A teenage girl in fear for her life steals both money and a passport to get out of the U.S. and into Ireland in the 1990s. This is the beginning of the novel Saoirse, but it’s nowhere near the beginning of the life of Sarah, the main character. That unspools slowly throughout the book as the years pass and Sarah morphs into Saoirse. She goes from a toxic childhood to a woman ... Read More...
Two Kinds of Stranger
Plot has been my friend for months now so turning to a thriller in a series I’ve loved is no big surprise. Yes, Eddie Flynn, the former grifter turned lawyer is back in Steve Cavanagh’s book, Two Kinds of Stranger. This time he’s representing an Instagram influencer accused of murdering her husband and his mistress, but who claims that the same person was trying to kill her as ... Read More...
Neverworld Wake: A Novel
Beatrice returns from her college freshman year still haunted by the death of her boyfriend senior year. His loss fractured the close-knit popular group they’d been a part of, but when one of them has a party and invites Bea she hopes by seeing the group again she can get the closure she so desperately needs. Instead, in Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl, the party takes an ... Read More...
Lady Tremaine
The wicked stepmother has been a mainstay in fiction since before the Brothers Grimm became grim. No fairy tale was complete without one, but the one in Cinderella was particularly vicious and cruel. So easy to hate. Maybe too easy? Author Rachel Hochhauser decides to remedy that in her novel, Lady Tremaine. This is not a modernization of the original story, but a recasting, a ... Read More...
Battle of the Titans: Mini-Reviews
No battle and no giants here. Instead, I’ve got quick reviews of two chunkster books I read this fall. Chunkster being the technical term for big-ass, over 500 pages each, tomes. Both are set in prehistoric times and are the kind of books you’ll either settle into or set aside. I’ve read a lot of Ken Follett’s historical fiction and he’s yet to disappoint me. His ... Read More...
More Than Enough by Anna Quindlen
Open Anna Quindlen’s new novel More Than Enough and you’ll meet Polly, a happy middle-aged woman. Her husband adores her and she him, she’s an English teacher at all girls’ school, and she has three stalwart, loving friends. Friends who give her a DNA test kit as a gag gift. When there’s a match for a family member she has no knowledge of it tilts the playing board of her life ... Read More...
