Library Board of Trustees Meeting
Wednesday, October 28 @ 5:45 PM at the DeMott Lane Branch (Robert S. Mettler Historical Room).
This meeting is open to the public. For minutes and recordings of previous meetings please click here.
PUBLIC NOTICE is hereby given that sealed Bids will be received by the Franklin Township Public Library Board of Trustees (hereinafter called the Owner), at the Director’s Office, located at 485 DeMott Lane, Somerset, NJ in Somerset County, State of New Jersey, on Friday, November 20, 2026 at 11:00AM prevailing time. Bids shall be enclosed in a sealed envelope bearing the name and address of the Bidder and labeled “FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP PUBLIC LIBRARY – MAIN LIBRARY RENOVATIONS”. Bidsmay be delivered by mail, messenger, courier, overnight service or by hand. All Bids will be opened publicly and read aloud at that time. The Owner may reject all bids pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40A:11-13.2 and any bid that is non-responsive or submitted by a bidder that is not responsible.
Separate sealed bids for:
GENERAL CONTRACT: FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP PUBLIC LIBRARY – MAIN LIBRARY RENOVATIONS
All work incidental thereto, including but not limited to the Main Library Renovations and as required in accordance with the Project Manual.
A non-mandatory pre-bid meeting shall be held on Thursday, October 29, 2026 at 1:00PM at the Franklin Township Public Library located at 485 DeMott Lane, Somerset, NJ.
The Bid Documents may be obtained directly from the Architect’s office as an electronic PDF document. Bidders must request bid documents via email at office@aiarchs.com. All questions regarding the project should be directed to the Architect and received in writing only via email to: office@aiarchs.com. All questions or Requests for Information are to be submitted no later than 12:00pm on November 9, 2026.
Bidders electing to receive the specifications from a third party, or any other service or entity assume the responsibility of ensuring they receive any issued revisions or addenda.
Bids must be accompanied by a guarantee in the amount of 10% of the bid total, but not in excess of $20,000.00, in the form of a certified check, cashier’s check made payable to “Franklin Township Public Library” or bid bond.
Bids must be accompanied by consent of surety regardless of whether a check or Bid Bond is submitted. The Successful Bidder will be required to furnish an acceptable Performance and Labor and Material Payment Bond.
Bidders must be authorized to do business in New Jersey. Any Bidder which is a corporation not chartered under the laws of the State of New Jersey, must submit an affidavit certifying that said corporation is authorized to do business in the State of New Jersey.
Bidders must be registered with the Department of Labor and are required to comply with the requirements of Public Law 1999, c.238, “The Public Works Contractor Registration Act”, which became effective on April 11, 2000.
Bidders and their subcontractors must comply with the New Jersey Business Registration requirements.
Bidders shall comply with the requirements of N.J.S.A. 40A:11-2.1 and N.J.S.A. 52:32-55 et seq. (P.L. 2022, c.3) respecting the disclosure of prohibited Russia-Belarus & Iran Investment Activities.
Bidders are required to comply with the requirements of Public Law 1975, c. 127 which pertains to “Non-Discrimination” and “Affirmative Actions”, and Public Law 1977, c. 33, which requires a Statement of Corporate Ownership.
Bidders are required to comply with the requirements of N.J.S.A. 10:5-31 et. seq. and N.J.A.C. 17:27.
Contractor shall maintain all documentation related to products, transactions or services under this contract for a period of five (5) years from the date of final payment. Such records shall be made available to the New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller upon request. N.J.A.C. 17:44-2.2.
New Jersey law requires public work contractor registration and payroll certification for public work projects to be completed online at https://njwages.nj.gov/. In addition to receiving certified payrolls via the Hub, agencies must still receive certified payroll via hard copy from contractors and subcontractors. See N.J.S.A. 34:11-56.51, N.J. S.A 34:11-56.29.
January Adams, Director
Franklin Township Public Library
485 DeMott Lane
Somerset, NJ 08873
George Washington Jonson is determined to forge a new life. After growing up in one of Atlanta’s poorest housing projects, he enlists in the U.S. Army and finds some relief serving abroad. When events lead him back home, he joins the police force. It’s 1992, and Jonson is patrolling the streets he grew up on alongside his new partner, a shady legacy cop and self-described “redneck” who takes Jonson under his wing.
After a decade on the job, Jonson has fashioned a new life in an affluent suburb with his white wife and stepson, though he’s still policing his old neighborhood, and now tasked with training hot-headed rookie recruits. One night on patrol a split-second confrontation with a white teenager takes a violent turn. That single gunshot sets into motion a series of escalating lies.
When the white-washed veneer of Jonson’s life begins to crack, the story splits, presenting two contrasting versions of the American experience as he’s forced to confront the history that shaped him and the compromises required of a good man in a broken system.
PEN/Faulkner finalist and National Book Award longlisted author, T. Geronimo Johnson weaves together a witty and unpredictable story about race, police violence, and identity. Want another book that touches on racism in a homicide investigation? Try The Trees.
Nate Yellow Tail is one of the survivors of the deadly revenge murders of Stephen Graham Jones’s The Only Good Indians. Five years after the massacre on the Blackfeet reservation, Nate finds himself in the hospital after a terrible accident that should’ve killed him and that nearly killed his best friend Sebby, who is hanging onto life in a room a few doors down. Given the chance to reset his life, Nate steps up–and into a camper van with three older Blackfeet, to find the bones of the lone boy who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and repatriate him home. The problem is, when they get the bones, something terrible has escaped with them.
Fresh off winning a Nebula Award, a Locus Award, and a Stoker Award for 2025’s The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, one of the most important voices in modern horror today returns to the story of Nate Yellow Tail.
Other Worlds Than These is the story of Jack Sawyer, whom readers first met when he was twelve, crossing America and “the territories” to save his mother’s life, and met again in Black House, where Jack faces a child killer and the Crimson King (among other evils). In Other Worlds Than These, Jack must stop a rampaging gang of infected teenagers from America-side, and the forces of the mysterious Gullet at the edge of Mid-World, before it destroys our world and all worlds. Jack is older now; his Ka-tet (echoing the world of Roland) is fraying; and his task, nearly impossible.
Stephen King returns to finish the work he started with the late Peter Straub in 1984’s The Talisman and 2001’s Black House.
Find the receiver. Make it real.
At 5:35 p.m. on September 3, 1988, Dallas weatherman Ray “Can You Say Sunshine” Davino makes passing reference to Public Access Afterworld during a rambling monologue, right before he puts a gun to his head on live television and pulls the trigger.
On June 12, 2009, David Sawyer and Erin Morrison, two lonely, TV-obsessed suburban teens who might be falling in love, gather in Erin’s basement to watch TV’s analog-to-digital transition. But in the static that follows, Erin witnesses surreal broadcasts from a pirate TV network called Public Access Afterworld, and their lives are changed forever.
Seventeen years later, Bethany Peters toils through the night shift at megacorp GlobalVill’s bleak Austin campus. A trans content moderator, she spends her evenings reviewing an endless stream of horrific videos. But then a young streamer begins to crop up in her feed calling out to Public Access Afterworld.
But what is Public Access Afterworld?
From the filmmaker who made I Saw the TV Glow comes a decades spanning novel sure to spook readers. Want more creepy TV horror? Try Kiersten White’s Mister Magic.
Being a killer comes easy to Dani. So easy that it’s getting boring. When she happens across a Help Wanted ad looking for a killer…she’s intrigued. Jeika wants to die. Preferably, before the cops who are on her tail find the evidence to prove what she did. Except the only one who can help her do that is also the one who’s starting to make her life interesting again. The last thing Dani expects is to fall for her next victim through the secret emails they share. But before they can decide if their new love is enough to change their very opposite fates, a twisted vigilante starts stalking them both. They may not be ready to fight for themselves, but how far will they go to save each other?
This romance-thriller mash-up is sure entertain. Looking for a similar read? Try Tess Sharpe’s No Body No Crime.
Professional thief and inveterate trickster Kinch Na Shannack has always enjoyed a good book. But now his life, and the future of all of Manreach, depends on him deciphering a very bad book indeed; a stolen, sentient tome that tries to kill him every time he opens it—and often when it’s closed.
This sequel to Buehlman’s The Blacktongue Thief is sure to be another exciting journey.
A year ago, Cass, Peter, and Dandy were strangers in the seaside town of Maple Bay, Nova Scotia, who teamed up to search for a missing stash of pirate jewels. Though they didn’t find the goods, Cass wrote a book about the experience. The night before it’s set to publish, Dandy’s cousin, Cookie, tells Dandy and Cass that she knows about more lost treasure on nearby Breakneck Island. The MacLeary family took care of Breakneck’s lighthouse for generations before disappearing in 1932, Cookie says, and rumors claim they left behind a fortune. The next morning, Cookie is found dead at home. Meanwhile, Peter becomes involved with a colleague, who asks Peter to explore Breakneck Island with him one-on-one. Everyone winds up landing on the shores of the island on the same day, only to discover they have some ruthless competition for the MacLeary family’s lost fortune.
Ryan’s sequel to The Treasure Hunters Club promises to be another thrilling adventure with the characters from the first book.
When a fallen tree causes a five-car pileup on a dark, forested road, the occupants seek refuge in the only place around: a near-empty dive bar. With no cell service and a storm raging outside, the five strangers are forced to wait it out together. But something is off about the woman sitting alone at the bar. One of the drivers swears they saw her standing in the road right before the crash, and there’s something about the woods outside that fills them with an unnatural dread. As psychological unease creeps in and tensions escalate, the group becomes desperate to unravel the threads that tie them together before facing whatever waits for them outside in the night.
Final Destination meets The Twilight Zone in this supernatural horror tale. For a similar read, check out The Midnight Knock.
Whether it’s a local indie bookshop, an online megaretailer, or a chain bookstore, the place we buy books is an essential part of our reading lives. Bookstores connect books to potential buyers and convert idle browsers into committed readers. Yet, as historian Andrew Pettegree reveals, it took more than five centuries after Gutenberg for bookstores as we know them to emerge.
The Bookshop tells a sweeping history of the bookstore. It celebrates the ingenuity of booksellers, from the smugglers who carried contraband books across borders, to the innovators who created the global distribution networks that define books and bookselling today. Even though few bookshops lasted more than a few years during the best of times, booksellers relentlessly sought new ways to get books to readers. Innovators like the squabbling dealers who invented the secondhand bookstore, or Victorian capitalists like W. H. Smith, who built an empire of railroad station book stalls to serve idle passengers, made bookselling what it is today.
A global history of bookstores, from the time before the printing press all the way to our present. Want more bookstore history? Check out The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore.
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Do you know who or what is on the ballot?
Do you know where to vote?
You can use our new Voting and Elections Resource Guide to answer these questions and more!
Library Board of Trustees Meeting
Wednesday, May 27 @ 5:45 PM at the DeMott Lane Branch (Robert S. Mettler Historical Room).
This meeting is open to the public. For minutes and recordings of previous meetings please click here.
Library Board of Trustees Meeting
Wednesday, March 25 @ 5:45 PM at the DeMott Lane Branch (Robert S. Mettler Historical Room).
This meeting is open to the public. For minutes and recordings of previous meetings please click here.
When Saint Sebastian’s School becomes the target of a shocking arson spree, the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and their surrounding New Orleans community are thrust into chaos.
Patience is a virtue, but punk rocker turned nun Sister Holiday isn’t satisfied to just wait around for officials to return her home and sanctuary to its former peace, instead deciding to unveil the mysterious attacker herself. Her investigation leads her down a twisty path of suspicion and secrets, turning her against colleagues, students, and even fellow Sisters along the way. And to piece together the clues of this high-stakes mystery, she must at last reckon with the sins of her own past.
An exciting start to a bold series that breathes new life into the hard-boiled genre, Scorched Grace is a fast-paced and punchy whodunnit that will keep readers guessing until the very end.
Scorched Grace is a hard-boiled noir mystery featuring a punk-rock nun, Sister Holiday, who recoils against convent life. At the same time, she finds comfort her new order’s mission to improve the community. Rejected by her own strict Catholic parents for being queer she later finds acceptance and purpose amongst the Sisters of the Sublime Blood.
Sister Holiday’s investigation is a slow burn. Douaihy’s language throughout the novel is languid and focuses heavily on Sister Holiday’s internal life, her passion, and the events of her life both past and present that drive her forward. The focus on Sister Holiday and her past makes the novel feel more like a character study rather than a pure mystery.
Sister Holiday is an unconventional lead and an even more unconventional nun. Her history and her beliefs often fly contrary to some of the rigid dogma of Catholicism. At the same time, she is steadfast in her faith. Her struggle to live her beliefs makes her feel profoundly real.
Scorched Grace is a slow read with a focus on character and introspection. The novel also does not shy away from Sister Holiday’s past; one that includes both trauma and her experiences in the New York punk scene. Mystery readers willing to take a chance on something more unconventional will be rewarded.
We choose our own gods here.
Karys Eska is a deathspeaker, locked into an irrevocable compact with Sabaster, a terrifying eldritch being―three-faced, hundred-winged, unforgiving―who has granted her the ability to communicate with the newly departed. She pays the rent by using her abilities to investigate suspicious deaths around the troubled city she calls home. When a job goes sideways and connects her to a dying stranger with some very dangerous secrets, her entire world is upended.
Ferain is willing to pay a ludicrous sum of money for her help. To save him, Karys inadvertently binds him to her shadow, an act that may doom them both. If they want to survive, they will need to learn to trust one another. Together, they must journey to the heart of a faded empire, all the while haunted by arcane horrors, and the unquiet ghosts of their pasts.
And all too soon, Karys knows her debts will come due.
Written by South African author Kerstin Hall Asunder is a dark fantasy novel that touches on themes of classism, religion, and even love. Set in a world where a group of magic users tied to powerful beings called Ephirits have won their position by overthrowing competing magic users. Asunder takes a show-not-tell approach to its world building. Hall often throws in words and phrases specific to the world of Asunder; phrases like hallowfire, The Embrace, and Silkess are offered up early with little-to-no initial explanation. However, close readers and those willing to just enjoy the ride can glean meaning based on context and descriptions.
Readers primarily experience the world through the eyes of Karys Eska. Over the course of the novel readers will learn the details of Karys’ life and how the trauma of her past informs her relationships in the present. Hall takes great care in revealing these details. In effort to save Ferrain’s life Karys unintentionally binds him to herself. Fundamentally alone her whole life the forced closness to Ferrain finally sees the deathspeaker confronting her trauma directly.
Along the way Karys is joined by several additional companions, her childhood friend Haeki and a scholar named Winola. Haeki and Winola are perhaps not drawn as clearly as Karys or Ferain but both work as foils for Karys. With Winola offering insight into Karys’ study into magic as well as a deeper glimpse of the world’s magic. Meanwhile, Haeki serves as a direct link to Karys’ past offering insight into what she went through growing up.
Asunder doesn’t shy away from violence though neither does it revel in it. Hall has an assured and delicate hand when discussing the trauma of Karys’ past. The novel doesn’t wallow in its darker themes; it confronts them matter-of-factly. Asunder isn’t the type of book that is going to leave you feeling warm and fuzzy, but it will leave you wanting more.
In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn’t remember who he is, where he’s from, or even his own name. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history, and feel its power.
In the Bronx, a Lenape gallery director discovers strange graffiti scattered throughout the city, so beautiful and powerful it’s as if the paint is literally calling to her.
In Brooklyn, a politician and mother finds she can hear the songs of her city, pulsing to the beat of her Louboutin heels.
And they’re not the only ones.
Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York? She’s got six.
With The City We Became multi-Hugo winning author N. K. Jemisin has written a novel-length love letter to New York City. Jemisin doesn’t pull any punches when describing the city. The novel recognizes both the dream the city represents and the ugly and beautiful truths of its past and present.
The novel explores the concept of genius loci, in modern terms what we would call “the spirit of a place.” In The City We Became cities when they’ve grown rooted in a place, developed a culture and an identity of their own wake up. They are embodied by a person who becomes the city able to wield the city’s spiritual power in its defense. New York, being New York, doesn’t awaken one single individual but six. One for each borough, embodying the attitude and nature of their home, and sixth that unifies them. The disparate nature of New York’s awakening makes them a prime target for a vengeful and enigmatic entity that has been hunting these awakened cities since the dawn of time.
In terms of genre The City We Became is difficult to classify. It resides at the intersection of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, most often occupied by what is known as weird fiction. Indeed, The City We Became, reckons with the racist themes espoused by one of the fathers of weird fiction, H. P. Lovecraft both discussing them directly and by incorporating elements of the mythos into the narrative.
The City We Became is a weird and wonderful book. Jemisin artfully characterizes each borough both as individual characters with lives, pasts, hopes, and dreams that existed prior to becoming a physical manifestation of the city itself. Each character mirrors the melting pot that is New York; even before their awakening they are not anyone one thing in terms of sexual orientation, race, culture, or gender. It is that very nature that makes them so quintessentially New York.
The City We Became is highly recommended for any reader willing to take a chance on something a little strange.
One October morning, Laina gets the news that her brother has been shot and killed by Boston cops. But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger.
Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it.
As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence. A professor follows a missing friend’s trail of bread crumbs to a mysterious secret society. And a young boy with unique abilities seeks refuge in a pro-monster organization with secrets of its own. Meanwhile, more people start disappearing, suicides and hate crimes increase, and protests erupt globally, both for and against the monsters. At the center is a mystery no one thinks to ask: Why now? What has frightened the monsters out of the dark? The world will soon find out.
For myself No Gods, No Monsters was a challenging read. The timeline of the novel, particularly towards the end, can get confusing. The novel features a shifting perspective alternating between a first-person perspective and a third person omniscient perspective sometimes in the same chapter. This shifting perspective is deliberate and integral to the plot but can make the novel feel like it is moving in fits and starts.
Difficulties aside No Gods, No Monsters is a worthwhile read for those willing to give it the time and attention it deserves. Through the lens of an urban fantasy Turnbull uses monsters to examine the notion of liminal spaces and liminality. Things that are neither here nor there; this nor that. Each of the novel’s characters, human or monster, embody this principle in different ways. Whether it’s Ridley, an asexual trans man in an open marriage, or Dragon both a boy and a dragon; each character is not just one thing. Each struggle to belong in a world that is most comfortable when everything is neatly defined.
As reveled towards the end of the novel No Gods, No Montsers is a play on the anarchist phrase No gods, no masters. It has been used by labor movements and was used by Margaret Sanger as the tagline for her journal “The Woman Rebel.” Here, modified in its wording, the phrase is used by demonstrators to show their support for removing the stigma of “monster” and as a rallying cry for including the Other as part of a greater society as whole.
If you are looking for a fast-paced urban fantasy read about monsters No Gods, No Monsters is not the book for you. If you are looking for a nuanced examination of oppression, inclusion, and identity No Gods, No Monsters is in your wheelhouse. While novel ends with revelations it does not end with resolution. Thankfully, readers can move straight into Turnbull’s sequel We Are the Crisis.
