Librarian’s Pick: Take A Hint, Dani Brown – Talia Hibbert
“Talia Hibbert is quickly becoming a contemporary romance powerhouse. Her return to the adventures of the Brown siblings with Take A Hint, Dani Brown is an easy contender for best book of the year.
Zafir Ansari and Dani Brown couldn’t be more different. Zaf is a former rugby player turned security guard whose weakness is reading romance and who has a passion for destigmatizing mental illness. Dani is more tightly wound—a Ph.D. student who can barely stop working long enough to eat a decent meal. She certainly doesn’t have time for romance. Friends with benefits? Surely, but nothing that requires careful cultivation and patience navigating emotional bombshells.
After a fire drill goes haywire, Zaf’s gallant rescuing of Dani becomes a viral sensation and both realize they can use the situation to their mutual benefit. Dani can get her friends with benefits scenario with hunky Zaf, and Zaf can get closer to his crush, Dani, while using the exposure to help his sports nonprofit for children, Tackle It. What seems like a win-win scenario quickly becomes messier; in romance, fake dating rarely stays fake for long.
Hibbert knows how to deepen and complicate her characters, meticulously peeling back layer upon layer as the story goes on. Zaf’s past includes a devastating personal tragedy that changed his life and set him on a course to advocate for athletes experiencing mental health issues. Dani’s more than just a flighty commitmentphobe; her passionate studiousness comes from fear, because she’s never known love and career to exist harmoniously.
What makes Take a Hint, Dani Brown a superlative example of the romance genre as a whole, and not just a gem in the contemporary category, is that Hibbert gets to the essence of what a happily-ever-after means. It’s not about love as the antidote to a couple’s problems, but love becoming a foundation on which the couple understand one another better and a soft place to land when times are tough. While they’re quick to tumble into bed, Dani and Zeb are both guarded, but through lovely, stick-to-your-ribs home cooking on Zaf’s part and Dani’s ability to make those around her feel like they can achieve anything, they fall in love little by little. It’s not a romance of grand gestures, but a slow burn made up of small, simple moments.
Fans who loved the first book in the Brown Sisters series, Get a Life, Chloe Brown, may feel that it’s a tough act to follow. Fear not. Take a Hint, Dani Brown possesses the same amount of charm, grit and, certainly, sex appeal as its predecessor. Zaf is the emotionally competent, buff hero of our dreams. Dani is the heroine we all aspire to be: confident, feminist, sex-positive and driven. Read this romance immediately, and then read it again.”
Owl’s Nest Review: The Incredibly Dead Pets of Rex Dexter by Aaron Reynolds
Rex is a dog person without a dog. When his birthday rolls around, his dreams of a puppy are dashed when he’s gifted a chicken! Why a chicken? His parents call it a practice pet; a chicken is definitely easier to take care of than a dog. As it turns out, Rex’s parents are wrong. Less than 2 hours later, Rex’s chicken is crushed by a steam roller. Not to worry, the ghost of said chicken comes back to be Rex’s best bud. A ghost chicken is one thing, but soon Rex finds himself visited by recently deceased zoo animals. Rex realizes that the only way to lead these animals toward the light is to help them find out the truth behind their suspicious deaths.
The Incredibly Dead Pets of Rex Dexter has it all, humor, mystery, tragedy and the definition of a corsage.
5th grade and up.
Librarian’s Pick: The Only Good Indians – Stephen Graham Jones
“With a lengthy bibliography full of titles like Mongrels (2016) and After the People Lights Have Gone Off (2014), Jones has proven his horror mettle, but his latest novel steers the genre into some unexpected territory. When a group of young friends hunt elk on a section of land set aside for Blackfoot tribal elders, they set into motion a vengeance that will shadow the rest of their lives. Even fleeing the desperation of the reservation doesn’t save them from the consequences of their act. One by one, they’re stalked by a supernatural force that sprang into being on the night of the hunt. The Only Good Indians certainly brings the requisite genre shocks, but also functions as a serious look at modern Native American culture, both inside and outside the reservation. These themes make the book weightier than typical scare fare and, while some of the shifts in narrative focus feel abrupt, the overall work is very impactful. A solid tale about a community that hasn’t often received serious treatment in the horror genre.”
Notice for Computer Donations
Closing the digital divide was serious work before COVID-19. It is imperative now. While the effects of the coronavirus may be seen for some time and Americans isolate themselves at home, those without computers and the internet are cut off from libraries, essential services, from learning, from family and friends. The need is extreme. Donations of computers, tablets, and hotspots to the Westbury Memorial Public Library will be appreciated. They will be refurbished and given to students of lower-income families.
Librarian’s Pick: The Girl From Widow Hills – Megan Miranda
“Arden Maynor was sleepwalking when a flash flood swept her away. The country breathed a sigh of relief when the 6-year-old was found—and on every anniversary of that day, the media’s spotlight has returned to Arden and her mother. In Megan Miranda’s The Girl From Widow Hills, we get to know the Arden of two decades later. Now 26, she goes by Olivia Wells and lives in North Carolina. She’s beginning to feel secure in her life’s rhythms, but one horrible night, she sleepwalks and awakens with a bloodied body at her feet. Is the looming 20th anniversary stirring up tamped-down trauma? Or is someone from the past trying to torment her anew? Step by suspenseful step, Miranda lays a path for readers to follow as Olivia tries to separate dreams and reality, fear and fact, with a tenacious local detective not far behind. The Girl From Widow Hills is a creepy, compelling portrait of a life forever warped by unwanted fame—a timely theme in this era of internet celebrity and the fall from grace that often follows.”
Librarian’s Pick: Mexican Gothic – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
“Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia begins as a dreamy gothic mystery but quickly unfolds into a visceral, almost hallucinogenic nightmare. Noemí Taboada is enjoying life as a young socialite in 1950s Mexico City when she receives a bizarre letter from her newlywed cousin, Catalina Doyle. Catalina insists that her husband, Virgil, is poisoning her, and Noemí travels to their estate of High Place to investigate.
Symbols of rot are everywhere in Moreno-Garcia’s writing; mold and mushrooms seem to grow on every surface, and Noemí feels like the estate is decaying under her feet. Worse yet, Catalina’s madness seems to be contagious, and even as Noemí tries to convince herself that her cousin is merely ill, she begins to experience vivid nightmares. The Doyle family’s strange rituals and total isolation from their community similarly unnerve Noemí, preventing her from ever feeling safe.