Blog Entries

The Seven Year Slip
By Ashley Poston
Adult Fiction

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston was one of my favorite reads of 2022, so I was hoping for good things from her follow-up. I was not disappointed in this story of time slips and second chances.

Clementine always had a special bond with her artistic Aunt Analea. When the two of them weren’t off exploring the world together, Clementine spent a lot of time at Analea’s magical New York City apartment. Sometimes, one could walk in the door and slip into a moment seven years in the past, but Analea always wa...

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson

Honestly, it was the cover of Jenny Jackson’s debut novel Pineapple Street that captured me initially. It had a Great Gatsby feel and, from the first couple of pages, I could tell it was a very character-driven story. The characters weren’t ones I expected though. In fact, they were kind of annoying. Why did you keep reading? Well, the characters were so laughable, so totally not-relatable (except to maybe the wealthiest of New York City), that my reading journey felt like an escapist funhouse. I couldn’t put the book down.

In Pineapple ...

The Peacekeeper by B.L. Blanchard

In this alternate history, the Great Lakes region is part of an independent Ojibwe nation that was never colonized by Europeans. The peacekeeper of the title is Chibenashi, a lawman who has lived in the village of Baawitigong (which we know better as Sault Ste. Marie) his entire life.

Keeping the peace in Baawitigong usually isn’t a very strenuous job, but when a brutal murder occurs, the horror seems all too familiar to Chibenashi. When he was a teenager, his mother was killed in a very similar way. His family was further torn apart whe...

In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas

In the years before the American Civil War, Canada became a place of safety for formerly enslaved people who could reach its shores. There, refugees settled in communities like Buxton, Ontario and the fictional town of Dunmore, which sits on the northern coastline of Lake Erie and serves as the setting for Kai Thomas’s first novel.

One evening in 1859, the peace of Dunmore is disturbed when a bounty hunter turns up looking for a group of recent arrivals from Kentucky. During his attempted abduction, he is shot and killed with his own ri...

Verity by Colleen Hoover

The story starts with struggling writer, Lowen, who was hired to complete the remaining books of successful writer, Verity, who cannot communicate and is confined to her bed due to an “accident”. She is invited to stay with Verity and her husband, Jeremy, at their creepy mansion, so she can get into the headspace of the famous writer.  

She stumbles upon a hidden memoir written by Verity about her life as a wife and mother. She details a life of vile child abuse and pain inflicted on her children. During her pregnancy, she drank alcohol, pop...

The Divorce Colony by April White

For a woman traveling without her husband in the late 19th century, there was only one reason to take the train to Sioux Falls, South Dakota: divorce. South Dakota required only a 90-day residency before a woman could file for divorce, making it an appealing destination for women from other states with more restrictive laws. In The Divorce Colony, author April White details the stories of four different women who traveled to South Dakota with just that intention. Through her research, White unveils a little known piece of women’s history. This is ...

The Legend of Pedestrio by Abner Serd

This author’s pseudonym is very apt. Abner Serd has written an “Ab Serd” tale, indeed. His folksy story of two wandering outdoorsmen searching for a legendary traveler “who roams the Earth by day and the sky at night” is full of dry humor and fantastical landscapes.

The author visited Butman-Fish Library last June, spinning some of the yarns from his book and sharing what it’s like to hike cross-country. His stories are just as entertaining in written form.

Abner, the character who narrates this novel, merely wants his favo...

The Golden Couple by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

If your marriage was on the rocks, would you seek advice from a recently “unlicensed” therapist?

How about if she guarantees she can fix your issues in only 10 sessions?

This compelling story begins with a successful, wealthy, seemingly perfect couple and parents, Marissa and Matthew. Their idyllic marriage takes a turn when they attempt to navigate the fallout from her infidelity. A game of cat and mouse ensues and you are never quite sure who is playing who.

“Therapist” Avery swoops in to ...

Never Fall for Your Fiancée by Virginia Heath

There is nothing the Dowager Countess of Fareham would like more than to see her son, the current earl, happily married. 

Hugh hates to disappoint her, but he knows he would make any woman a terrible husband. It’s far better for everyone that he stay single. Fortunately, his mother lives thousands of miles away in America, so Hugh can placate her by writing many letters about Minerva, the beautiful and accomplished woman he has fallen in love with and intends to marry – someday.

Minerva is completely fictional,...

In The Nineties, Gen X author Chuck Klosterman takes a whirlwind tour through a decade that birthed a lot of the trends that shape our modern world. 

The Nineties seemed to play by the same rules that made the rest of the late 20th Century work, but there was a shift happening in the way we interacted with technology and with each other. Those of us who lived through the decade probably didn’t realize the significance of what was happening in real time, but Klosterman takes us back to reflect on how and when things started to change.

However, that introduction makes...

This June, we're asking what kinds of programming for adults you would like to see offered at the Public Libraries of Saginaw. Take the brief online survey here, scan the QR code for the link, or stop in to any of our branches to participate. 

Thank you for your input!

The Unsinkable Greta James By Jennifer E. Smith

Singer/songwriter Greta James has finally made the big time. After years of struggling, her first album hit the charts and life is good, but it all seems meaningless after her mother dies unexpectedly while Greta is performing out of the country.

Helen was her daughter’s number one fan and the referee in Greta’s antagonistic relationship with her father, Conrad. Conrad has never supported Greta’s music career, but maybe that’s not surprising, since her best-known hit was a song raging against him.

After Greta bre...

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

If you haven’t read one of the best books of 2021 yet, what are you waiting for? Although Firekeeper’s Daughter was published as a young adult novel, it’s a rich story that adults can appreciate, too.

The author, Angeline Boulley, is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Her protagonist, Daunis Fontaine, is a recent high school graduate who has always felt like she’s lived between the worlds of her mother’s rich, white family and her late father’s Ojibwe relatives. Daunis had been looking forward ...

The Music of Bees By Eileen Garvin

Forty-four-year-old Alice Holtzman grew up thinking she would one day become a third-generation Oregon fruit grower, but then her parents sold the family orchard to a land developer, she took an office job, and found herself beekeeping on the side. Her hives pollinate nearby fruit trees and give her something to nurture after the sudden, devastating losses of her husband and parents. When she’s taking care of her bees, she doesn’t have time to remember that she’s the last-living member of her family.

Months ahead of his death last July at age 80, John Lewis informed few people that his cancer of the pancreas was terminal.

One of them was a biographer he highly trusted, a historian and student of the civil rights movement. To add to the attraction, Jon Meacham is also a religious soul who had invested an intense inquiry into Jesus Christ's final words from the cross. This made Meacham a soul mate.

The pair collaborated on His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, which ultimately was a rush job, because the civi...