November is Native American Heritage Month. We pay tribute to the rich ancestry and traditions of Native Americans. Check out these lists of Native authors who write fiction and nonfiction works.
–Post by Susie Rivera, Adult Services Specialist
#FDL is an update on all things Fondulac District Library and books.
The results of our Spooky Halloween Writing Contest are in! Three winners were chosen from each of the Teen and Adult categories. We’d like to congratulate the winners and thank all of you who participated!
Teen Winners
The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center
Reviewed By: Deanna, Adult Services Assistant
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Suggested Age: Adults
What is This Book About? Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter and has spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies but she’s also been the sole caretaker for her dad who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates it’s an opportunity too big to pass up. Emma quickly realizes sometimes its best not to meet your heroes since Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone and what’s worse is the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Emma’s is determined to make this work but what if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules―and comes true? – Annotation from the publisher
My Review: Katherine Center has quickly become an auto-buy author for me because she writes insanely lovable, flawed, relatable characters you cannot help but want to know more about. Her writing definitely leans more towards women’s fiction with romance being prevalent but not the entire focus of the book. She delves heavily into her characters backgrounds and family lives that you immediately feel invested in them as a person. Would recommend to any romance reader who wants to read about a non-traditional take on love.
Three words that describe this book: Entertaining, Comedic, Gut-Wrenching
Read this if you like… The Paradise Problem, Happy Place, Just for The Summer
Rating: 4/5
Fondulac District Library offers automatic renewals as a time-saving convenience to its patrons!
Effective November 1, 2024, items checked out at Fondulac District Library eligible for renewal will be renewed automatically on their due date.
Please carefully read the courtesy notices sent by the library. Email notices will show you which items renewed and which did not. Providing your current email address allows you to receive courtesy notices from the library.
As a reminder, no overdue fines will be charged on any item checked out at FDL, regardless of who owns the item, which library issued your card, or where the item is returned. Learn more about the library’s fine-free procedures here.
FAQs
What is Automatic Renewal?
You no longer need to manually renew your library items! The library’s automatic renewal service will take care of the renewals for you! All items checked out at Fondulac District Library that are eligible for renewal will be automatically renewed on their due date.
How does it work?
Any items on your account that are eligible for renewal will now renew automatically on their due date.
How will I know an item renewed?
If you have an email address associated with your account, you will receive notification via email that lists which items were successfully renewed and which items were not, if applicable. (To sign up for email notifications, login in to your library card account or call or visit the library.)
Patrons without an email address registered with their account can check their account online or via the RSACat app. Patrons may also contact the library.
Which items are eligible for renewal?
Most items are eligible for one renewal, as long as another patron has not placed a hold on the item and your account is in good standing.
Items will not renew automatically if:
Can I still renew my items manually?
Yes. If you wish to renew an item prior to its due date, simply renew it through your account online or speak to a staff member at the library. Manual renewals will extend the borrowing period from the date of the manual renewal.
Patrons may manually renew eligible borrowed items in-person, over the phone at (309) 699-3917, by text, or online. To renew items over the phone, please have your library card number ready. To renew items in-person, please have the items, and your library card or a current photo ID in hand.
To renew items online:
Can I opt-out of automatic renewals?
Patrons cannot opt-out of automatic renewals at this time.
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Reviewer: Deb Alig, Circulation Assistant
Genre: Contemporary Japanese fiction
Suggested Age: Adult
What is this book about? Kitchen is a novel that features two different stories that have similar themes but different characters and plots. The first story is Kitchen named after the novel. The second story is Moon Shadow which I think should be a stand alone book. Kitchen is about a young Japanese woman named Mikage who is raised by her grandmother after her parents die when she was young. She faces loss again when her grandmother unexpectedly passes away. She experiences loneliness and despair and can only find comfort sleeping in the kitchen which is her favorite place to be. Fortunately for Mikage, a young friend of her grandmother’s named Yuichi Tanabe, invites her to come and stay with him and his transgender mother Eriko. Without any living relatives, it’s easy for her to accept. Yuichi and Eriko live in a very comfortable home with a wonderful kitchen which brings Mikage much joy. The three form a little family, but eventually Mikage has to move out to start a culinary job. Months pass without Mikage hearing from Yuichi, and that is because tragedy has struck again. Mikage receives a difficult call from Yuichi. Eriko is dead. She was murdered by a stalker. Now Yuichi is the one falling apart, and Mikage is devastated too. Though the two feel like orphans, they have each other. Can their love for each other overcome their despair?
In Moonlight Shadow, a young woman named Satsuki loses her boyfriend Hitoshi in a terrible car accident. She becomes friends with his brother Hiirgi whose girlfriend was killed in the same crash. One evening, while out for a run to the site of the crash, a woman bumps into Satsuki and knocks her thermos out of her hands and into the water below. The woman apologizes and introduces herself as Urara. Urara arranges to meet with Satsuki to give her a new thermos. She meets up with her at the crash site on the bridge and shares some magical insight with her. She explains that once every hundred years or so, near a big river, when supernatural forces are aligned just right, paranormal phenomenon may occur. People who know about this call it The Weaver Festival Phenomenon. It’s when “[t]he residual thoughts of a person who has died meet the sadness of someone left behind, and[a] vision is produced” (147). And so magically, Satsuki sees a vision of Hitoshi at the crash site where he was killed. He smiles and waves to her as he walks off into the mist. Will this experience finally help Sastuki attain some closure? Can she now grow emotionally closer to Hiirgi?
My Review: I enjoyed each story of the novel, but I would have rather read them separately. While both stories shared similar themes, their plots were very different. I think that Moon Shadow could have been longer on its own allowing for better plot development. I also would have been more satisfied just reading Kitchen as it is. I’m not quite sure why the editor chose to include these two very different stories in one novel.
Rating: 3/5
Three Words That Describe This Book: despair, compassion, hope
Give this a try if you like: Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon (The Go Between, #1) by, Mizuki Tsujimura; The Lantern of Lost Memories by, Sanaka Hiiragi; and The Kamogawa Food Detectives by, Hisashi Kashiwai
Good and evil are not always easy to spot. Sometimes danger and salvation come from unexpected corners of our lives. These upcoming novels are sure to thrill and surprise unsuspecting readers.
The Quiet Librarian by Allen Eskens
Expected Publication Date: 02/18/25
Hana Babic is a quiet, middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who wants nothing more than to be left alone. But when a detective arrives with the news that her best friend has been murdered, Hana knows that something evil has come for her, a dark remnant of the past she and her friend had shared.
Thirty years before, Hana was someone Nura Divjak, a teenager growing up in the mountains of war-torn Bosnia—until Serbian soldiers arrived to slaughter her entire family before her eyes. The events of that day thrust Nura into the war, leading her to join a band of militia fighters, where she became not only a fierce warrior but a legend—the deadly Night Mora. But a shattering final act forced Nura to flee to the United States with a bounty on her head.
Now, someone is hunting Hana, and her friend has paid the price, leaving her eight-year-old grandson in Hana’s care. To protect the child without revealing her secret, Hana must again become the Night Mora—and hope she can find the killer before the past comes for them, too.
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
Expected Publication Date: 02/04/25
Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect Victorian governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But the longer Winifred spends within the estate’s dreary confines, and the more she learns of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family, the more trouble she has sticking to her plan. Whether creeping across the moonlit lawns in her undergarments or gently tormenting the house staff, Winifred struggles at every turn to stifle the horrid compulsions of her past. When her chillingly dark imagination breaches the feeble boundary of reality on Christmas morning, Winifred is finally ready to deliver on her generous gifts. Wielding her signature sardonic wit and a penchant for the gorgeously macabre, Virginia Feito returns with a vengeance in Victorian Psycho.
Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman
Expected Publication Date: 01/07/25
Noah Fairchild has been losing his formerly polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening” is here, he assumes it’s related to one of the many conspiracy theories she believes in. But when his own phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the long drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles, a fridge full of spoiled food, and his parents locked in a terrifying trance-like state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it and get medical help.
-Annotations from the publishers
–Post by Melissa Friedlund, Adult Services Specialist
Enter your name here for a chance to win ARCs of the books mentioned in this post. One entry per person. Drawing to be held approximately 7 days after this post.
ARCs are “advanced reading copies.” These are free copies of a new books given by a publisher to librarians and other reviewers before the book is printed for mass distribution.
#FDL is a weekly update on all things Fondulac District Library and East Peoria.
Above the Noise: My Story of Chasing Calm by DeMar DeRozan and Dave Zarum
Reviewed By: Jacob Roberts, Youth Services Specialist
Genre: Memoir
Suggested Age: Adults, Teens
What is This Book About? DeMar DeRozan, a 6-time NBA All-Star, and player for the Sacramento Kings, shares his story of trial and fame as he rose up out of Compton from a young age and onto the world stage as a professional athlete in the NBA. He relives trauma, addresses what it’s like to be in the NBA, expresses the importance of family, and most importantly, tells the reader that mental health is real and important to find help with when you need it most.
My Review: Although many celebrities and athletes can feel distant and removed from the average person’s experience, DeRozan’s story and mindset proves to be down-to-earth and frank. He is straight-forward and acknowledges repeatedly how he is forced to reconcile where he came from with where he is now. I believe that having such a down-to-earth voice and athlete speak out on mental health is a great example for generations to come. The book shows that you can be both masculine and vulnerable at the same time. Most importantly, it tells the next generation that they don’t have to know all the answers to be successful in this world. DeRozan continues to stress that he is healing, rather than having been “healed,” and continues to work on his mental health when he has the strength.
Three words that describe this book: inspiring, real, down-to-earth
Read this if you like… Becoming Kareem, Kobe: The Mamba Mentality, Michael Jordan: The Life
Rating: 5/5
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
Reviewed By: Julie Nutt, Communications Specialist
Genre: Gothic horror
Suggested Age: Adults, Teens
What is This Book About? In a reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, a retired soldier is summoned to the home of their childhood friends, Roderick and Madeline Usher, as Madeline is dying from a mysterious, undefined malady. Upon arrival at the looming, decaying house of Usher and its frightening landscape, it becomes clear to the retired soldier that both of their friends are afflicted with some sort of dark, physically and mentally-consuming possession. Could it be the very land and water around them that is about to swallow every resident of the Usher house?
My Review: This truly is a retelling of Poe’s Usher, almost to a T, but with more physiological causes behind the Usher madness, and the clever addition of an LGBTQ (nonbinary) narrator. The narrator’s gender identity in What Moves could parallel the fact that the narrator in Poe’s Usher is never identified.
The scientific aspects of What Moves are fascinating: the prospect that naturally occurring parasite might take over a living being and cause terrifying, terminal results. Another interesting parallel is that the novel was published in 2022, meaning it was probably written during the COVD pandemic, and published just as the pandemic wound down.
I will admit, the grotesque cover art is what caught my eye initially, but as soon as I began reading, I knew I had correctly judged the book. What Moves the Dead is a quick, but definitely not light, read. I can’t wait to read the sequel, What Feasts at Night, as well as Kingfisher’s novels The Hollow Places and The Twisted Ones. If What Moves the Dead were made into a movie or limited series, I would definitely watch just to see it play out on screen.
Three words that describe this book: dark, disturbing, suspenseful
Read this if you like… Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, Stephen Graham Jones
Rating: 5/5
The Tyranny of Faith by Richard Swan
Reviewed By: Jeremy Zentner, Adult Services Assistant
Genre: Fantasy
Suggested Age: Adults
What is This Book About? Judge, jury and executioner. Imperial Justice, Sir Konrad Vonvalt has spent two years distributing justice to subjects of the Empire of the Wolf, but it is time to report back to the capital. Vonvalt and his apprentice, Helena Sedanka, enter the center of civilization to bring the Emperor news of dark wizardry discovered to be in the hands of traitors, as depicted in the first book, The Justice of Kings. The Emperor rewards Vonvalt with a promotion he doesn’t want, entrusting him as head of the Magistratum in order to root out corruption that is suspected within the law-giving institution. But before the Magistratum and the Empire can be fully cleansed, the grandson of the Emperor goes missing and Helena and Vonvalt are tasked to rescue the young prince.
My Review: The Tyranny of Faith is a riotous journey through a secondary fantasy-world as Vonvalt and Helena travel to the Empire’s heart, the realm of the dead, and the frontier of mankind. Helena goes from a loyal novice law-clerk to a demon-killing, death-walking, champion for true justice. We also see Sir Konrad Vonvalt show his true colors as he is given unbridled authority in an empire full of ruin and rot. What I also enjoyed about this book is that it was part investigative and part horror story within the grim realities of a medieval-based world that’s on the edge of a Roman-style collapse. We get horrifying images of the spiritual plane as well as hidden monsters within the land of the living. All things considered, this book takes everything I love in varying genres and fuses them into a spellbinding epic.
Read this if you like… The Justice of Kings, Mistborn: The Final Empire, Dracula, The Exorcist, Hellblazer
Rating: 5/5
The Butcher of the Forest Premee Mohamed
Reviewed by: Melissa Friedlund, Reference Specialist
Genre: Dark Fantasy, Twisted Fairy Tales
Suggested Age: Teen, Adult
What is the book about? Veris is a middle-aged woman living with her aunt and grandfather in a land controlled by a deplorable foreigner known as the “Tyrant.” Between her home and the Tyrant’s castle is the foreboding Elmever; a dark forest that all locals know to NEVER enter. However, the Tyrant’s two young children have disappeared and the all signs point to them entering the Elmever under cover of night. Now, under threat of death for herself and her loved ones, Veris must attempt something that she miraculously accomplished once before…many years ago; go into the Elmever and come out of alive WITH the children.
My Review: I liked this novella quite a bit. It was a quick read and a good change of pace from my usual genres. The pace of action was brisk, which kept the suspense at the forefront. Premee Mohamed has a descriptive writing style that paints a comprehensive picture without getting lost in minor details. This twisted fairy tale has so many macabre elements it borders on horror, but wasn’t overly gory. The tension leaves you constantly wondering if there will be a happy ending or not.
Three Words That Describe This Book: Spooky, Intense, Grim
Give This a Try if You Like…Grimm’s Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm, One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig, The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka
Rating: 4.5/5