Summertime is thriller time. There’s something about the pacing, when it’s done right, that matches the weather to my brain—overheated and a bit frenetic. The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy is my most recent venture into twisted turn thriller territory. Molloy doesn’t go for subtle in choosing a plot guaranteed to ratchet up the tension: an infant disappears from his mother’s ... Read More...
The Map of Salt and Stars
Making maps is the fulcrum for Jennifer Joukhadar’s debut novel, The Map of Salt and Stars. Rawiya and Nour are young women who tell their stories side by side even though they are separated by almost a thousand years. Rawiya is a sixteen-year-old in ancient Ceuta who longs to see the world beyond her village so she leaves home in the guise of a young man and becomes an ... Read More...
Heart Berries: A Memoir
It’s hard, as a reviewer, to say you loved a book or felt deeply touched by it, but that you’re not sure you understood a lot of it. And by understand, I mean, literally, the facts. This is the case for me regarding Terese Mailhot’s memoir, Heart Berries. The emotion of it gripped me. The symbolism of her words is a cold, clear stream—shocking and cleansing. For much of the ... Read More...
American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent
Like some of the other non-fiction books I read last month (Educated, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark), American Radical by Tamer Elnoury reads like fiction. High-wire tension, thriller kind of reading. Tamer Elnoury (not his real name) is an undercover FBI agent. He was brought here from Egypt by his parents when he was a small boy. English is his first language and he speaks ... Read More...
A Lady’s Guide to Selling Out
Let’s not beat around the bush: I’m a sucker for a clever book cover and when I saw A Lady’s Guide to Selling Out I knew I wanted to read the book, even if the title didn’t wow me. I mean, please…her skirt is a book! I want it. Add to that this is a novel about a young woman who got an English degree because she loved books and reading so much, only to discover that ... Read More...
The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani
Set in 1947 The Night Diary is the story of twelve-year-old twins, Amil and Nisha, who live in what was once India but has now, almost overnight, turned into Pakistan. Their mother, who died giving birth, was Muslim, but their father is Hindu—making them unwelcome where they are. They must get across the border into India and begin a new life away from everyone they have known ... Read More...
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- …
- 54
- Next Page »
