Staff Recommendations
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Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of my People
by Perry, Imani
Reviewed by: Diedre Johnson, Office Services Assistant, Library DepartmentApril 23, 2025
Call Number: 301.45096 P463-1
Black and blue, Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, Little Girl Blue, The Bluest Eye, A Patch of Blue—these are just a sampling of the expressions, books, song titles, and films that made up the soundtrack of Black lives in America. In Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People, author Imani Perry explains how the color blue not only gave comfort and motivation to enslaved people but also continues to mean so much to so many.
Early in the book, Perry describes the term "blue-black," a description of a skin tone that is dipped in a... Read Full Review
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Good Dirt
by Wilkerson, Charmaine
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryFebruary 21, 2025
When Ebony "Ebby" Freeman was ten years old, she was the sole witness of a botched home invasion robbery that resulted in the shooting death of her fifteen-year-old brother, Baz, and the destruction of a priceless family heirloom.
The fact that Ebby is the daughter of a prominent Black family living in an exclusive development in New England only added to the sensational nature of the crime and thrust Ebby into a traditional and social media firestorm she never wanted and has worked tirelessly to avoid. Until she can’t. When her engagement to the only child of another high-profile... Read Full Review
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But Not Too Bold
by Pueyo, H.
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryFebruary 5, 2025
Dália’s life changed the morning the maid found the typewritten note that said:
"HIRE A NEW KEEPER OF THE KEYS; URGENT; BEFORE DAWN"
Everyone in Capricious House knew what the note meant and who had written it. Its author was the Lady of Capricious House, Lady Anatema, a gargantuan spider/human hybrid with a taste for laudanum who is searching for a bride. The meaning of the note was clear: the old keeper of the keys was dead, and Dália, her apprentice, would be taking her place.
For as long as she can remember, Dália has been Ms. Matilde’s, the Keeper of the Keys,... Read Full Review
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The Murder of Mr. Ma
by Nee, John Shen Yen, Rozan, SJ
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryNovember 12, 2024
Call Number: M
In 1924 London, Lao She, a shy young academic, is summoned to the home of mathematician Bertrand Russell. When he arrives, Russell explains that a friend and colleague, Judge Dee Ren Jie, has been mistakenly arrested with a group of Chinese agitators. Russell is afraid that if Dee’s identity is discovered by Metropolitan Police inspector William Bard, whom Dee encountered during their shared service during WWI, the end result could be hazardous for Dee, so Russell enlists Lao in a plan to extract Dee from jail. While the plan isn’t executed as flawlessly as Russell hoped, Dee is freed. Now... Read Full Review
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From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir
by Presley, Lisa Marie
Reviewed by: Diedre Johnson, Office Services Assistant, Library DepartmentNovember 11, 2024
Call Number: 789.14 P9344
Reading From Here to the Great Unknown, the authorized memoir taken from Lisa Marie Presley's voice recordings with organization and narrative from her daughter, the actress Riley Keough, is an intimate look at rock and roll icon Elvis Presley and, for this writer, a little like revisiting the South.
Although Lisa Marie (who died in January 2023) had long lived in Los Angeles, Hawaii, and even the UK since the long-ago days with her dad at... Read Full Review
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The Lost Story
by Shaffer, Meg
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryNovember 5, 2024
Fifteen years ago, Jeremy and Ralph disappeared while on an end of the school year field trip to Red Crow State Forest in West Virginia. One moment, they were there, and then they were gone. The forest was repeatedly searched, but no signs of the boys were ever found. And then, six months later, they were discovered walking out of the forest by a pair of hikers. Ralph had been badly hurt, and Jeremy was carrying him. Medical treatment was summoned, and both boys were hospitalized and examined. Jeremy was in perfect health. Ralph had a series of long-healed scars on his back. Both boys... Read Full Review
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Arthur and Teddy are Coming Out
by Love, Ryan
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryOctober 29, 2024
Arthur Edwards has lived his entire life in the small town of Northbridge in northern England. He grew up there. And he met and married his wife, Madeleine, in Northbridge. Northbridge is where Madeleine and he raised their two children, Elizabeth and Patrick. As with most small towns, regardless of where they are located, everyone seems to know everyone else. An individual who wishes to maintain a sense of privacy about their lives must be vigilant to keep that which they don't want to become common knowledge from becoming just that.
Arthur has a secret. He's worked diligently to... Read Full Review
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Horror for Weenies: Everything You Need to Know About the Films You're Too Scared to Watch
by Hughes, Emily C.
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryOctober 3, 2024
Call Number: 791.9 H8932
Horror. Some people love it! Some people don't! And, generally speaking, people tend to have strong feelings about the genre, falling into one camp or the other. In a bit of irony, there are people who are 'afraid' of Horror as a genre. Yep, they are afraid of the genre people seek out purposefully to cause them to feel fear. Within this group of people, there are those who are afraid of Horror but are also curious. They wonder why others enjoy the idea of feeling scared or disturbed, and they may be ready to take the plunge and begin to explore. It is for this group of people, possibly... Read Full Review
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Star Struck
by McCown, Marjorie
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibrarySeptember 3, 2024
Call Number: M
When readers left Joey Jessup at the end of Marjorie McCown’s Final Cut, she had discovered the identity of the murderer who had killed Assistant Director Courtney Lisle on the set of a big-budget superhero movie. She had survived an attempt on her own life when the murderer had set ablaze Left Coast Costume, destroying the iconic Hollywood business, and was lying low for a while, doing her best to recover from the trauma.
Now Joey is back at work on a glamorous period piece that will... Read Full Review
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You Are Here: A Novel
by Nicholls, David
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionAugust 27, 2024
True-to-life love stories are a challenge to write because, as anyone who has been in a relationship knows, real life experiences have no predictable beginnings with neatly tied up endings. The opposite of that is what makes romance and rom-com novels so appealing, and they certainly have a place in our reading experiences. David Nicholls has met the challenge with this love story that uniquely has elements of comedy, tragedy, and some life-changing experiences for the two protagonists, older adults Marnie (38) and Michael (42). Each of them has experienced joys, sorrows and... Read Full Review
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Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth-century Los Angeles
by Devienne, Elsa
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionAugust 19, 2024
Call Number: 979.494 D492
As the 2024 Olympics in Paris ended, and the torch and flag were handed over to Mayor Karen Bass for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, I find it delightfully serendipitous to have read this book (a PhD dissertation, originally in French and now in English, about the beaches of Los Angeles) by Dr. Elsa Devienne. Talk about hands across the water!
Having grown up along southern California's coastline with its wonderful beaches, I never thought about the wide swaths of sand, except during the summer when it was always a trek across all that hot sand to get to the ocean. It never... Read Full Review
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Waiting for the Monsoon
by Nordland, Rod
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionAugust 6, 2024
Call Number: 071.092 N8315
Rod Nordland was one tough, determined, and well-respected war correspondent who had been in some of the world’s most dangerous war zones, where there was not too much that could scare him and from which he emerged relatively unscathed. On July 5, 2019, one particular event would definitely be life-threatening. In June 2019, he was in New Delhi, India, because "The Indian summer has always fascinated me, and I was in New Delhi, experiencing its climatic extremes firsthand." It is a time when the population is waiting for the monsoon rains to cool things off because "Heat builds to inhuman... Read Full Review