Happy Independence Day, Delaware! I hope you’re all safely celebrating cooking up hotdogs with the family or maybe even hosting a parade of the kiddos in your backyard. While the library is not celebrating the Fourth like we usually would with our book brigade at parades across the county, we’re certainly celebrating the successful reopening of the Delaware Main Library.

We are so grateful to have seen some of your smiling faces — ok, smiling eyes above helpful facemasks — in the library this week. Thank you to all of our patrons who visited and observed social distancing and wore their masks. We’ve been making the library as safe and clean as possible. When we see you all pitching in, it makes us feel appreciated.

Next week our branch libraries will be opening their doors as well. You’ll be able to visit Orange and Powell branch libraries on Monday, July 6, and the Ostrander Branch Library on Tuesday, July 7. All of our locations will still be offering curbside service to pick up holds and Summer Reading Club prizes.

Oh yes, Summer Reading Club is still going strong despite our limited hours. So keep logging your minutes and hours read, and when you reach six or 12 hours, we’ll have prizes ready for you. Adults can also turn in a bookmark for every four books they read for a prize and an entry for a larger prize.

So, we’re getting back to business but it’s still a holiday weekend. Since many local fireworks shows are canceled, here are a few great romance reads with characters feeling their own fireworks:

• “Mexican Gothic” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

• “The Heir Affair” by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan: After a scandalous secret turns their fairy-tale wedding into a nightmare, Rebecca “Bex” Porter and her husband Prince Nicholas are in self-imposed exile. Cutting themselves off from friends and family, and escaping the world’s judgmental eyes, feels like the best way to protect their fragile, all-consuming romance. But when a crisis forces the new Duke and Duchess back to London, the Band-Aid they’d placed over their problems starts to peel at the edges. Now, as old family secrets and new ones threaten to derail her new royal life, Bex has to face the emotional wreckage she and Nick left behind: with the Queen, with the world, and with Nick’s brother Freddie, whose sins may not be so easily forgotten — nor forgiven.

• “Party of Two” by Jasmine Guillory: Dating is the last thing on Olivia Monroe’s mind when she moves to LA to start her own law firm. An entire night of flirting with a gorgeous man at a hotel bar could change her mind though – until she discovers that he’s hotshot junior senator Max Powell. Max’s determination to win Olivia over proves him to be sweet, funny, and noble – not just some privileged white politician she assumed him to be. Dating in secret is fun at first, but when they finally go public, the intense media scrutiny results in the exposure of Olivia’s rocky past, criticism of her job, and questions about her suitability as a trophy girlfriend.

• “Beach Read” by Emily Henry: Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. The only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block. Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult. Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.