The County Library discussion

They are up!

Crying in H Mart

Death at High Tide

The Duke Who Didn't

Fifty Words for Rain

Fortune Favors the Dead

If the Boot Fits

Interior Chinatown

The Last Flight

The Midnight Bargain

The Mother Code

The Paris Secret

Pretty Little Wife

Raft of Stars

The Safe Place

The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir

The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany

The Vanishing at Loxby Manor

We Hear Voices

Winter Counts

The Witch's Heart

Patty wrote: "They are up!

Crying in H Mart

Death at High Tide

The Duke Who Didn't

Fifty Words for Rain

[book:Fortune Favors the Dead|5066698..."

Patty is right! Reader's Choice has started! You can turn your ballots in at any branch or vote online if you prefer (https://www.slcolibrary.org/we-recomm...).

We are celebrating 30 years of Reader's Choice this round so be sure to stop in at a branch to pick up our Winner's Booklet. The booklet highlights all our winners, starting in 1992! It's fun to see some now-famous authors like Catherine Coulter, Jeff Deaver, Douglas Preston, Kristin Hannah and others who won with an early title. Salt Lake has great taste!

Excited to hear your thoughts on the books this round!

Ellen wrote: "Patty wrote: "They are up!

Crying in H Mart

Death at High Tide

The Duke Who Didn't

Fifty Words for Rain

[book:Fortune Favors th..."

Is that booklet online as well? I'm in Arizona. 😊

Yes! At the same website listed above. Just scroll down a little to the All Winners list

Thanks!

Like I hadn't just buried myself in books already ...

Audrey wrote: "Like I hadn't just buried myself in books already ..."

Ditto for me! Nice to know I'm not alone.

The Last Flight was really good. Solid 4 stars, maybe even 4.5.

I picked up the winners booklet today; curious to see how many of those I've read.

Update- it appears I have read 34 of 61 winners.

I like looking through the pamphlet, but I probably won't get over there until the weekend. I have shelves for Reader's Choice books I've read, RC winners, and RC books I haven't read. I first read them in 2006, I think, when I discovered Poison Study, which I love to this day.

My first year was the year when they had the book, "My Real Name is Lisa" or something like that. I had discovered the South Salt Lake library because my husband worked in the building and then discovered that someone from my high school was a librarian there.

I think Poison Study was one of my first Readers' Choice books too.
Most of the winners I've read from before 2006 I read because of Readers' Choice winners lists.
I would love to be able to vote on past winners and see who the ultimate winner would be!
(Also, I've now read 35 of them... Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder was great.)

I think there was a round of voting on past winners a while ago. I can't remember the results.

Etiquette and Murder was cute -- good audio narrator.

Audrey wrote: "I think there was a round of voting on past winners a while ago. I can't remember the results.

Etiquette and Murder was cute -- good audio narrator."

Good memory, Audrey! We did do a competition of past winners for the 20th anniversary. That's before my time but I'll try to find who that winner was!

Unfortunately, many of the past winners are now out of print so continuing that competition has proved too difficult, since we cannot provide all the books for people to read. Not to mention, that would be a big ask if we had everyone read the current 20 nominees as well as the past 25 winners! : )

I feel like I vaguely remember that...and possibly that's when I got a past winners list and read a bunch of the older ones.
I'd love to hear who won if you can find it.

The Duke Who Didn't was amusing. I generally dread the romance titles every round because I don't actually like romances....so I rush through them early on to get them over with lol. I don't care enough to read the rest of the trilogy, but I did laugh out loud several times. Jeremy is an utter muppet. Definitely a case of "well yes he's an idiot, but he's OUR idiot".

I guess you could vote on only the last ten years of winners. I got the pamphlets today and am ready to dive in -- nearly all on audio! That will help a lot.

Forced myself through If the Boot Fits. Likeable characters. And I managed not to eyeroll my way into some sort of brain injury. (It feels horribly mean to rag on a book for being exactly what it claims to be just because you're not into what it is, but reading it right after the Duke one....this wasn't as well written.)

Britt, Book Habitue wrote: "...I don't care enough to read the rest of the trilogy..."

I'm a little bit confused. This is the only book in this series, so far. Nothing else has been written yet. Did the book have previews for her other books in the back?

Britt, Book Habitue wrote: "...Jeremy is an utter muppet. Definitely a case of "well yes he's an idiot, but he's OUR idiot..."

YES! I agree. Although, I love romance, so it's not an issue for me. One thing I really like about this book, is the way it kind of upends the traditional romance third act. Because there isn't a horrible misunderstanding that pulls them apart a little bit longer, or breaks them up before they get back together (which is very common in romance).

I also love how she described all the food. AND on her website, you can get a lot of the recipes.

https://www.courtneymilan.com/the-duk...

So great.

Britt, Book Habitue wrote: "Forced myself through If the Boot Fits. Likeable characters. ..."

Just so everyone knows. This book trilogy has been optioned to become a tv show. I hope they do it more in the manner of Bridgerton (where it looks like Shondaland productions is following more of the book format, where the main couple is only the main couple for the first book, and then when the second book hits, they become background characters to the new protagonists - rather than the Virgin River version where the main couple continues to be the main couple, which means they are making up more drama for them to argue about - I just need them to live HEA, okay?)

Argh. Goodreads isn't giving me notifs any more and it's driving me crazy.

The Duke Who Didn't says it's going to be a trilogy somewhere in the notes? I think. I know I saw it just can't remember where.... maybe more about the town than Jeremy and Chloe specifically.
Also, after telling my teen about the whole misunderstanding that wasn't (and I totally agree, that was so much better than an actual "you LIED to me?" [Mushu voice] moment) she declared that a movie version should be all people except Jeremy as an actual straight up Muppet and that would be hilarious.

I could tell reading Boot Fits that there must have been a previous book about Zach and Evie but it seemed like they were still pretty happy.
I'm curious if the book about Jesse is going to hint at him being autism spectrumy because I was totally wondering about him, but I'm not curious enough to actually read it, so .... maybe I will look at reviews with spoilers lol.

The Duke one looks cute even though I'm not really a romance fan.

Audrey wrote: "The Duke one looks cute even though I'm not really a romance fan."

It was my favorite romance the year it came out. But, she's one of my favorite writers.

Britt, Book Habitue wrote: "Argh. Goodreads isn't giving me notifs any more and it's driving me crazy.

The Duke Who Didn't says it's going to be a trilogy somewhere in the notes? I think. I know I saw it just can't remember ..."

Oh, okay, that makes more sense. It has been a while since I read it, and Milan is a fantastic, but not fast writer, so I was very confused. lol

Romance series tend to work differently than other book series. In the romance genre, the book has to have a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending, or a Happily Ever After or a Happily for Now. So, what that means, is each book in a series will follow a new couple. Because if you follow the same couple, then there needs to be conflict, which means they did not get a HEA. Series tend to be created where at least one of the protagonists has a relationship with someone from the original couple. So, you get books all about different family members, like the Bridgerton novels (where each book is about a different member of the immediate family), or they're all friends like in Joanna Bourne's Spy Master series. So, it makes sense that the next book would be about a different couple.

You also, generally, don't need to read books in a romance series in order, because each book should be a self-contained plot. Where the original couple is now background characters.

This rule does not apply to Paranormal Romance, however. Just FYI. But that is DEFINITELY a discussion for another day.

I really enjoyed, with If the Boots Fit, was how common romance tropes were messed with. I have definitely read books where one of the main protagonists takes a wrong bag/case/letter/something, and that begins the conflict for the whole first half of the book. So I appreciated in this one that (view spoiler)[ when she accidentally took the bag with his Oscar in it, and got it back to him quickly, he wasn't even mad about it. Which, is actually what I expected to happen, since I read in this genre a lot. In fact, in the first book, she upends the tropes the same way. In book 1, it's an amnesia plot, and I have read so many books where one part of the couple lies about their relationship to make it seem better than it was, and she had the person, who did have their memory intact say right away. Look, we used to be really close, but we got in a fight, and we haven't spoken for like 7 years, but you had my brother as an emergency contact, and I asked to come instead of him, because it was easier for me to get away, and even though we fought, I was still worried about you. Like, just upending my expectations was so refreshing. I actually have the third one, but haven't read it yet. I'll let you know if it hit those story beats you were curious about. (hide spoiler)]

Pretty Little Wife is a solid 4 star dark psychological thriller. Very Criminal Minds in some ways.

In 2021 I listened to the audiobooks of both Crying in H Mart (4.5 stars) and Raft of Stars (3 stars).

I just finished Raft of Stars and really liked it.

Britt, Book Habitue wrote: "Pretty Little Wife is a solid 4 star dark psychological thriller. Very Criminal Minds in some ways."

I can hardly wait! I'm next on the hold list, and someone has it 11 days overdue! It's driving me nuts!

Greg wrote: "I can hardly wait! I'm next on the hold list, and someone has it 11 days overdue!"

I feel your pain. I hate it when that happens.

Debbie wrote: "I feel your pain. I hate it when that happens."

There is an etiquette to public library usage. It, along with so many other parts of civilized society, seems to have fallen out of vogue of late. It makes me sad.

Greg wrote: "There is an etiquette to public library usage. It, along with so many other parts of civilized society, seems to have fallen out of v..."

At the city library, they no longer charge fines. So there is even less incentive there to return things. Once it's overdue for a month, though, they send the borrower a bill for replacement of the item plus a processing fee. Still, that means you may have to wait over a month ... Hope yours comes soon.

Greg wrote: "Debbie wrote: "I feel your pain. I hate it when that happens."

There is an etiquette to public library usage. It, along with so many other parts of civilized society, seems to have fallen out of v..."

Absolutely. I think we should be allowed to go to the houses of people hoarding overdue books with pitchforks and shovels. It'll provide some incentive.

As someone who occasionally has things multiple days late ..... apologies. Once it was because the books accidentally got packed (we were moving) and were in storage in a box for months.

There are usually so many copies of Readers' Choice books, though, that it would be even more annoying tobe waiting.

I've had several times where somebody never returned the only copy of a book.

I liked the Midnight Bargain and hated it at the same time. The story kept me interested, but the men drove me crazy and the parents dorve me crazy and I wasn't real fond of the spirit aspect of magic.

I started listening to Winter Counts. The first part was so full of language and some violence that I did a search for reviews and many of them, including those that rate it high, remarked on how much violence the book has so it sounds like there is a lot more violence than I have encountered so far. That's not something I really want in my life right now so I quit.

I listened to most of The Midnight Bargain in one day while sick. Pretty good overall.

Sigh. I wanted to love The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany. And parts of it were good. but overall...meh. Rounded up to a three. I have a feeling I will be very much in the minority though.

5 down

I think Sisters of Tuscany just arrived. We'll see how it goes.

Finished Winter Counts.... yeah definitely a lot of swearing and fair amount of violence. It was fine, probably a type of story that needs to be told re: how things work with the reservation but I'm not really anxious to read any potential sequels.

I ultimately loved The Midnight Bargain. Reminded me of Torn, which was a Readers' Choice a while back, or Rebel Mechanics. Yes aspects of it are aggravating but I felt like it wrapped things up well.

I just checked out the sequel to Torn -- that's the problem with Reader's Choice. It gives me a lot of sequels to read.

Just finished The Paris Secret.

I love WWII historical fiction, and this book did not disappoint! (I'm going to go ahead and predict this the Spring 2020 winner.)

The author's website shows a lot of the Christian Dior dresses described in the story. Here's the link, if you're interested:

https://www.natashalester.com.au/blog...

Lol Audrey. Totally true. I've read the second book but keep not quite getting to the third

Oooh, thanks for the link, Kemi. I'm hoping that one comes in soon for me. I'm looking forward to it.

Audrey wrote: "I just checked out the sequel to Torn -- that's the problem with Reader's Choice. It gives me a lot of sequels to read."

Kemi! Thanks so much for sharing. Those dresses are gorgeous and really enhance how I visualize that story.

Kemi wrote: "Just finished The Paris Secret.

I love WWII historical fiction, and this book did not disappoint! (I'm going to go ahead and predict this the Spring 2020 winner.)

The author's website shows a lo..."

For the link, pardon me while I drool. I LOVE costuming (observer, not creator). I normally don't get involved with the Reader's Choice books but have always followed the interesting comments on this thread (pun intended). I may just have to read this book. Thanks for the review as well as the link. Gorgeous dresses. I wish she had photos of all of them! As I looked at them, I thought of all the exquisite dresses Grace Kelly wore in Rear Window. One of the reasons I love Edith Head's imminent talent.

I enjoyed The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany though I figured out much of it early on. I had really mixed feelings of whether I wanted her to see Matt was really the one for her or if I wanted her to find someone else. I'd give it a 3.5 if I could.

I also had mixed feelings about the relationship with Matt.

Interior Chinatown is wonderfully surreal. You kind of have to let go of the need to understand what's going on but somehow it still works.

8 down

Finished The Safe place

Another mixed feeling book. I was interested to see what was going on but well. I'm a type 1 diabetic and for some reason, much of the book seemed to feel like a low sugar insulin reaction to me. lol