice for a lost family member. She’s a part time teacher but spends most of her days as a hunting guide, taking visitors out to the wilderness, camping out, building snow houses, killing and cooking wild game, managing and driving sled dogs across the barren wilderness on her own. Somehow, she spends the nights in subzero temperatures and runs around in what she calls a “summer” parka.
Obviously you need a lot of energy to survive in that environment, and you have to get it by eating some very different foods. The descriptions of the Inuit cuisine really stuck in my memory. Blood soup, caribou tongue, fermented walrus gut and in one unforgettable instance Edie and a friend caught a fish, and after cooking it, cut off the head and each sucked out an eyeball. Just another day above the Arctic Circle.
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See is available in our library and White Heat by M.J. McGrath is a book that was loaned to me.