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Resource Spotlight: Novelist – Find your Perfect Match Book

10 Feb

Ever watch a movie or read a book and think, “I love this vibe: the small-town setting with a flawed but theatrically endearing character. Oh, and the eerie undertone really has me hooked. I want more!”? I go through these phases all the time, latching to a specific theme or feeling and absolutely wanting more of it. 

Logo for EBSCOhost NoveList, showing the word “NoveList” in stylized lettering with the tagline “Your Guide to Reading.”

With your Hoboken Public Library card, you have access to Novelist, a book recommendation resource available through the New Jersey State Library. It’s a treasure trove of curated reading suggestions organized by theme, genre, author, tone, and so much more — helping you find stories that match exactly what you’re in the mood for.

Login here and click on Discover Novelist on the left.

The Appeals Index lets you search for books based on what kind of reading experience you want. Are you drawn to sarcastic narrators, offbeat humor, or characters wrestling with teenage angst? Maybe you’re on the lookout for a love story with gritty realism or on an isolated beach. How about a time-traveling superhero who plays God. 

You’ll be shown a list of titles that fit your selection. 

Prefer to explore by theme instead of character? The Theme Index breaks down stories into setups such as forbidden love, coping with death, witchcraft and the occult, exploring faith, or rural noir. These are blueprints of the story, or tropes – the fish out of water hero or the framed protagonist.

This index is your go-to when you say to yourself “I love story like this, but don’t know what to search for.

You can get lost in Novelist. It’s great. Sometimes, just browsing through categories like found footage horror or wistful coming-of-age helps you realize what truly draws you. Once you’ve found your match, head over to the BCCLS catalog to place your hold.

Which Index are you most enjoying in Novelist? Have you found any new themes or appeals that interest you? Comment below.

Novelist is linked above. You need your library card number to enter the site. The BCCLS catalog is linked as well. 

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Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant

Riley Sager’s Next Stop after With a Vengeance

3 Feb Book cover for “With a Vengeance” by Riley Sager, featuring a dark night scene with a train crossing a tall stone bridge under a cloudy sky lit with red tones; the author’s name appears in large turquoise text.

I preface this blog, knowing that Riley Sager fans probably already read his latest and have their opinions, so if you are one of them consider this more of a look to the future and a return to what, in my opinion, made him a best-selling author. (And it’s coming in 2026).

Riley Sager’s latest, With a Vengeance, is a title in my humble opinion, every writer deserves the right to write once they’ve reached the top of Mount Career Author – a little ‘you’ve earned this’ from their publishing house after they’ve made it clear their ROI is high, and Riley has with such calling card titles as Home Before Dark, The House Across the Lake, Lock Every Door, Final Girls, and The Only One Left. 

During a pre-release chat at Union Square’s Barnes and Noble, Mr. Sager made it clear this was his stab at a ‘whodunit’ Agatha Christie-esque entanglement on a train. With a Vengeance was not a thriller mystery with supernatural elements readers grew to love in the previous titles mentioned. 

With a Vengeance fell flat, hindered by one dimensional characters, coincidences that seemed too good to be true, a protagonist who set up a way to elaborate a scheme where everything had to go right (and her pockets had to be deep). Even with suspension of belief, the originality of intent wavered mightily throughout, and honestly, but in the end the red flags were just too much to overlook. 

When he will return to those intriguing bump-in-the-night mysteries he’s built a following off of. The answer is known. The Unknown is slated for August 2026. 

A century ago, five vanished from a Vermont island, leaving behind only five dresses and a supernatural mystery. 

A century later, a struggling actress lands a role in a movie about the disappearance, her research trip to the island turns terrifying as strange occurrences and a sudden health emergency leave her and the cast stranded. A new wave of disappearances begins, and the race is on to decipher a century-old diary to prevent the island’s dark history from claiming them all. 

I’m ready for it, and I think (at least for me) this will put the sour taste of With a Vengeance out of my mouth. 

I strongly encourage these novels by Riley Sager though: Home Before Dark, The House Across the Lake, Lock Every Door, Final Girls, and The Only One Left. 

Book cover for “Final Girls” by Riley Sager, featuring a dark forest background with a lone woman in a blue dress standing beneath red title text.
Book cover for “Lock Every Door” by Riley Sager, showing a purple-lit apartment hallway with multiple doors and bold pink title text.
Book cover for “The House Across the Lake” by Riley Sager, depicting a brightly lit house reflected in dark lake water at night, with handwritten-style yellow title text.
Book cover for “The Only One Left” by Riley Sager, showing a large, ominous house perched on a rocky cliff against a red sky, with bold blue title text.
Book cover for “Home Before Dark” by Riley Sager, featuring a dark green haunted house silhouette surrounded by glowing lights against a shadowy background.

They all show his consistent truth as a writer – telling stories built around traumatized and unreliable narrators who must face a dark event or place that resurfaces from their past, forcing them to question the realism of their memories and perceptions of the world. We aren’t just trying to figure out who the real antagonist is but also grasping with the illusion of whether the person telling the story is even telling the truth. 

Each one of these is an addicting ride.

Which novel will you be checking out? Comment below.

Riley Sager’s name and cover images are linked to his author page on the BCCLS catalog to make it easy for you to reserve his titles. 

Hit subscribe to get Hoboken Public Library Staff Picks to your email!

Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant

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