Staff Recommendations
Daryl M.
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Siren Queen
by Vo, Nghi
August 1, 2022
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On a whim, a young Chinese-American girl pays with an inch of her hair so that she and he sister can see Romeo and Juliet at the new nickelodeon in their neighborhood. From that moment on, she has a single desire: to be a motion picture star. Not simply an actress, but a star. Quite a goal for a young Asian-American girl in 1930s Los Angeles. Luli Wei is not her real name. It actually belongs to her sister, stolen in a moment of panic while meeting with the head of Wolfe Studios. But no one in the movie business uses their real names. To provide your employer with your real name... Read Full Review
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Remarkably Bright Creatures
by Van Pelt, Shelby
July 25, 2022
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After her husband’s death, Tova Sullivan took a job cleaning the Sowell Bay Aquarium. She works evenings after the aquarium has closed to the public, mopping the floors, clearing the trash cans, and cleaning the glass walls of the exhibition tanks until they shine. As she works her way around the circular building, she chats with the various occupants of the aquarium. She knows them all very well and while she believes it is pointless to carry on one sided conversations with them, it makes her feel less lonely while she is working.Marcellus is the giant Pacific octopus at the Sowell Bay... Read Full Review
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The Book Woman's Daughter
by Richardson, Kim Michele
July 11, 2022
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In 2019, Kim Michele Richardson told the story of Cussy Mary Carter and her work as a Pack Horse Librarian in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. Now, in 2022, Richardson returns to tell the next chapter in Cussy Mary’s story, which actually belongs to her daughter, in The Book Woman’s Daughter.It has been almost 17 years since the events recounted in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. During most of that time, Cussy... Read Full Review
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Never Been Kissed
by Janovsky, Timothy
June 27, 2022
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As Wren Roland celebrates his 22nd birthday with his best friends and roommates, Mateo and Avery, he begins to lament the fact that he has never been kissed. He’s been close, but has yet to experience what his degree in film studies has convinced him will be a life-altering and incredibly romantic experience. As the evening progresses, and the drinks flow, Wren finds himself more than a bit drunk in front of his computer. He clicks on the email folder labeled “tentacle porn” (It seems like the perfect hiding place! Who would ever look in there?) where he has four email drafts to the four guys... Read Full Review
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One last stop
by McQuiston, Casey
June 21, 2022
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A young woman on her way to her first day of classes at Brooklyn College spills coffee on herself just prior to boarding the subway. Another young woman on the train comes to her rescue with a scarf and a kind word. The next time the student boards the train, her rescuer is there. They declare each other “coffee-girl” and “subway girl” and begin chatting. Is it a “meet cute” of the type employed in almost every/any romance novel? Absolutely! But, in the hands of Casey McQuiston, author of 2019’s fantastic Red, White, and Royal Blue, it is the beginning of so much more!In One Last... Read Full Review
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One-Shot Harry
by Phillips, Gary
June 6, 2022
Call Number: M
The year is 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr. is about to hold his Freedom Rally at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles; William H. Parker is Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department; John F. Kennedy is President of the United States; Pat Brown is the Governor of California; Gas is $0.29 a gallon and ground beef is less than $0.50 a pound. It is in this world, which is as different as it is similar to ours, that Gary Phillips sets his new novel One-Shot Harry.Harry Ingram is a freelance news photographer in Los Angeles. He also works side-jobs serving legal papers. Harry recently reconnected with an... Read Full Review
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The Quarter Storm
by Henry, Veronica G.
June 1, 2022
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Vodou priestess Mambo Reina Dumond learned the practices and customs of Vodou as a child from her father, while her family was living in Haiti. She is inhabited by the spirit of Erzulie, which makes her a gifted practitioner of water magic. Reina operates a small business behind her home in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans for both tourists and locals alike.Shortly after an unusual session with a first time client, Reina is informed that a crime has been committed in the apartment above one of the more high-profile Vodou shops in the French Quarter. The tenant of the apartment is found... Read Full Review
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The Fervor: A Novel
by Katsu, Alma
May 2, 2022
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Meiko is the Japanese wife of Jamie Briggs, a white US Air Force pilot fighting in World War II. Meiko, and her daughter Aiko, are “residents” of the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho. A few days ago, an unscheduled truck came to the camp. The residents are told to stay away from the truck and guards are posted around it. It leaves shortly after whatever was inside is unloaded under the cover of darkness. Shortly after the truck leaves, residents of the camp begin to become ill.Fran Gurstwold is a journalist for a small newspaper in Lincoln, Nebraska. While staying in a cabin near Lake... Read Full Review
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Mickey7
by Ashton, Edward
April 4, 2022
Call Number: SF
Mickey Barnes NEEDS to get off Midgard, the colony planet on which he has lived his entire life. Because staying on Midgard is not an option, he takes the only avenue open to him: he volunteers to be the “expendable” on Midgard’s first outgoing colony ship, the Drakkar. An “expendable” is the member of the crew designated as expendable for dangerous, difficult, and/or terminal activities. The body of the expendable is scanned and their memories are copied, allowing for the expendable to be duplicated, with all but their most recent memories intact, when needed.Dying isn’t easy or fun, but it... Read Full Review
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Secret Identity
by Segura, Alex
March 29, 2022
Call Number: M
In 1975, the comic book industry is struggling. It has survived, mostly, Frederic Wertham’s criticisms and claims regarding a causal relationship between reading comics and becoming a juvenile delinquent in Seduction of the Innocent. But there have been casualties. Readership is down. Publishers are closing. Writers and artists are left scrambling for available positions. And yet, amazing things are happening in the industry. Marvel has created, and is developing, characters that will define the industry in future decades. Artists like Jack Kirby, who will work at both DC and Marvel... Read Full Review
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The City We Became
by Jemisin, N. K.
March 1, 2022
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N.K. Jemisin is a multiple award-winning, speculative fiction writer. Currently, she resides in Brooklyn, New York and, as evidenced by her novel, The City We Became, she LOVES the “Big Apple”.Every century or so, a city will “manifest”, it becomes a living thing, an entity of its own. This has happened several times throughout history: Hong Kong, Paris, and São Paulo are all “living” cities. The transition can be fraught with peril and, if it doesn’t go well, the city, and all of its inhabitants may be destroyed. New York is on the brink of becoming more. But when the time comes,... Read Full Review
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Redwood and Wildfire
by Hairston, Andrea
February 23, 2022
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Redwood Phipps is an African-American girl. Aidan Wildfire Cooper is a Seminole Irish young man. The two are brought together by a hateful act of racial violence, which affects both of them for the remainder of their lives. But both are determined to keep the event from defining them. In Redwood and Wildfire, Andrea Hairston follows these characters as they live, grow, learn how to navigate the world in which they live, and challenge what they can, in order to create the world in which they want to live.Spanning 15 years and ranging from a small community in rural Georgia to the... Read Full Review