EUREKA PUBLIC LIBRARY DISTRICT (Eureka, Illinois)
  • Home
  • About
    • About EPLD
    • Contact Us
    • Library Board
    • Library Policies
    • Staff & Employment
    • Friends of the Library
    • Donations
    • Library Newsletter
    • Fine Free
  • At The Library
    • Program Calendar
    • Illinois Libraries Present
    • Kids
    • Teens
    • Adults
    • Get a Library Card
    • Loan Periods and Fines
    • Library of Things
    • Hotspots
    • Seed Library
  • Find Books & More
    • Search Catalog
    • Access Your Account
    • Wowbrary: Latest Additions
    • Interlibrary Loans
    • Digital Resources
    • Staff Book Reviews
    • Pages of Eureka
  • Services
    • Outreach
    • Porch Pickup
    • Free Services
    • Copy, Print, & Fax
    • Educational Materials Request
    • Talking Books
    • Explore More Illinois
    • Online Classes
    • Mango Languages
    • Niche Academy
  • Research
    • IRIS: Illinois Reliable Information Sources
    • Genealogy & Local History
    • Eureka Pumpkin Festival
    • City & County Resources
    • State & Federal Resources
    • Tax Form Information
    • Voter Information
Picture

February 10, 2026 | 'Fear Street: The Beginning' by R.L. Stine [YA Review]

2/10/2026

0 Comments

 
Picture

Fear Street: The Beginning

Stine, R.L.

2020, Simon Pulse

Fiction

Grades: 7 - 9; Lexile: 520L (The New Girl), 560L (The Surprise Party & The Overnight), 480L (Missing)

Availability

ILL: print
The classic and heart-pounding Fear Street Series from beloved author R.L. Stine is back with the first four books now in one thrilling package!

Welcome to Fear Street…
Where strange things happen, people go missing, and nightmares come true.

This is where it all began. When Fear Street became legend, forever linked with danger, and curses, and things that go bump in the night. Go back to how it all started—to the moment when Corey Brooks falls for perfect, incredible Anna, only to learn that she’s gone missing...on Fear Street.

Venture into the terrifying Fear Street woods where Meg Dalton’s best friend Evan died under mysterious circumstances, and discover why only Meg can uncover the truth behind his death. Follow Della to Fear Island and learn about the terrifying threats that force Della to confront her past—and the incident that occurred on the island between her and a dangerous stranger.

Return to Fear Street with Mark and Cara Burroughs who come home to find that their parents have disappeared, plunging them into a nightmare of chaos that neither of them could have ever predicted. The only thing they know for sure is that though Fear Street may be a mystery, not everyone escapes such an evil place alive.

Only danger awaits those brave enough to travel down Fear Street. You’re not afraid…are you?

Read a review by Gennifer King:

fear_street.pdf
File Size: 643 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

0 Comments

February 10, 2026 | 'How Freaking Romantic' by Emily Harding [Adult Review]

2/10/2026

0 Comments

 
Picture

How Freaking Romantic

Harding, Emily

2025, Gallery Books

Fiction

Availability

EPLD: print
ILL: audiobook
In this sharply funny solo debut, an aspiring lawyer is forced to work alongside the opposing counsel in her best friend’s divorce case, which leads to the biggest irreconcilable difference of love.

Beatrice Nilsson has a lot to be angry about. The wage gap, the pink tax, the repayment schedule on all those student loans…the list goes on. But that anger is also what makes her such a good friend—the perennial sidekick who fights for her loved ones’ happily ever after, even while conveniently neglecting her own. So when the marriage of her two best friends falls apart—and the divorce proceedings get ugly—Bea is ready to step in and help pick up the pieces.

First on her to-do list? Storm the office of Nathan Asher, her friend’s ex-husband’s lawyer, and tell him exactly what he can do with his divorce petition. But what should end with a few choice words and a slam of the door soon spirals into uncharted territory when Nathan shows up at her NYU Law office a few days later. As a newly-minted adjunct professor––and her new colleague––he proves to be annoyingly intelligent, relentlessly patient, and unfairly attractive. Bea still hates him, of course, but it’s not long before that hate begins to feel a lot like something else.

There’s just one when you’ve spent your life focusing on everyone else’s love story, it’s not easy to take the starring role in your own. And as uncomfortable truths emerge about the divorce that started it all, Bea must choose whose happily ever after to everyone else’s or her own.

Read a review by Cindy O'Neill:

how_freaking_romantic.pdf
File Size: 627 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

0 Comments

January 27, 2026 | 'The Spellshop' by Sarah Beth Durst [Adult Review]

1/27/2026

0 Comments

 
Picture

The Spellshop

Durst, Sarah Beth

2024, Bramble

Fiction

Availability

EPLD: print
ILL: large print
eBook: Libby & Palace Project
eAudiobook: Libby & Hoopla (German edition also available)
​Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she and her assistant, Caz—a magically sentient spider plant—have spent the last decade sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite.

When a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz flee with all the spellbooks they can carry and head to a remote island Kiela never thought she’d see again: her childhood home. Taking refuge there, Kiela discovers, much to her dismay, a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor who can’t take a hint and keeps showing up day after day to make sure she’s fed and to help fix up her new home.

In need of income, Kiela identifies something that even the bakery in town doesn’t have: jam. With the help of an old recipe book her parents left her and a bit of illegal magic, her cottage garden is soon covered in ripe berries.

But magic can do more than make life a little sweeter, so Kiela risks the consequences of using unsanctioned spells and opens the island’s first-ever and much needed secret spellshop.

Like a Hallmark rom-com full of mythical creatures and fueled by cinnamon rolls and magic, The Spellshop will heal your heart and feed your soul.

Read a review by Cindy O'Neill:

the_spellshop.pdf
File Size: 605 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

0 Comments

January 27, 2026 | 'Lifetimes: The Beautiful Way to Explain Death to Children' by Bryan Mellonie & Robert Igpen [Picture Book Review]

1/27/2026

0 Comments

 
Picture

Lifetimes: The Beautiful Way to Explain Death to Children

Mellonie, Bryan
​Igpen, Robert

1983, Bantam Books

Nonfiction

Ages: 6 - 9; Lexile: AD570L

Availability

EPLD: print
When the death of a relative, a friend, or a pet happens or is about to happen . . . how can we help a child to understand?

Lifetimes is a moving book for children of all ages, even parents too. It lets us explain life and death in a sensitive, caring, beautiful way. Lifetimes tells us about beginnings. And about endings. And about living in between. With large, wonderful illustrations, it tells about plants. About animals. About people. It tells that dying is as much a part of living as being born. It helps us to remember. It helps us to understand.

Lifetimes . . . a very special, very important book for you and your child. The book that explains--beautifully--that all living things have their own special Lifetimes.

Read a review by Kathryn Longfellow:

lifetimes.pdf
File Size: 614 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

0 Comments

January 13, 2026 | 'When We Were Monsters' by Jennifer Niven [YA Review]

1/13/2026

0 Comments

 
Picture

When We Were Monsters

Niven, Jennifer

2025, Alfred K. Knopf

Fiction

Grades: 9 - 12; Lexile: HL720L

Availability

ILL: print
A dead teacher at an elite boarding school. Four students who had every reason to want her gone. Who is the monster?

At an elite New England boarding school, eight students are selected for an exclusive storytelling workshop with the one and only Meredith Graffam—an enigmatic writer, director, and actress. For sixteen days, they will live in the isolated estate of the school’s founder, surrounded by snowy woods and a storm-tossed seas. Only one of the chosen will walk away with a lifechanging opportunity to realize their creative dreams.

Everyone, including Graffam, has a compelling reason to be there—Effy, the orphan, Isaac, the legacy, Ness, the wallflower, Ramon, the outsider, and Arlo, whose unexpected arrival leaves Effy spiraling—but only the most ambitious will last the term. Graffam’s unorthodox methods push the students past the breaking point, revealing their darkest secrets, taking unthinkable risks, and slowly starting to turn on one another. But Graffam never expected they would turn on her . . .

Read a review by Kathryn Longfellow:

when_we_were_monsters.pdf
File Size: 508 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

0 Comments

January 13, 2026 | 'Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth)' by Markus Zusak [Adult Review]

1/13/2026

0 Comments

 
Picture

Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth)

Zusak, Markus

2024, Harper

Biography

Availability

EPLD: print
eBook: Palace Project & Hoopla
eAudiobook: Hoopla
In this poignant, funny, and disarmingly honest memoir, one of the world’s most beloved storytellers, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book Thief, tells of his family’s adoption of three troublesome rescue dogs—a charming and courageous love story about making even the most incorrigible of animals family.

There’s a madman dog beside me, and the hounds of memory ahead of us . . . It’s love and beasts and wild mistakes, and regret, but never to change things.

What happens when the Zusak family opens their home to three big, wild, street-hardened dogs—Reuben, more wolf than hound; Archer, blond, beautiful, destructive; and the rancorously smiling Frosty, who walks like a rolling thunderstorm?

The answer can only be chaos: There are street fights, park fights, public shamings, property damages, injuries, hospital visits, wellness checks, pure comedy, shocking tragedy, and carnage that must be read to be believed.

There is a reckoning of shortcomings and failure, a strengthening of will, but most important of all, an explosion of love—and the joy and recognition of family.

Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth) is a tender, motley, and exquisitely written memoir about the human need for both connection and disorder, a love letter to the animals who bring hilarity and beauty—but also the visceral truth of the natural world—straight to our doors and into our lives and change us forever.

Read a review by Cindy O'Neill:

three_wild_dogs.pdf
File Size: 603 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

0 Comments

December 30. 2025 | 'The Iron Tomb' by Peter Vegas [Middle Grade Review]

12/30/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture

The Iron Tomb

Vegas, Peter

2016, Aladdin

Fiction

Grades: 5-9; Lexile: 840L

Availability

EPLD: print
Join Sam Force on a fast-paced adventure through Egypt that’s part National Treasure and part Indiana Jones with the start to a brand-new series packed with puzzles and clues for readers to figure out along the way!

When Sam Force goes to Egypt to spend the summer with his uncle Jasper, he’s ready for the usual vacation filled with museums and lessons about the pharaohs and ancient gods. Instead, Sam arrives at the airport and learns that his uncle is missing and wanted by the police.

After narrowly escaping his own arrest, Sam sets off to find his uncle using the series of clues that Jasper left behind. But a group of mysterious men are hot on his trail, and Sam knows they’re willing to do whatever it takes to track down Jasper and whatever Jasper was looking for.

Now all Sam has to do is find it first.

With the help of his new friends Hadi and Mary, and by using the knowledge of ancient Egyptian history and culture that he once hated, Sam makes his way across Egypt determined to find his uncle. And if he does, if he finds Jasper before it’s too late, he may also uncover the secret of the Iron Tomb…a secret that could change Sam’s life forever.

Read a review by Nikki Smith:

the_iron_tomb.pdf
File Size: 623 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

0 Comments

December 30, 2025 | 'Valley of Forgetting: Alzheimer's Families and the Search for a Cure' by Jennie Erin Smith [Adult Review]

12/30/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture

Valley of Forgetting: Alzheimer's Families and the Search for a Cure

Smith, Jennie Erin

2025, Riverhead Books

Nonfiction

Availability

EPLD: print
eBook & eAudiobook: Palace Project
The riveting account of a community from the remote mountains of Colombia whose rare and fatal genetic mutation is unlocking the secrets of Alzheimer’s disease

In the 1980s, a neurologist named Francisco Lopera traveled on horseback into the mountains seeking families with symptoms of dementia. For centuries, residents of certain villages near Medellín had suffered memory loss as they reached middle age, going on to die in their fifties. Lopera discovered that a unique genetic mutation was causing their rare hereditary form of early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Over the next forty years of working with the “paisa mutation” kindred, he went on to build a world-class research program in a region beset by violence and poverty.

In Valley of Forgetting, Jennie Erin Smith brings readers into the clinic, the laboratories, and the Medellín trial center where Lopera’s patients receive an experimental drug to see if Alzheimer’s can be averted. She chronicles the lives of people who care for sick parents, spouses, and siblings, all while struggling to keep their own dreams afloat. These Colombian families have donated hundreds of their loved ones’ brains to science and subjected themselves to invasive testing to help uncover how Alzheimer’s develops and whether it can be stopped. Findings from this unprecedented effort could hold the key to understanding and treating the disease, though it is unclear what, if anything, the families will receive in return.

Smith’s immersive storytelling brings this complex drama to life, inviting readers on a scientific journey that is as deeply moving as it is engrossing.

Read a review by Cindy O'Neill:

valley_of_forgetting.pdf
File Size: 510 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

0 Comments

December 16, 2025 | 'Kittybunkport' by Scott Rothman [Picture Book Review]

12/16/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture

Kittybunkport

Rothman, Scott
OHora, Zachariah - illustrator

2025, Viking

Fiction

Grades: Pre-K - 2

Availability

EPLD: print
eBook: Palace Project
Lighthouses, lobster rolls, two silly scaredy-cats, and one uproarious seaside adventure!

Chowder and Crackers live in the quiet, coastal town of Kittybunkport, where they pass their time sitting in the sun, napping, scratching stuff, and of course, catching lobster. Until one day the town's lighthouse—rumored to be haunted—suddenly goes dark. When Chowder and Crackers are sent to fix the problem, will the two scaredy-cats be able to save Kittybunkport?

With playfully purrfect text by Scott Rothman and riotous illustrations by New York Times bestselling illustrator Zachariah OHora, Kittybunkport is a story young readers will want to visit again and again.

Read a review by Kathryn Longfellow: 

kittybunkport.pdf
File Size: 497 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

0 Comments

December 16, 2025 | 'The Queens of Crime' by Marie Benedict [Adult Review]

12/16/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture

The Queens of Crime

Benedict, Marie

2025, St. Martin's Press

Fiction

Availability

EPLD: print
ILL: large print, audiobook, & Playaway
eBook: Libby & Palace Project
London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second-class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.

May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering they’re stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.

Inspired by a true story in Sayers’ own life, New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict brings to life the lengths to which five talented women writers will go to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of letters as they unpuzzle a mystery torn from the pages of their own novels.

Read a review by Cindy O'Neill:

the_queens_of_crime.pdf
File Size: 506 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

0 Comments
<<Previous

    Authors

    EPLD staff.

    Archives

    February 2026
    January 2026
    December 2025
    November 2025
    October 2025
    September 2025
    August 2025
    July 2025
    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020

    Categories

    All
    Adult
    Middle Grade
    Picture Books
    Young Adult

    RSS Feed

address

202 S. Main St.
​Eureka, IL 61530

phone

309.467.2922

fax

309.467.3527

hours

Monday, Tuesday, & Thursday:
​9:00 AM - 8:00 PM

Wednesday & Friday:
9:00 AM - 6:00 PM

Saturday:
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
© COPYRIGHT 2022. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • About
    • About EPLD
    • Contact Us
    • Library Board
    • Library Policies
    • Staff & Employment
    • Friends of the Library
    • Donations
    • Library Newsletter
    • Fine Free
  • At The Library
    • Program Calendar
    • Illinois Libraries Present
    • Kids
    • Teens
    • Adults
    • Get a Library Card
    • Loan Periods and Fines
    • Library of Things
    • Hotspots
    • Seed Library
  • Find Books & More
    • Search Catalog
    • Access Your Account
    • Wowbrary: Latest Additions
    • Interlibrary Loans
    • Digital Resources
    • Staff Book Reviews
    • Pages of Eureka
  • Services
    • Outreach
    • Porch Pickup
    • Free Services
    • Copy, Print, & Fax
    • Educational Materials Request
    • Talking Books
    • Explore More Illinois
    • Online Classes
    • Mango Languages
    • Niche Academy
  • Research
    • IRIS: Illinois Reliable Information Sources
    • Genealogy & Local History
    • Eureka Pumpkin Festival
    • City & County Resources
    • State & Federal Resources
    • Tax Form Information
    • Voter Information