I was 6 pages into Love is Red when I realized my heart was pounding. Pounding enough to notice, which is not normal. Sophie Jaff’s novel opens with a seduction scene—told from the perspective of an unnamed man who woos a woman at a bar. The action inevitably moves to the woman’s apartment, but this is not a crude encounter, Jaff’s writing is as smooth and well-paced as ... Read More...
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
Bill Clegg's Did You Ever Have a Family was one of my favorite debuts for 2015. It came out last week in paperback so if you missed it last year you need to get after it now. A wonderful novel that lends itself to book club/reading group discussions. If you take a major event and separate out all the people involved in that event—whether responsible for it or ... Read More...
Everyone Brave is Forgiven
Novels about World War II have opened with any number of emotions but I’m relatively certain that Chris Cleave has the market cornered in Everyone Brave is Forgiven, when he begins with eighteen-year-old Mary North gaily volunteering fifteen minutes after Britain declares war on Germany. It will be exciting and a lark! Even after she finds out that all she’ll be doing is ... Read More...
Back to Moscow
Having recently read and adored The Tsar of Love and Techno I wasn’t sure I needed another book about contemporary Russian life. Happily, I ignored myself and read Back to Moscow anyway. Guillermo Erades’ novel looks at the modern day Russian experience from the microcosm of a young man in Moscow. Martin is twenty-four and has arrived from Europe as a graduate student ... Read More...
Wealthy Women: Mini-Reviews
It’s no secret I like sorbet reading—the kind of fiction that is light on the brain and cleanses my mental palate for the heavier novels that linger in my heart and mind after I’ve finished them. This could also be called chick-lit, but while I think that’s a fun term I know there are plenty of women that think it's offensive. Political correctness aside, what I’m ... Read More...
Miller’s Valley
Miller’s Valley is both the title and location of Anna Quindlen’s new novel. It is a tiny community where Mimi Miller’s family has owned and farmed their land for hundreds of years. Now it’s under threat because the government has decided to use a dam they put in decades ago to divert the river, flooding the town and turning it into a reservoir and a source of hydroelectricity. ... Read More...
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