There is no shortage of mommy-lit in the world. There are stories (fiction and non-fiction) about nannies, schools, and mothers who work pitted against those who don’t. What is new is Gill Hornby’s debut novel, The Hive, which looks at the uber-competitive world of elementary school from the British mummy’s perspective. St. Ambrose is a school and community that prides ... Read More...
Burial Rites
A young woman is condemned to death in Iceland at a time when there were no jails so a family is ordered to house her for her final months. A young priest is assigned to be her spiritual guide to repentance before her execution. All this in 1828 the summer before Agnes Magnúsdóttir is to be put to death in Hannah Kent’s debut novel, Burial Rites. Agnes has been mistreated her ... Read More...
The Maid’s Version
Daniel Woodrell’s last novel, Winter's Bonewas a contemporary look at a teen’s desperate struggle to save what is left of her family when her drug dealing father skips out on bail. In his latest, The Maid's Version, he returns to the Ozarks but in 1929. He writes of Alma Dunahew, a woman whose mind is so filled with the injuries, insults, and injustices of the past that it ... Read More...
Shorecliff: A Novel
The present then is so thrilling that it is impossible to reflect on it; one can only wait, panting, for the future to unfold. Like almost any child, Richard is looking forward to summer, but as an only child, three months spent with ten cousins is almost too much excitement to bear. It’s 1928 and for the first time in years the entire Hatfield family will be gathering ... Read More...
The Shining Girls
There was a lot of buzz at Book Expo America about Lauren Beukes’s new novel, The Shining Girls, and for good reason. The most often heard synopsis I heard was “Time Traveler’s Wife meets Silence of the Lambs”. If you’re squeamish that may be all you need to know but if you can handle a serial killer who disembowels his victims, Beukes creates a creepy but compelling ... Read More...
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Oftentimes when a book is filled with such outrageous, politically incorrect, hilarious humor it can become one note. Thankfully, when handled by a gifted author with the ability to create multi-faceted characters and situations this is not the case with Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Maria Semple is one of those people whose work you read and think, “I’d really like to go out ... Read More...
