SCPL TN BOOK BUZ

  A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher Submitted by Austin Leonard, Assistant Branch Manager, Thomas Memorial Branch Library A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking is a comically creative, young(er) adult book about a 14 year old girl named Mona. She’s not like the other magic folk tasked with defending the city or keeping the streets safe. She can’t fling fire, or throw lightning. She’s a bread wizard.. Literally. Her familiar is a magical sourdough starter who is frankly unkillable and also a little bit sentient (his name’s Bob). She works in her family’s bakery, and entertains the customers with occasional gingerbread dance ensembles. But things turn serious when she finds a body on the bakery floor. Turns out there’s an assassin targeting magic folk, and she might just be next. On the run, with corruption finding its way to light. The assassin may be the least of her worries as she finds herself in the city, now no longer filled with wizards, with a war bre...

Gallant by V.E. Schwab Submitted by Austin Leonard, Assistant Branch Manager, Thomas Memorial Branch Library Gallant is a dark-fantasy, young adult novel surrounding Olivia Prior, a mute 16 year old. She grew up in the gray-scaled Merrilance Academy for girls, learning to keep to herself. She clung tight to her mother’s journal, her only link to the mother she’s never known. Through her journal she discovers her family’s dark past and learns of a place referred to as “Gallant” along with a warning to never return there.  Olivia receives a letter from her uncle inviting her home.. To Gallant. She returns wishing to belong somewhere and finds herself with family she never knew she had. Here she discovers more about her past and about her abilities through her mother’s journals filled with mysterious inky illustrations. Her cousin Matthew remains hostile and doesn’t want her there, and she is seeing more ghouls than ever before. Olivia learns of the Prior family mission. To upke...

  Only Love Can Hurt Like This by Paige Toon Submitted by Heather Groom, Sullivan Gardens Public Library Branch Manager "Even while Toon was breaking my heart into tiny pieces, I couldn't put it down."-Jill Santopolo, author of  The Light We Lost.      Paige Toon has crafted the perfect Summer Romance with her new book "Only Love Can Hurt Like This". Main character Wren has just found out that her fiancé is in love with another woman. Or so he says in an awkward, hurried conversation that brought up more questions than it answered. Devastated and alone in Bury St. Edmunds, UK, she pulls together what is left of her life and moves back to her hometown of Indianapolis, IN. Surrounded by her family, she searches for solid ground with the community and home she grew up in.     It wouldn't be a story if it ended there, of course! Wren tries to focus on her career, her family, and anything that will keep her mind off of the train wreck engagement she left be...

  "Mothered" by Zoje Stage Submitted by Heather Groom, Branch Manager for Sullivan Gardens Public Library      I appreciate that smack in the middle of Spring, Zoje Stage has delivered the kind of novel that you only find on the shelves around Halloween. For all the Horror/Suspense genre lovers out there, this book is the equivalent to Christmas in July.     Mother/Daughter relationships are complicated, right? There's a plethora of books in any genre that attest to that fact. Stage makes a delicious concoction of blame, mistrust and paranoia. Then doles it out bite by bite through 300 pages. And listen, you really want to stick around when dessert is served. (A little Hannibal Lector reference for all you Harris fans out there.)     Grace's life has been complicated since the pandemic. She's a hair dresser and has lost her job a mere month after signing a mortgage for her new home. Grace reluctantly decides to let her mother, Jackie, move in to h...

  Community Board by Tara Conklin Submitted by Heather Groom, Branch Manager for Sullivan Gardens Public Library Tara Conklin brings us a sweet springtime story with her third novel, "Community Board". A year before her 30th birthday, Darcy's husband of 8 years (two months and nine days, to be exact) leaves her for his sky diving instructor. In a matter of moments the safe, predictable world she has lived in crumbles around her as her soon to be ex speeds out of their driveway in his new girlfriend's Prius. So begins Darcy's year of "self imposed isolation and canned food consumption". She flees to her childhood home in Massachusetts only to find that her parents have seemingly abandoned her for the dry heat of Arizona....and they've taken Fred the Fern with them. In response to this perceived abandonment, Darcy hunkers down with her computer and an imagined "Fred" and trolls the community board. In a world where the large majority of us ar...

The Cloisters by Katy Hays Submitted by Heather Groom Branch Manager for Sullivan Gardens Public Library      Katy Hays delivers a genre bending debut with The Cloisters. Hays takes on the classic moral conundrum: are our fates laid out before us, or can our destinies be changed by our choices? She doesn't split hairs with philosophical rhetoric, but packs in a heady combination of magic and legend to fortify this explosive story.     Ann Stilwell arrives at the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art with the intentions of diving into her work and putting her past behind her. Upon arrival, she is transferred to "The Cloisters", a Gothic museum and garden full of lush flora and medieval art. Her co workers are Patrick, the curator specializing in, of all things, the history of tarot. Rachel Mondray is the museum's curatorial associate and Leo Bitburg is caretaker and cultivator of poisonous plants. Surrounded by this quirky, eccentric cast of characters, Ann plunges head ...

  Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls Submitted by Heather Groom Branch Manager for Sullivan Gardens Public Library     Before publication "Hang the Moon" was listed as a "Most Anticipated Book of 2023" by Oprah Daily, Elle and LitHub magazine. I would have put it on all the other lists as well, as I have been eagerly awaiting a new novel by Jeannette Walls!     Walls is best known for her memoir "The Glass Castle" which was published in 2005 and spent almost 10 years on the New York Times best seller list. (It was also adapted into a movie starring Brie Larson and Woody Harrelson.)  It's a tender, gripping book about her own childhood, being raised by alcoholics and the effects it has on herself and her siblings. Walls gives no less care and attention to the fictional characters in "Hang the Moon".      The novel's protagonist is lovable tomboy Sallie Kincaid. After a nine year banishment due to a tragic accident, Sallie returns to her chil...