#FDL: For Fans of Colleen Hoover
Throughout 2022, Colleen Hoover has topped the bestselling charts with novels like Verity and It Ends With Us. She’s all over BookTok and social media. Her books are so in demand that we can’t keep them on our shelves! If you are waiting to get your hands on a CoHo book or if you have read everything she has published so far, give one of these similar authors a try.
Courtney Cole: High drama, relationship dilemmas, flawed characters, steamy romance
Christina Lauren: Contemporary romance, love/hate relationships, new adult fiction
Sorensen, Jessica: New adult fiction, contemporary romance, drama, steamy relationships
K.A. Tucker: Conflicted characters, some suspense, obstacles in relationships, drama, contemporary romance, new adult fiction
Rebecca Serle: Character-driven, romance, relationships, engaging, love triangles
Penelope Douglas: Romance, opposites attract, new adult, high drama, moody
Helen Hoang: Complex characters, steamy romance, difficult relationships, secrets
Anna Todd: New adult fiction, contemporary romance, high drama, engaging storylines, love triangles
Also, check our small collection of Colleen Hoover titles available now on Hoopla with your Fondulac District Library card. There’s no wait time on these!
– Post by Susie Rivera, Reference Specialist
#FDL is an update on all things Fondulac District Library and books.
FDL Reads: The Christie Affair
The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont
Reviewed by: Becky Houghton, Circulation Assistant
Genre: Historical fiction
What is this book about? This book is a fictionalized account of what happened in 1926 when mystery writer, Agatha Christie, disappeared mysteriously for 11 days. For years many have speculated about this time, but Christie remained totally silent and never revealed where she was or what she did during her absence. De Gramont has woven an intriguing tale of love, marriage, grief and loss, and more in her mysterious and moving account of these “lost” days in Christie’s life.
My review: This was a fascinating book that I had to keep reminding myself was a fictional account, not a true story. Agatha Christie’s mysterious disappearance has fascinated readers of her sixty six mystery books for years and apparently continues to do so. For eleven days in 1926, no one, including her husband Archie or her publicist, knew where she was. She just vanished leaving no trace which prompted an extensive search throughout Great Britain. In this book, Nina de Gramont weaves an account written by Archie Christie’s mistress, Nan O’Dea which has flashbacks to Nan’s youth, early romance and troubled life, with the missing days of Agatha. It reveals an elaborate, long-term plot for Nan to insinuate herself into Archie and Agatha’s life and to orchestrate and conceal Agatha during her absence from her home. This story has many unexpected twists and turns combined with the switching from the 1926 timeframe to events in the past. If I have any criticism of this book, it would be that the reader must be constantly vigilant to the dates that events occur. Written beautifully, I recommend this book to mystery fans, especially those readers who love Agatha Christie’s extensive collection of mystery stories, plays and books.
Three words that describe this book: Chilling, Intriguing, Complex
Give this a try if you like: Agatha Christie’s books or The Mystery of Mrs. Christy by Marie Benedict
Rating: 4.5/5
FDL Reads: When Women Were Dragons
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
Reviewed by: Beth Weimer, Communications Specialist
Genre: Speculative Fiction, Fantasy
Suggested Age: Adults, Teens
What is the Book About?: Young Alex is an obedient child growing up in 1950s Wisconsin with a protective mother and a cruelly indifferent father. Societal expectations are well-understood, until the Mass Dragoning of 1955 leaves communities and families without the hundreds of thousands of women who transformed into dragons and flew off into the unknown. Even Alex’s independent Aunt Marla dragoned, leaving behind her baby Beatrice and so many questions, but now no one’s allowed to talk about Marla or the dragons. Through rage, loss, and many other challenges, Alex is forced to seek her own answers, forge her own family, and push the boundaries of who and what she can become.
My Review: I enjoyed this book a lot, although it didn’t quite live up to the thrill of its premise – women responding to oppression with rage that physically transforms and takes up formidable space. It felt like experiencing the story through Alex’s viewpoint was a bit limiting at times. I appreciated the scientific and political interjections from Dr. Gantz, and I’ll always love a story with a ballsy librarian, but I definitely wanted to know more about the dragons (their adventures and why they came back). Some readers might be disappointed with the tone of second- wave feminism, but it feels authentic to the time and Barnhill does include mentions of minorities, the Civil Rights movement, and nonbinary individuals. The story is woven with themes of transformation, feminism, community, LGTBQ romance, memory, female rage, gender identity, patriarchy, familial trauma – maybe there was just too much to explore within each of these to flesh them out fully through the dragon allegory, but it opens the door for further discussion. Overall, it’s a solid and sometimes funny and moving story, and repurposing dragons as a vehicle for modern social commentary makes for an undeniably interesting read.
Three Words That Describe This Book: Clever, Relevant, Fantastical
Give This a Try if You Like… Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill, The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
Rating: 4/5
FDL Reads: Good Omens
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Reviewed by: Melissa Friedlund, Reference Specialist
Genre: Fantasy
Suggested Age: Adult, Teen
What is the book about? In this newly-released (2021), unabridged, full-cast recording of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s quirky fantasy, the angel Aziraphale, and the demon Crowley like living among the humans so much they were only half-heartedly helping to bring about Armageddon. Now that the end is near, Crowley and Aziraphale have decided to try to thwart the Apocalypse. With all of Heaven and Hell eagerly anticipating the final battle, no one seems to know where the 11-year-old Antichrist ended up after he was given to Crowley as a baby. Agnes Nutter saw all of this hundreds of years ago and wrote it all down for her descendants to be prepared. Aziraphale finds Agnes’ “nice and accurate prophecies” that help locate the child, but the angel accidentally loses his body and winds up in Heaven before he can tell anyone. How can Aziraphale tell Crowley where the child is? Can Crowley escape the clutches of his enraged fellow-demons who want him to pay for messing up so egregiously? How can they stop the final destruction once the Four Horsemen meet up with the Antichrist? It’s all a delightfully, silly mess!
My Review: I listened to the Playaway version of this newly-recorded audiobook and enjoyed it immensely. The irreverent humor and absurd situations are par for the course with these two authors. If you like either Gaiman or Pratchett, you’ll like this one too. I recently watched the Netflix series, so that helped. The story is told in a non-linear style with quite a few characters to keep track of, so the full cast definitely works well here. The main characters in this audiobook are performed by the same actors in the series which made it even better. I can’t endorse this audiobook enough…especially if you enjoy silly, British humor.
Three Words That Describe This Book: Quirky, Entertaining, Funny
Give This a Try if You Like…Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett, Stardust by Neil Gaiman, and Space Opera by Catherynne Valente
Rating: 5/5
#FDL: Biographies & Memoirs – December Giveaway
Biographies & Memoirs – December Giveaway
Whether it is a famous celebrity, an infamous criminal, or someone you’ve never heard of, biographies and memoirs open a window into worlds we may have never known. Alternatively, the journey may be a familiar one that we can relate to and know we are not alone. Here are new and upcoming biographies and memoir that explore a wide variety of the human experience.
An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville by Reza Aslan
Little known in America but venerated as a martyr in Iran, Howard Baskerville was a twenty-two-year-old Christian missionary from South Dakota who traveled to Persia (modern-day Iran) in 1907 for a two-year stint teaching English and preaching the gospel. The Persian students Baskerville educated in English in turn educated him about their struggle for democracy, ultimately inspiring him to leave his teaching post and join them in their fight against a tyrannical shah and his British and Russian backers. “The only difference between me and these people is the place of my birth,” Baskerville declared, “and that is not a big difference.”
In 1909, Baskerville was killed in battle alongside his students, but his martyrdom spurred on the revolutionaries who succeeded in removing the shah from power, signing a new constitution, and rebuilding parliament in Tehran. To this day, Baskerville’s tomb in the city of Tabriz remains a place of pilgrimage. Every year, thousands of Iranians visit his grave to honor the American who gave his life for Iran. Indeed, Baskerville’s life and death represent a “road not taken” in Iran. Baskerville’s story, like his life, is at the center of a whirlwind in which Americans must ask themselves: How seriously do we take our ideals of constitutional democracy and whose freedom do we support?
Sink: A Memoir by Joseph Earl Thomas
Stranded within an ever-shifting family’s desperate but volatile attempts to love, saddled with a mercurial mother mired in crack addiction, and demeaned daily for his perceived weakness, Joseph Earl Thomas grew up feeling he was under constant threat. Deemed too unlike the other boys to ever gain the acceptance he so desperately desired, he began to escape into fantasy and virtual worlds, wells of happiness in a childhood assailed on all sides.
In a series of exacting and fierce vignettes, Thomas guides readers through the unceasing cruelty that defined his circumstances, laying bare the depths of his loneliness and illuminating the vital reprieve geek culture offered him. With remarkable tenderness and devastating clarity, he explores how lessons of toxic masculinity were drilled into his body and the way the cycle of violence permeated the very fabric of his environment.
Even in the depths of isolation, there were unexpected moments of joy carved out, from summers where he was freed from the injurious structures of his surroundings to the first glimpses of kinship he caught on his journey to becoming a Pokémon master. Sink follows Thomas’s coming-of-age towards an understanding of what it means to lose the desire to fit in—with his immediate peers, turbulent family, or the world—and how good it feels to build community, love, and salvation on your own terms.
Jersey Breaks: Becoming an American Poet by Robert Pinsky
Candid, engaging, and wry, Jersey Breaks offers an intimate self-portrait and a unique poetic understanding of American culture.
In late-1940s Long Branch, a historic but run-down Jersey Shore resort town, in a neighborhood of Italian, Black, and Jewish families, Robert Pinsky began his unlikely journey to becoming a poet. Descended from a bootlegger grandfather, an athletic father, and a rebellious tomboy mother, Pinsky was an unruly but articulate high school C student, whose obsession with the rhythms and melodies of speech inspired him to write.
Pinsky traces the roots of his poetry, with its wide and fearless range, back to the voices of his neighborhood, to music and a distinctly American tradition of improvisation, with influences including Mark Twain and Ray Charles, Marianne Moore and Mel Brooks, Emily Dickinson and Sid Caesar, Dante Alighieri and the Orthodox Jewish liturgy. He reflects on how writing poetry helped him make sense of life’s challenges, such as his mother’s traumatic brain injury, and on his notable public presence, including an unprecedented three terms as United States poet laureate.
The Family Outing: A Memoir by Jessi Hempel
Jessi Hempel was raised in a seemingly picture-perfect, middle-class American family. But the truth was far from perfect. Her father was constantly away from home, traveling for work, while her stay-at-home mother became increasingly lonely and erratic. Growing up, Jessi and her two siblings struggled to make sense of their family, their world, their changing bodies, and the emotional turmoil each was experiencing. And each, in their own way, was hiding their true self from the world.
By the time Jessi reached adulthood, everyone in her family had come out: Jessi as gay, her sister as bisexual, her father as gay, her brother as transgender, and her mother as a survivor of a traumatic experience with an alleged serial killer. Yet coming out was just the beginning, starting a chain reaction of other personal revelations and reckonings that caused each of them to question their place in the world in new and ultimately liberating ways.
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.
A Holly Jolly Writing Contest
FDL is hosting another Flash Fiction Writing Contest – and this one has a Holly Jolly winter theme! Three winners will be selected by our judges to win prizes. All entries must be 1000 words (or less) and a work of original fiction that uses the theme of winter in some regard. Entries must be submitted to Jeremy at jeremy@fondulaclibrary.org by 01/20/23. Please contact Jeremy with any questions.
Prizes
First Place: $50 Gift Card
Second Place: $30 Gift Card
Third Place: Swag Bag
The winners will be announced in February, and the three winning stories will be published on the library’s website and/or social media.
Submission Guidelines
- In the email, please write in the subject area: “A HOLLY JOLLY WRITING CONTEST.”
- Attach your manuscript to the email in a .doc or .docx file.
- Manuscript should be typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins and in 12 pt. Times New Roman font.
- Include your name and phone number in the message section and whether you give the library permission to post your short story if you win.
- Only original materials may be entered.
- Use the theme of winter in some regard. This could be about the holidays, the weather, or just a story that happens to take place in winter.
- Entries must be in good taste and refrain from profanity.
- On the last page of your story, below the ending write: “THE END”
- Limited one entry per person.
- Deadline is January 20, 2023.