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Crux by Gabriel Tallent

February 4, 2026

crux

Life in a nowhere town in the Mojave Desert should be torture for teens, but Daniel and Tamma are rock-climbing freaks and the area is filled with challenging boulders. Best friends since childhood they spend every waking moment not in school out on the rocks, but as Crux opens it is senior year. Daniel is a gifted student likely to be accepted at the best schools while Tamma ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: coming-of-age, friendship, literary

More 2024 Reading I Loved

December 30, 2024

more

I’m back with more books I loved in 2024. On Friday I shared the fact that almost all my 5-star favorite books for the year were backlist, but I still wanted to give a shoutout to this wide variety of new releases I thought were wonderful. Each provided me with the escape I wanted in a year that was a lot to handle.   Mysteries and thrillers came on strong for me ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Feature Tagged: book clubs, favorite books, historical, memoir, mystery, thriller, vacation reading

You’d Look Better as a Ghost

July 3, 2024

ghost

When You’d Look Better as a Ghost opens Claire has just found out that a piece of her art has been accepted for a prestigious show. It’s only the next day that she gets another email from the same person letting her know he made a mistake and it’s another woman named Claire who got in. Crushing news for any aspiring artist but these things happen, right? Yes, but not to Claire. ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: debut, humor, mystery, vacation reading

The Queen of Dirt Island

March 8, 2023

queen

The week Saoirse Aylward is born her father is killed in an accident, leaving her mother, Eileen alone to raise her. Their lives in a small village in western Ireland are at the heart of Donal Ryan’s boisterous, tender novel The Queen of Dirt Island. Although the novel stays within the village’s borders it’s an expansive story encompassing four generations of Irish women with ... Read More...

8 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, humor, Ireland, literary

The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness

January 16, 2023

invisible

I don’t often discuss personal issues in this blog, but for those of you who have been around long enough, you know I have multiple sclerosis. Recently, I read a book that resonated so deeply with me I knew it could have the same impact on other readers. The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O’Rourke  is a memoir of sorts about the slippery, nasty nature ... Read More...

9 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Non-fiction Tagged: book clubs, health, medical, memoir

The Displacements

September 28, 2022

displacements

In the late 70s, early 80s disaster books and movies were most often centered around manmade situations—The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, The China Syndrome, and Airport. It was man’s technical overreach that was going to take us down or at least had us worried. The latest crop of disaster novels is again looking at man’s hubris, but in relation to our abuse of the ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: disaster, dystopia, thriller

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