15 Monday Nov 2021
Posted in 20th century, Fiction, murder, murder and investigation
Tags
college teachers, murderers, mythology, psychological fiction, secret societies, truthfulness and falsehood, University of Cambridge
13 Saturday Jun 2020
“What makes Simon Fitch so perfect?
-He knows all her favorite foods, music, and movies.
-Her son adores him. He was there when she needed him most.
-He anticipates her every need.
-He would never betray her like her first husband.
The perfect husband. He checks all the boxes. The question is, why?” (Amazon)
“Mother doesn’t always know best in this thrill ride of a novel…gripping and twisted.” ―Karin Slaughter, bestselling author of The Good Daughter
“Plenty of twists…will keep you turning the pages as you guess…and guess again.” ―Lisa Scottoline, New York Times bestselling author of After Anna
“An acute, sensitive portrayal of family love under extreme stress…[with] a touch of Hitchcock.” ―William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob
03 Tuesday Oct 2017
A group of contestants are filming a survival reality show when a disease strikes the real world. However, isolated in the wilderness, the contestants have no idea, and believe everything they encounter is part of the TV show. This is a gripping story that is hard to put down.
“The TV show Survivor meets Cormac McCarthy’s The Road in Oliva’s stellar debut. . . Fueled by brilliantly intimate and insightful writing as well as an endearing and fully realized female lead, this apocalyptic novel draws its power from Zoo’s realizations about society and herself as she struggles to survive long enough to somehow make it back to her home.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Part wilderness-survival thriller and part dystopian pandemic story . . . a gripping portrayal of an ordinary person’s evolving survival instincts as she realizes she can’t trust the reality she sees.”—Booklist
05 Monday Jun 2017
This is a mesmerizing examination of a marriage gone wrong. They had agreed to separate but he makes her promise to tell no one quite yet. Then he disappears and his mother convinces her to find him…somewhere in Greece…..I couldn’t relax until I knew the outcome!
“Accomplished… a coolly unsettling work.” —New York Times Book Review
“A spare and stunning portrait of a marital estrangement… [B]uilds into a hypnotic meditation on infidelity and the unknowability of one’s spouse. In precise and muted prose, the entire story unspools in the coolly observant mind of a young woman… A minutely observed novel of infidelity unsettles its characters and readers.” —Kirkus [starred review]
18 Wednesday Jan 2017
Posted in Fiction
I call it (with tongue in cheek) Hamlet Redux….a funny, engaging tale of murder, intrigue, deceit, and political commentary told (in incredibly graceful prose) from the viewpoint of a nine month old fetus. McEwan is truly a 21rst century Shakespeare.
“With Nutshell, Ian McEwan has performed an incongruous magic trick … A smart, funny and utterly captivating novel … A small tour de force that showcases all of Mr. McEwan’s narrative gifts of precision, authority and control, plus a new, Tom Stoppard-like delight in the sly gymnastics that words can perform.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“As an example of point of view, you can look no farther than these gorgeous pages, which not only prove that brevity is the soul of wit but also offer the reader a voice both distinctive and engaging … The reader [will be] speeding through every page, each one rife with wordplay, social commentary, hilarity, and suspense … Hats off to Ian McEwan.”—Mameve Medwed, Boston Globe
21 Wednesday Sep 2016
Posted in Fiction
An immediate best seller in France for all of 2014! And now the gift of an excellent translator has made it possible for us to experience the gorgeous prose and gripping story that takes place over just 24 hours. After a fatal accident, the heart of 17 year old surfer, Simon Limbres, begins its own journey. The author unflinchingly presents us with the moral questions and the hour by hour complexity of life and death. It is a memorable read that lingers long after the final page.
“I read The Heart in a single sitting. It is a gripping, deceptively simple tale―a death, a life resurrected―in which you follow along as everyone touched by the events is made to reveal what matters most to them in their lives. I was completely absorbed.” ―Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal
“I’ve seldom read a more moving book . . . De Kerangal is a master of momentum, to the extent that when the book ends, the reader feels bereft. She shows that narratives around illness and pain can energize the nobler angels of our nature and make for profoundly lovely art. One longs for more.” ―Lydia Kiesling, The Guardian
14 Monday Dec 2015
Posted in Fiction
Tags
A woman reflects on her life, particularly her relationship with her late sister, who died after driving off a bridge. The novel alternates between past and present, and includes a “novel within a novel” that adds to the mystery surrounding the two sisters’ lives. Margaret Atwood is an acclaimed writer, and this is my favorite of her books that I’ve read.
“Absorbing… expertly rendered… Virtuosic storytelling [is] on display.”–The New York Times
