9 New Cozy Mysteries for August

lady detective

New titles available at Cheshire Library for your reading pleasure!

New for August:

1.  Cross-Stitch Before Dying by Amanda Lee (An Embroidery Mystery)

2.  Do or Diner by Christine Wenger (A Comfort Food Mystery)

3.  Remnants of Murder by Elizabeth Lynn Casey (Southern Sewing Circle Mystery)

4.  Seed No Evil by Kate Collins (A Flower Shop Mystery)

5.  Cloche and Dagger by Jenn McKinlay (Hat Shop Mysteries)

6.  Pall in the Family by Dawn Eastman (A Family Fortune Mystery)

7.  Death Al Dente by Leslie Budewitz (A Food Lovers’ Village Mystery)

8.  Cover Story by Erika Chase (An Ashton Corners Book Club Mystery)

9.  If Bread Could Rise to the Occasion by Paige Shelton (A Country Cooking School Mystery)

IndieFlix – Our New Online Video Service

Cheshire Library is proud to offer a new online service to its cardholders – IndieFlix , a streaming movie service that provides unlimited access to award-winning independent  shorts, feature films, and documentaries. With thousands of films to choose from across more than 50 countries, IndieFlix offers a viewing experience you can’t get anywhere else!

• Film-festival hits, including the best of Sundance, Cannes, Tribeca and more
• Directly support the filmmakers just by watching their films
• Available on Apple®, AndroidTM, Roku®, Xbox®, and all Internet-enabled devices!
• Advanced search tools make browsing IndieFlix simple and fast

If you are a CPL patron your membership is free.  Use your Cheshire Library Card to try it today & let us know what you think!

If you have any questions about library access please email rbdigitalsupport@recordedbooks.com.

Jenn Reads: The Boy In the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberol and Agnette Friis

The Boy In the Suitcase  by Lene Kaaberol and Agnette Friis was a mystery book club pick by one of our members.

The book starts off fast-paced and with a great premise: Nina Borg gets a

The Boy In the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberol and Agnette Friis

phone call from her friend Karin, who says that she needs to go immediately to a Copenhagen train station and open a public locker. She’s told she will find a suitcase in the locker, but to not open it while in the train station.

She finds a three year old boy, drugged but still alive, in the suitcase.

Surprise! Given the title, there’s no surprise in that bit of knowledge.

Many comments on Goodreads indicated how frustrated people were with the first 60 or so pages of the books, as the authors introduce characters who seemingly have nothing to do with each other. Hang in there! They do!

The action takes place over the span of two days and in several different countries, Denmark and Lithuania. After Nina finds the boy in the suitcase, the logical thing for her to do would have been to bring him to the police. But does she do that? No… she drags him around with her, leaving him in a hot car for a period of time, neglecting to feed him, and letting him see a dead woman.

Nina is supposedly a “do-gooder” but I find fault with that. She’s a terrible mother, wife, and caretaker of this small boy. Nina ignores her family for two whole days while she “takes care” of this boy. At one point, the police go to her house and talk with her husband, who believes her injured or in serious trouble. As indicated in the previous paragraph, she doesn’t take very good care of the little boy, providing him with the minimum of food, sleep, protection, and comfort. And she’s irresponsible! By the end of the book, I’d about had it with Nina Borg.

What I did enjoy in this book were the social issues the authors touched upon. Prostitution, sex slavery, child kidnapping, child trafficking, and the underbelly of Europe were exposed. And let me tell you- it ain’t pretty. Denmark in the past is said to have one of the highest standards of living and some of the happiest and fulfilled people in the world. A socialist nation, they get free healthcare, free college education, long maternity/paternity leave, child care, etc, etc- all of which sound pretty good to me. But, like in any culture, there are also the unsavory aspects of a nation.

A quick, easy, fast-paced read, I thought The Boy In the Suitcase was an excellent pick for this time of year. I listened to it on audio and thought the narrator was excellent. It was very helpful listening to it because I likely would have struggled with the pronunciations of the names, places, etc. The Boy In the Suitcase  is the first book in a series featuring Nina Borg, and while I liked this book, I won’t be continuing the series. Nina just drives me nuts.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

Six Picks : Historical Fiction for Teens

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

There have been some real stand-outs in Historical Fiction this year, here are six of our favorites:

Code Name Verity. In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage, and great courage as she relates what she must to survive while keeping secret all that she can. This Michael L. Printz Award Honor book was called “a fiendishly-plotted mind game of a novel” in The New York Times.

The Diviners by Libba Bray

The Diviners by Libba Bray

The Diviners. In Book 1 of this new series by Libba Bray, seventeen-year-old Evie O’Neill is thrilled when she is exiled from small-town Ohio to New York City in 1926, even when a rash of occult-based murders thrusts Evie and her uncle, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, into the thick of the investigation.

Dodger by Terry Pratchett

Dodger by Terry Pratchett

Dodger. In an alternative version of Victorian London, a seventeen-year-old Dodger, a cunning and cheeky street urchin, unexpectedly rises in life when he saves a mysterious girl, meets Charles Dickens, and unintentionally puts a stop to the murders of Sweeney Todd. Kirkus Reviews called it, “Masterful. Unexpected, drily funny and full of the pathos and wonder of life: Don’t miss it.”

Keeping the Castle by Patrice Kindl

Keeping the Castle by Patrice Kindl

Keeping the Castle. A tale of romance, riches, and real estate. In order to support her family and maintain their ancient castle in Lesser Hoo, 17-year-old Althea bears the burden of finding a wealthy suitor who can remedy their financial problems. When the young and attractive (and very rich) Lord Boring arrives, and Althea sets her plans in motion. The problem; his friend and business manager Mr. Fredericks keeps getting in the way.

Scarlet by A. C. Gaughen

Scarlet by A. C. Gaughen

Scarlet. Will Scarlet shadows Robin Hood, with an unerring eye for finding treasures to steal and throwing daggers with deadly accuracy, but when Gisbourne, a ruthless bounty hunter, is hired by the sheriff to capture Robin and his band of thieves, Robin must become Will’s protector risking his own life in the process. The twist to this story is that “Will” is actually “Scarlet”, a girl disguising herself as a boy – a girl with many secrets…

Sophia's War by Avi

Sophia’s War by Avi

Sophia’s War. In this Revolutionary War tale, the year is 1776. After witnessing the execution of Nathan Hale in New York City, newly occupied by the British army, young Sophia Calderwood resolves to do all she can to help the American cause, including becoming a spy.

On Our Shelves: New Fiction & Non-Fiction

New Fiction

 Snow Hunters by Paul Yoon – This is the story of the extraordinary journey of Yohan, who defects from his country at the end of the Korean War, leaving his friends and family behind to seek a new life on the coast of Brazil.

The Gravity of Birds by Tracy Guzeman – A family lake house, two sisters, and a young painter living next door – the decisions they make one summer will have lasting effects for all of them.

The Rathbones by Janice Clark – A gothic, literary adventure set in New England, Janice Clark’s haunting debut chronicles one hundred years of a once prosperous and now crumbling whaling family, told by its last surviving member.

The Queens Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle – A tale inspired by the life of Henry VIII’s sixth wife follows her reluctant marriage to the egotistical and powerful king in spite of her love for Thomas Seymour, a situation that compels her to make careful choices in a treacherous court.

Little Black Book of Murder by Nancy Martin – Nora Blackbird may have been to the manor borne, but these days money is so tight, she can’t afford to lose her job as a society columnist. So when her new boss at the Philadelphia Intelligencer—Australian tabloid editor Gus Hardwicke—tells her to work the celebrity gossip beat or start checking the want ads, the choice is easy.

New Non-Fiction

 Boy 30529 by Felix Weinberg – Born into a respectable Czech family, Felix’s early years were idyllic. But when Nazi persecution threatened in 1938, his father traveled to England, hoping to arrange for his family to emigrate there. His efforts came too late, and his wife and children fell into the hands of the Fascist occupiers.

Nine Years Under by Sheri Booker – “Six Feet Under” meets The Wire in a dazzling and darkly comic memoir about coming-of-age in a black funeral home in Baltimore.

The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli – This book by world-class thinker and entrepreneur Rolf Dobelli is an eye-opening look at human psychology and reasoning — essential reading for anyone who wants to avoid “cognitive errors” and make better choices in all aspects of their lives.

Serving Victoria by Kate Hubbard – Serving Victoria follows the lives of six members of her household, from the governess to the royal children, from her maid of honor to her chaplain and her personal physician.

Stonehenge – A New Understanding by Mike Pearson – Despite its being one of prehistory’s most alluring landmarks, before the Stonehenge Riverside Project led by noted archeologist Mike Parker Pearson, only half of Stonehenge itself—and far less of its surroundings—had ever been investigated, and many records from previous digs are inaccurate or incomplete.

New Romance

 Castaway Cove by JoAnn Ross – Single dad Mac Culhane has traveled to some of the world’s most dangerous war zones, but now he and his young daughter have settled in Shelter Bay, where he’s become the late-night DJ for the local radio station. The last thing he expects is to connect over the airwaves with a caller….

Behind His Blue Eyes by Kaki Warner – The first in a brand-new Western trilogy set in Heartbreak, Colorado, starring an advance man for the railroad—and the woman whose trust (and heart) he longs to win.

Midnight Games by Elle Kennedy – A master of disguise, Isabel Roma spends her life pretending to be other women.  Normally, her emotions are reined in tight—but sexy mercenary Trevor Callaghan has a knack for getting under her skin. The elite operative’s quiet strength and raw magnetism are a distraction that can quickly turn deadly in their dangerous line of work…

Surrender to Sultry by Mary Beckett – How do you stay under the sheriff’s radar in a town that prides itself on knowing everyone’s business? Leah’s not sure it’s possible, but she’s determined to avoid Colton Bea for as long as she can. Seeing him again would be too heartbreaking-and she knows from experience his bone-melting kisses are way too tempting.

Cowboy Seeks Bride by Carolyn Brown – Rancher Dewar O’Donnell is just an old-fashioned cowboy at heart, and he can’t wait to reenact the historic Chisholm Trail ride with his buddies. The trial-run cattle drive for a reality TV show sounds like a great time—until H.B. McKay pulls up in her slick red sports car…