Secrets and Gossip – May Giveaway

Want to know a secret? The juicier, the better! These novels explore secret worlds, haunting disappearances, celebrity gossip, and family intrigue. Want to find out more?  Dive in!

The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry

Expected Publication Date: May 2, 2023

When a woman discovers a rare book that has connections to her past, long-held secrets about her missing sister and their childhood spent in the English countryside during World War II are revealed.

In the war-torn London of 1939, fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the kind Bridie Aberdeen and her teenage son, Harry, in a charming stone cottage along the River Thames, Hazel fills their days with walks and games to distract her young sister, including one that she creates for her sister and her sister alone—a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own.

But the unthinkable happens when young Flora suddenly vanishes while playing near the banks of the river. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, and she carries that guilt into adulthood as a private burden she feels she deserves.

Twenty years later, Hazel is in London, ready to move on from her job at a cozy rare bookstore to a career at Sotheby’s. With a charming boyfriend and her elegantly timeworn Bloomsbury flat, Hazel’s future seems determined. But her tidy life is turned upside down when she unwraps a package containing an illustrated book called Whisperwood and the River of Stars. Hazel never told a soul about the imaginary world she created just for Flora. Could this book hold the secrets to Flora’s disappearance? Could it be a sign that her beloved sister is still alive after all these years?

As Hazel embarks on a feverish quest, revisiting long-dormant relationships and bravely opening wounds from her past, her career and future hang in the balance. An astonishing twist ultimately reveals the truth in this transporting and refreshingly original novel about the bond between sisters, the complications of conflicted love, and the enduring magic of storytelling.

Do Tell by Lindsay Lynch

Expected Publication Date: July 11, 2023

As character actress Edie O’Dare finishes the final year of her contract with FWM Studios, the clock is ticking for her to find a new gig after an undistinguished stint in the pictures. She’s long supplemented her income moonlighting for Hollywood’s reigning gossip columnist, providing her with the salacious details of every party and premiere. When an up-and-coming starlet hands her a letter alleging an assault from an A-list actor at a party with Edie and the rest of the industry’s biggest names in attendance, Edie helps get the story into print and sets off a chain of events that will alter the trajectories of everyone involved.

Now on a new side of the entertainment business, Edie’s second act career grants her more control on the page than she ever commanded in front of the camera. But Edie quickly learns that publishing the secrets of those former colleagues she considers friends has repercussions. And when she finds herself in the middle of the trial of the decade, Edie is forced to make an impossible choice with the potential to ruin more than one life.

Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo

Expected Publication Date: August 1, 2023

Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake–a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led–her sisters are surprised. Has Flor foreseen her own death, or someone else’s? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila.

But Flor isn’t the only person with secrets. Matilde has tried for decades to cover the extent of her husband’s infidelity, but she must now confront the true state of her marriage. Pastora is typically the most reserved sister, but Flor’s wake motivates this driven woman to solve her sibling’s problems. Camila is the youngest sibling, and often the forgotten one, but she’s decided she no longer wants to be taken for granted.

Spanning the three days prior to the wake, Family Lore traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City. Told with Elizabeth Acevedo’s inimitable and incandescent voice, this is an indelible portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces–one family’s journey through their history, helping them better navigate all that is to come.

What We Kept to Ourselves by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

Expected Publication Date: October 10, 2023

1999: The Kim family is struggling to move on with their lives after their mother, Sunny, vanished a year ago. Sixty-one-year-old John Kim feels more isolated from his grown children, Anastasia and Ronald, than ever before. But one evening, their fragile lives are further upended when John discovers the body of a dead stranger in the backyard. The tragedy seems random until it’s revealed that the dead man was carrying a letter to Sunny, sparking a desperate investigation into the stranger’s history and possible connections to Sunny—only to discover that someone has been watching them.

1977: Sunny is pregnant and has just moved to Los Angeles from Korea with her work-obsessed husband. America is not turning out the way she had dreamed it to be, and the loneliness and isolation is broken only by a fateful encounter at a bus stop. The unexpected connection spans the decades and echoes into the family’s lives in the present as they uncover devastating secrets that put not only everything they thought they knew about their mother at risk, but their very lives as well.

Both a riveting page-turner and moving family story, What We Kept to Ourselves masterfully explores the consequences of secrets between parents and children, husbands and wives, the search for home when all seems lost, and what it means to dream in America.

Annotations from the publishers

–Post by Melissa Friedlund, Reference Specialist

Giveaway

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.

May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.   During this month we celebrate the contributions that Asian and Pacific Islanders have made to our history and culture.

Check out one of these books or place a hold today!

This is Paradise: stories by Kristiana Kahakauwila

Intimacies by Katie M. Kitamura

The Incendiaries by R. O. Kwon

A Place For Us: A novel by Fatima Farheen Mirza

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

The Sympathizer  by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Music of the Ghosts by Vaddey Ratner

Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig

The Bad Muslim Discount: a novel by Syed Masood

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

The Farm : A novel by Joanne Ramos

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan

That Kind of Mother by Rumaan Alam

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

Blackmail and Bibingka by Mia P. Manansala

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev

Run Me To Earth by Paul Yoon

Monstress by Marjorie Liu

Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad

The God of Small Things by Roy Arundhati

The Leavers by Lisa Ko

–Post by Susie Rivera, Reference Specialist

#FDL is an update on all things Fondulac District Library and books.

If you’re feeling inspired by the change in seasons, check out these newer books about planting flowers, vegetables, and caring for house plants.

Veg Out: A Stress-Free Guide to Creating Your First Vegetable Garden by Heather Rodino

Gardening expert Heather Rodino teaches the basics of growing your own vegetables, such as how to choose the right plants for a climate and guarding the crop from hungry critters. Included are 30 profiles of beginner-friendly vegetables and herbs with detailed instructions on where to grow, when to harvest, as well as their sunlight, watering, and soil needs.

The Creative Vegetable Gardener by Kelly Smith Trimble

With The Creative Vegetable Gardener, lifestyle editor and master gardener Kelly Smith Trimble encourages readers to widen their focus, be playful, and imagine a vegetable garden that reflects their own unique aesthetic and offers a meditative sanctuary as well as a source of fresh, homegrown food.

Holistic Homesteading: A Guide to a Sustainable and Regenerative Lifestyle by Roxanne Ahern 

Ahern’s book guides new and seasoned homesteaders in improving personal and environmental health. The Happy Holistic Homestead is geared toward people who are interested in pursuing intentional lifestyles and organic farming methods. It is both for those who have access to land and those who are interested in retrofitting urban and suburban lifestyles and landscapes to shift towards sustainability. Learn about permaculture design, holistic nutrition, and sustainable farming in rural and urban settings.

100 Plants to Feed the Birds: Turn Your Home Garden into a Healthy Bird Habitat  by Laura Erickson

The growing group of bird enthusiasts who enjoy feeding and watching their feathered friends  will learn how they can expand their activity and help address the pressing issue of habitat loss. Readers will learn about plants they can add to their gardens and cultivate, such as early-season pussy willow and late-season asters, as well as wild plants to refrain from weeding out, like jewelweed and goldenrod.

The Unkillables: 40 Resilient House Plants for New Plant Parents by Jo Lambell

In The Unkillables, Jo Lambell shares her houseplant knowledge so that even the biggest plant serial killers can have an abundant indoor garden.

-Annotations from the publishers

#FDL is an update on all things Fondulac District Library and books.

Dive into some fascinating stories and biographies about remarkable women for Women’s History Month! Try these or find more available through our collection.

The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive by Lucy Adlington

The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos by Judy Batalion

A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry

Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine by Olivia Campbell

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon

Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha S. Jones

The Genius of Women: From Overlooked to Changing the World by Janice Kaplan

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot Hardcover by Mikki Kendall

Code Name: Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Highly Decorated Spy by Larry Loftis

Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality by Sarah McBride

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore

The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore

The Doctor’s Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine by Janice P. Nimura

Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History by Keith O’Brien

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell

The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor

Fairest: A Memoir by Meredith Talusan

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century by Alice Wong

I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai & Christina Lamb

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

– Post by Susie Rivera, Reference Specialist

#FDL is a weekly update on all things Fondulac District Library and books.

Maeve Binchy – Prolific author of many bestsellers, including Tara Road and Circle of Friends

John Boyne – Author of several novels, including The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Frank Delaney – Wrote many historical fiction novels set in Ireland such as The Last Storyteller and Ireland

Emma Donoghue – Dublin-born author best known for her novels Room and The Wonder

Anne Enright – Author of several titles, including the 2007 Man Booker Prize winner The Gathering

Tana French – An award-winning author who writes a series of mysteries called the Dublin Murder Squad

Andrew M. Greely – A novelist as well as a priest, Greely wrote fast-paced historical fiction as well as mysteries

James Joyce – Author of classics such as A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses

Kate Kerrigan – Best known for richly detailed novels set in 20th century New York and rustic Ireland

Frank McCourt – In several memoirs such as Angela’s Ashes, McCourt recounts his upbringing and life in Brooklyn as the son of poor Irish immigrants

Morgan Llywelyn – Best known for her historical novels about the the history of the Celtic peoples

Sally Rooney – Celebrated contemporary author of novels including Conversations With Friends and Normal People

Patrick Taylor – Writes witty and engaging novels inspired by his experiences as a new doctor in Ireland during the 1960s

Colm Tóibín – Best known for his novel Brooklyn, which was adapted to film in 2009

Oscar Wilde – Author of classics including the novel Picture of Dorian Gray and the play The Importance of Being Earnest

– Post by Susie Rivera, Reference Specialist

#FDL is a weekly update on all things Fondulac District Library and books.

Queenie may be one of the fiercest mobsters you’ve never heard of! Enter the drawing below to win a copy of this cool graphic novel Queenie: Godmother of Harlem, inspired by the life of Harlem’s legendary racketeer and civil rights advocate Stephanie Saint-Clair.

Read a little more about it here:

“Queenie follows the life of Stephanie Saint-Clair — the infamous criminal who made herself a legend in Harlem in the 1930s. Born on a plantation in the French colony of Martinique, Saint-Clair left the island in 1912 and headed for the United States, eager to make a new life for herself. In New York she found success, rising up through poverty and battling extreme racism to become the ruthless queen of Harlem’s mafia and a fierce defender of the Black community.

A racketeer and a bootlegger, Saint-Clair dedicated her wealth and compassion to the struggling masses of Harlem, giving loans and paying debts to those around her. But with Prohibition ending, and under threat by Italian mobsters seeking to take control of her operation, she launched a merciless war to save her territory and her skin. In an America still swollen by depression and segregation, Saint-Clair understood that her image was a tool she could use to establish her power and wield as a weapon against her opponents.”

– Annotation from the publisher

Giveaway

Enter your name here for a chance to win of this book. One entry per person. Drawing will be held approximately 7 days after this post.

#FDL is a weekly update on all things Fondulac District Library and books.

Discover your next favorite author with these buzzworthy new releases – the perfect historical fiction stories to get lost in during Black History Month!

In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas

– Canada, Civil War, Underground Railroad

In the 1800s in Dunmore, a Canadian town settled by people fleeing enslavement in the American south, young Lensinda Martin works for a crusading Black journalist. One night, a neighboring farmer summons Lensinda after a slave hunter is shot dead on his land by an old woman who recently arrived via the Underground Railroad. When the old woman refuses to flee before the authorities arrive, the farmer urges Lensinda to gather testimony from her before she can be condemned for the crime. But the old woman doesn’t want to confess. Instead she proposes a barter: a story for a story. And so begins an extraordinary exchange of tales that reveal an interwoven history of Black and Indigenous peoples in a wide swath of what is called North America.