01 Friday Jun 2018
Posted in Fiction
Tags
A sweet story of love and friendship with a wonderful overall message; if you liked Jojo Moyes “Me Before You” you’ll like this too.
“Something like Happy is inspiration in a bottle. Author Woods uses her novel- inspired by a social-media hashtag-to explore the exhilaration of new friendship, the power of loss, and the evergreen tendrils of hope.” –Booklist
26 Saturday May 2018
Tags
book editors, crime writing, detective, England, London, murder, mystery
This is a fun, twisty murder mystery within a murder mystery. It’s got some hallmarks of a classic Agatha Christie and a touch of the modern thriller as well. Two mysteries for the price of one, and both are very engrossing.
Each of the narratives in Magpie Murders is engaging and fluid, each with its own charm, though Horowitz’s joyful act of Christie ventriloquism is, in particular, spectacularly impressive. – Washington Post
Magpie Murders is an ingenious, twisting tribute to the sleepy English countryside murder and will thoroughly entertain readers of old fashioned detective thrillers. – New York Journal of Book
An ingenious funhouse mirror of a novel sets a vintage ‘cozy’ mystery inside a modern frame – Wall Street Journal
11 Friday May 2018
Posted in fantasy, Fiction, Science fiction
What happens when women suddenly inherit unlimited power which allows them to inflict pain and/or death to anyone who tries to attack them? Teenage girls start to run amok and the patriarchy is turned on its head for starters…but is the world where women are in charge more peaceful and less violent? The author goes to the extreme to make some points, but there is very interesting social commentary in this one.
“I was riveted by every page. Alderman’s prose is immersive and, well, electric, and I felt a closed circuit humming between the book and me as I read.”―Amal El-Mohtar, New York Times Book Review
“Sometimes lightning does strike the same place twice. Sometimes it strikes a whole bunch of times. In Orange Award winner Naomi Alderman’s chilling The Power, women across the globe discover a sudden ability to harness their aggression by inflicting electric shocks through their fingertips. Fans of speculative fiction (see also: Margaret Atwood and Ben Marcus) about empowered youth will be struck by Alderman’s speedy and thorough inhabitation of a world just different enough from ours to jolt the imagination.” – Sloane Crosley, Vanity Fair
04 Friday May 2018
Tags
crimes against teenage girls, detective, murder investigation, Shetland Scotland, strangling, suspense
When murder strikes a remote hamlet in the Shetland Islands, and the body of a teenage girl turns up in the winter snow, Inspector Jimmy Perez launches an investigation into the killing that takes him into the heart of sinister secrets from the past.
Book One of the Shetland Island Quartet (Shetland Island Mysteries)
“Chilling…enough to freeze the blood.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
“Deserves the top crime writer’s prize in the United States this year. Don’t miss this standout.” —Rocky Mountain News
20 Friday Apr 2018
Posted in Fiction
I loved this book, full of sibling love, magic, and fate. In 1969, 4 siblings (ages 13, 11, 9, and 7) living in NYC hear about a psychic who not only can tell you your fortune, but also the day that you will die. I disagreed with some turns the author took, but overall thought it was very good.
“A family saga about love, destiny, living life and making choices that will cause readers to consider what to do with the time given them on this earth.”—The Huffington Post
“Chloe Benjamin is a novelist to watch….The Immortalists weaves together philosophy and fortune-telling, to great effect….As deft and dizzying as a high-wire act…the reader is beguiled with unexpected twists and stylish, crisp prose….Unwittingly, this ambitious, unorthodox tale may change you too.”—The Economist
13 Friday Apr 2018
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Since its first publication in 1940, Verdict of Twelve has been widely hailed as a classic of British crime writing. This edition offers a new generation of readers the chance to find out why so many leading commentators have admired the novel for so long.
“Verdict of Twelve is a superb piece of writing and makes other horror stories seem flat and undiscerning.” — New Yorker
The prosecution and defense present their cases, and the jury retires to consider aspects of the evidence that would startle the court. The characters are well drawn, at times frighteningly so, and the ending is perversely satisfying. – Publishers Weekly
06 Friday Apr 2018
Posted in 20th century, Fiction, Historical Fiction
Tags
abusive men, Alaska, ex-prisoners of war, families, homesteading, moving household, veterans, Vietnam War 1961-1975, wilderness survival
Kristin Hannah, author of The Nightingale, has done it again. A troubled family consisting of thirteen year old Leni and her parents Ernt and Cora, sets off to Alaska in the 1970’s hoping to find happiness and fulfillment. But they find that the harsh reality of the long dark winter is an unsympathetic teacher. The family learns the terrible truth that there is no one to save them but themselves. A classic coming of age story and survival saga that is highly readable. This book will make you enjoy the Nor’easters of 2018!
Alaska itself and its wildness and beauty is as much a character in this book as the people who are brave enough to live there. “In the vast expanse of this unpredictable wilderness, you will either become your best self and flourish, or you will run away, screaming from the dark and cold and the hardship. There is no middle ground, no safe place, not here, in the Great Alone.” — Kristin Hannah. Beauty versus violence. An excellent read.
“Hannah vividly evokes the natural beauty and danger of Alaska and paints a compelling portrait of a family in crisis and a community on the brink of change.” ―Booklist
“There are many great things about this book…It will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet-like coming of age story and domestic potboiler. She recreates in magical detail the lives of Alaska’s homesteaders…and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America. A tour de force.” ―Kirkus (starred review)
“Hannah skillfully situates the emotional family saga in the events and culture of the late ’70s… But it’s her tautly drawn characters―Large Marge, Genny, Mad Earl, Tica, Tom―who contribute not only to Leni’s improbable survival but to her salvation amid her family’s tragedy.” ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
30 Friday Mar 2018
Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction
Tags
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
This novel is both an absorbing tale of family dynamics and a fascinating look at another culture and time. It’s a big book, but I read it quickly, unable to put it down. This book chronicles an immigrant Korean family living in Japan during most of the 20th century. You might be shocked about the treatment of Korean immigrants in Japan. The characters are well developed and I really cared about them, especially Sunja and her sister-in-law.
“An exquisite, haunting epic…’moments of shimmering beauty and some glory, too,’ illuminate the narrative…Lee’s profound novel…is shaped by impeccable research, meticulous plotting, and empathic perception.”―Booklist (starred review)
“Stunning… Despite the compelling sweep of time and history, it is the characters and their tumultuous lives that propel the narrative… A compassionate, clear gaze at the chaotic landscape of life itself. In this haunting epic tale, no one story seems too minor to be briefly illuminated. Lee suggests that behind the facades of wildly different people lie countless private desires, hopes and miseries, if we have the patience and compassion to look and listen.”―The New York Times Book Review
23 Friday Mar 2018
Posted in Fiction
Tags
African American children, African American families, brothers and sisters, children of prisoners, drug addicts, grandparent and child, Gulf Coast, Mississippi, rural poor
Beautiful and sad, full of ghosts. Ward’s writing reminds me a little of Faulkner, a little of Eudora Welty, while at the same time being completely her own brilliance. Easy to see why she has earned so many awards.
“Sing, Unburied, Sing is many things: a road novel, a slender epic of three generations and the ghosts that haunt them, and a portrait of what ordinary folk in dire circumstances cleave to as well as what they — and perhaps we all — are trying to outrun.”—New York Times Book Review
16 Friday Mar 2018
Posted in Fiction
Curtis Sittenfeld is one of my favorite authors, and this book is one of her lighter and funnier ones. Eligible is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, set in contemporary Cincinnati. The updates for the Bennets, Darcys, and Bingleys are modern and clever, but still maintain the spirit of Jane Austen’s original classic.
“If there exists a more perfect pairing than Curtis Sittenfeld and Jane Austen, we dare you to find it. . . . Sittenfeld makes an already irresistible story even more beguiling and charming.”—Elle
“[Sittenfeld] is the ideal modern-day reinterpreter. Her special skill lies not just in her clear, clean writing, but in her general amusement about the world, her arch, pithy, dropped-mike observations about behavior, character and motivation. She can spot hypocrisy, cant, self-contradiction and absurdity ten miles away. She’s the one you want to leave the party with, so she can explain what really happened. . . . Not since Clueless, which transported Emma to Beverly Hills, has Austen been so delightedly interpreted. . . . Sittenfeld writes so well—her sentences are so good and her story so satisfying. . . . As a reader, let me just say: Three cheers for Curtis Sittenfeld and her astute, sharp and ebullient anthropological interest in the human condition.”—Sarah Lyall, The New York Times Book Review
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