Good Reads & Views

The Trouble with Hating You (#1) by Sajni Patel 
Fiction 

What happens: Liya is a biochemical engineer married to her work. Even though she is fine being single, her parents are not. Ambushed one night at a family dinner, a blind date goes wrong with Liya escaping before dinner is served. Jay is a lawyer who would do anything for his family even if that means being set up on a blind date where the girl flees. When Liya and Jay are forced to work together, sparks fly, and they begin to not hate each other. Will Jay help Liya realize life isn’t all about work? Will Liya get Jay to loosen up his overprotectiveness? 

Why you might like it: A great read for those who love enemies to lovers. Jay and Liya have great chemistry and their banter is comical. Liya is in the STEAM field, and it was refreshing to read about a woman engineer.

Visit Mallory’s My Librarian Page  

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes 
Fiction 

What happens: Recently widowed, Evvie Drake has decided to rent out the apartment in the back of her house to help get over her grief of losing her husband. She wasn’t expecting Major League Baseball Player Dean Tenney (a pitcher who has a bad case of the yips) to want her apartment. For this to work out, Evvie can’t talk to Dean about baseball and Dean can’t ask Evvie about her deceased husband. Of course, rules always have a way of getting broken. 

Reviewers say: “Believable, flawed characters are at the heart of this novel. At times deeply emotional yet sometimes extremely humorous. This is a satisfying crowd-pleaser” (Publishers Weekly).

Visit Mallory’s My Librarian Page 

Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane
Fiction

What it’s about: It’s summer in 1974 Boston—the weather is hot and so are tempers. On the eve of forced integration, a young Black man is found dead in the wrong neighborhood, a girl goes missing and is feared dead, and her mother, Mary Pat Fennessey, is out for revenge. Add a sensitive Irish cop, and Mary Pat’s relationship with Irish mob leaders, and you get Lehane at his best in this gritty historical thriller.

Why you might like it: Lehane writes taut suspenseful crime dramas that are also deeply emotional. The strong sense of time and place that transports the reader to Southie Boston of 50 years ago is immersive, and the characters express deeply felt and genuine emotions. As a stand-alone novel, the reader knows that all bets are off—anything can happen to the characters you’ve quickly learned to care about.

Visit Laura’s My Librarian Page

Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben
Fiction

What it’s about: Captain Maya Stern has been through so much in the last several months: war, losing fellow soldiers/friends in combat, her sister is murdered, and now she has just buried her husband. She has been discharged from the service and is now teaching flying lessons and somehow must figure out how to raise her daughter on her own. A family friend gives her a nanny camera to help her feel at ease with her nanny while she is gone and checking it one day after work changes everything. A man walks into the frame and sits down to play with her young daughter, Lily. When the man turns towards the camera Maya is shocked to see her supposedly dead husband!

Why you might like it: Once again Coben gives you more twists and turns than you can possibly imagine. Just when you think you know who’s done it, something changes, and your theories are thrown out the window. Who can Maya trust? Her in-laws are distant and strange, her friends act oddly, and new people keep showing up with secrets of their own.

You might also like: The Stranger by Harlan Coben.

Visit Misty’s My Librarian Page

Most Wanted by Lisa Scottoline
Fiction

About the author:  Lisa Scottoline is the New York Times bestselling author of over thirty novels including Look Again, Think Twice and Save Me.  She also writes a weekly column, “Chick Wit,” with her daughter Francesca Serritella, for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Reviewers say: "A Connecticut teacher’s long sought and hard-fought pregnancy turns into a nightmare when Scottoline unleashes one of her irresistible hooks on her" (Kirkus Reviews).

You might also like: It’s One of Us by J. T. Ellison or The End of Her by Shari Lapena.

Visit Roseanne’s My Librarian Page 

Every Vow You Break by Peter Swanson
Fiction

What it's about: Abigail marries rich guy Bruce, after having a drunken one-night stand at her bachelorette party. For their honeymoon they go to a remote island resort that bills itself as a “screen-free getaway” where phones and the internet don’t work. The only other guests are a young couple, and strangely enough, the men on the island by far outnumber the women. Then Abigail’s one-night stand shows up on the island and things get progressively worse…

Reviewers say: “Lots of thriller writers know how to set a hook, but Swanson isn't satisfied with just one; the further we go into his devilishly twisty tales, the more hooks he sets, and the harder we bite down on the line” (Booklist).

Visit Astrid’s My Librarian Page

The Only One Left by Riley Sager
Fiction

What it’s about: The Only One Left is a thriller that unravels the mystery through various avenues and multiple perspectives. Our main character is Kit, a newly reinstated caregiver who is assigned to care for Lenora Hope, a notorious recluse believed to have killed her entire family in 1929 but who was never charged. Lenora is now wheelchair bound, paralyzed, and only able to communicate via typewriter. As Kit cares for Lenora, she begins to learn the history of the Hope family, who Lenora truly is, and with the help of Lenora’s typed letters, what actually happened the night her family was murdered. Sager continually distracts the reader, diverts attention, and brings together threads that are minuscule only for them to be significant and surprising.

Why you might like it: Great for those that enjoy gothic thrillers, cliffside mansion settings and old typewriters. This story offers multiple perspectives and timeline jumps between the present and the past. Tensions build up with well-paced storytelling and action hits as the story concludes with multiple twists and turns that keep you guessing.

Visit Carly’s My Librarian Page

What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama
Fiction

What it’s about: This inspirational novel of interlocking short stories stars Sayuri Komachi, the Reference Librarian at a community center in Tokyo. In each story, a person is unsatisfied with their life, but they don’t know what to do to change it. A young clerk in a store feels adrift. An accountant wants to own an antique shop. A woman tries to juggle childcare and work. They all take different paths to the library but all receive help from librarian Ms. Komachi.  She asks them what they are looking for, and then gives them a list of books and a “bonus gift” of a felted object she made. Each person finds deep meaning in the seemingly random gift and finds a way forward to a life with greater meaning.

Reviewers say: “A comforting read filled with serendipity and simple wisdom, this is a celebration of community, connection, and the transformative power of libraries” (Booklist);  “A delightful, gentle unfolding of stories that offer hope and joy to those who find themselves in a pivotal moment in life” (Kirkus Reviews).

Visit Kristin’s My Librarian Page

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Fiction

For readers interested in: Pro wrestling, the 13th Amendment, Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy, and Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

What it’s about: In a near-future America, the country's most popular form of sports entertainment is the Chain-Gang All-Stars, a modern form of the gladiator system. Incarcerated people have one way out of a brutal private prison system—to survive three years of deathly combat while on camera for all the country to see. The story focuses on two women who are “Links” in one of these chain gangs: Loretta Thor, who is only two battles away from reaching freedom, and her lover, Hamara “Hurricane Staxx” Stacker. As they contemplate freedom, one of them learns of new rules that will change everything. The incisive satirical commentary on capitalism and the prison industry is humanized by fully realized characters and enlivened by non-stop action; the result is a harsh yet lyrical political allegory.

Critics say: “Some of his best fight sentences sound as if Joe Rogan had fallen into a trance and assumed the diction and rhythms of Toni Morrison. If you recoil at that unholy fusion, that’s kind of the point; and the author keeps pulling off this shock, page after page” (Giri Nathan, The New York Times Book Review).

Visit Laura’s My Librarian Page

The Stranger by Harlan Coben
Fiction

What it’s about: The book follows the lives of Adam, his wife Corinne, and their two sons. One day, the stranger approaches Adam in a bar and tells him a devastating secret about his wife. He takes time to process and research to find out if the secret is true. He feels it could derail their marriage and their lives. When he confronts her, she doesn’t deny it but begins to act very strangely and then takes off, telling Adam via text that she will return in a few days when she’s ready.

Why you might like it: While you become devoted to these characters, you also find out that the stranger works for a group unveiling secrets to families to help change the world.

You might also like: Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben.

Visit Misty’s My Librarian Page