Summer Hours Begin this Weekend

Summer hours begin this weekend at the library. We will be closed Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. In June, July and August, we will be closed Sunday, and our Saturday hours will be 10am-1pm. Regular hours will resume after the Labor Day weekend.

Stock Up and Save!

The Friends of the Library Mini-Sale is now underway! Stop by and pick up a little light reading!

Hardcovers, DVDs, and Audiobooks are all $1.
Paperbacks are $.50 or 3 for $1.

Assortment changes daily, so shop early and often...

Lord Stanley, Revisited

Finished Icebreaker by Deirdre Martin and thoroughly enjoyed it! I've always liked the family dynamic she brings to her novels, and the fact that the books follow one particular organization allows Martin to let recurring characters drift in and out. It's fun to see old favorites, and interesting to guess who might be next to get a story of their own. After reading Icebreaker, I'd like to see how Sinead's friend Oliver ends up. He's a great secondary character, entertaining enough to carry his own book and with plenty of baggage to make it interesting. We'll have to wait and see. Meanwhile, if you are looking for a good read for the long hot weekend, pick up Icebreaker.

Books and Recommendations Online!

Would you like to get some book recommendations or find something to read at a time when you can’t actually get to the library? Don’t worry; we’re here for you, even when we’re not here! We are expanding our online services by maintaining a Shelfari page and adding more ebooks so that you will always have a place to go for a good book.


What’s Shelfari?

Shelfari is an online community of booklovers, a place to create a virtual library, to discuss your favorite books and authors, and to read reviews and recommendations. We are constantly updating the library’s bookshelf by adding reviews of what we have read. It’s a great place to discover new books and to become part of a conversation about things you’ve read. Each title we add has at least a short review, a rating (1-5 stars), and tags to help you find more of the kind of books you like. You can create your own account, sign up to follow what we’re reading, or just check in whenever you’d like a recommendation. In order to get to the library Shelfari, just go to our homepage at www.voorheesvillelibrary.org, click on the Adult Services tab on the left side of the screen, then choose the Reading Café, and then just click on the Shelfari link to explore our bookshelf.

And don’t forget OverDrive for ebooks!

Ebooks are available through the library, and we are building our collection daily. You can check out books to read on your Nook, iPad, iPod Touch, Smartphone, and many other devices. To access the collection, go to our homepage at www.voorheesvillelibrary.org and click on OverDrive Digital. If you need help setting up your account or learning to download, just contact the Reference Desk by calling 765-2791.

Lord Stanley and the Librarian

Wow, that has a certain Regency ring to it, doesn't it? But I'm actually posting about something more contemporary today. In honor of the Stanley Cup playoffs, currently underway, I started reading Icebreaker by Deirdre Martin. Martin once again brings us into the locker room and love lives of the fictional New York Blades. Spending a little time with some of hockey's hottest fictional players is never a bad way to while away the hours between playoff games. Anyway, Icebreaker is the story of Adam Perry, a hard-hitting defenseman who has been charged with assault for a legal on-ice hit that sent an opposing player to the hospital, and Sinead O'Brien, a workaholic Type A attorney hired by the Blades to defend their new captain. I'm only about ten chapters in but I'm really enjoying it. Both Sinead and Adam have avoided close ties with others for various reasons, so while the two of them are attracted to one another their relationship remains frosty for quite awhile. The characters' conflicts, both internal and with each other, are believable. I also like the fact that Martin clearly knows the game, and makes the ongoing, real life debate about the extent and nature of violence in the sport a central theme of the book. Having been in an arena as one player throws a full-body check that sends his opponent crumpling to the ice I can appreciate the fact that this is not just a plot device. I am looking forward to finishing Icebreaker and seeing how all the storylines are resolved. Update later in the week!

I'm reading, just not romance...

Well, if you count a very young Sherlock Holmes' budding passion for his tutor's daughter, or the incredible and tumultuous love affair people have with both food and money, I guess you could say I am reading romance, just not in the traditional sense. I have a couple of romance novels started, but just haven't finished them. So in the interim, here are brief recommendations for the two books I did manage to finish in the past week.

Death Cloud
by Andrew Lane
A teenage Sherlock Holmes is sent directly from boarding school to spend his summer break with some very odd relatives and their evil housekeeper. On the plus side, his tutor turns out to be a very smart American bounty hunter who is willing to help Sherlock figure out what's going on with the mysterious dark cloud that has killed a couple of local people and started a fear of plague. A vicious and villainous Baron threaten the young detective and his friends as they solve the mystery in this entertaining and fast-paced adventure story.



Lost and Found
by Geneen Roth
The author had all her money invested with Bernie Madoff, and when he confessed to fraud she was forced to confront her issues with money. Roth is well known as a teacher and writer on the psychology of compulsive eating, and makes connections between the behavior patterns that lead to dysfunctional relationships with both food and money. For those who want a more holistic approach to examining their own "consuming behavior" this is interesting, informative, and at times painfully honest and funny.

On the Book Cart

A rather thin week, which is what comes of letting catalogers take time off...

Contemporary:
Genell Dellin Honey Grove

Historical:
Adrienne Basso How to Seduce a Sinner

Paranormal:
Katie MacAlistair You Slay Me
Melissa Mayhue Highlander's Curse

Orphans and Oldsters and Lepers, Oh My!

So, here's my question: when did it become necessary for the hero and/or heroine in an historical romance to have some higher purpose? I don't mean a religious vocation; I mean the driving need to house orphans, train the disabled for gainful employment, rehabilitate fallen women, or create some Regency version of Shady Rest for old people. I can't tell you how many books have come in lately chock full of aristocrats who feel the need to Do Good in Secret. England simply could not have held that many orphanages. Call me horrifyingly pragmatic, but it seems to me that in a land of inherited wealth, limited opportunities for women, obligations to your titled family or the Crown, and medical treatments that made leeches look state-of-the-art, actually getting to marry for love was quite an accomplishment in and of itself. If you were fortunate enough to be born into the upper classes and live to maturity, it would really be okay to want nothing more than to hang on to the family fortune, dress well, and make a good marriage. As a reader, I am happy to suffer through the wardrobe decisions, the balls, the weekend house parties, etc. I really do not need to see the heroine (I kid you not -- read this in a pre-pub notice) volunteering in a leper colony in order to feel she deserves a happily-ever-after.
Just sayin'.

~Macaire

On the Book Cart

Contemporary:
Jacquie D'Alessandro Summer at Seaside Cove

Historical:
Anthology Happily Ever After in the West
Margaret Mallory The Guardian
Maya Rodale A Tale of Two Lovers
Emma Wildes One Whisper Away
Veronica Wolf Devil's Own

Paranormal:
Anthology Must Love Hellhounds
Sherrilyn Kenyon Dark Side of the Moon
Marjorie M. Liu Tiger Eye

Suspense:
Cherry Adair Hush
Maya Banks Hidden Away
Marta Perry Murder in Plain Sight

On the Book Cart

Contemporary:
Beverly Barton Dead By Morning
Lori Foster When You Dare
Roxanne St. Claire Face of Danger

Historical:
Anna Campbell Midnight's Wild Passion
Heather Grothaus Never Kiss a Stranger
Madeline Hunter Dangerous in Diamonds
Kieran Kramer Cloudy with a Change of Marriage
Mary Jo Putney Nowhere Near Respectable
Mary Wine Highland Heat

Paranormal:
Michele Bardsley Never Again
Mia Marlowe Touch of a Thief