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...
I Hope This Finds You Well
Apparently, the reading gods have taken pity on me this fall because I’m on a roll with FUN, entertaining, reading. Case in point: I Hope This Finds You Well, a debut from Canadian author Natalie Sue. This novel’s main ingredient is humor, but she blends it into something with more depth as one introverted office worker has to attend HR training to improve her attitude or lose ... Read More...
What Happened to Nina?
When What Happened to Nina? opens we meet Nina, a vivacious 20-year-old who loves being outside. She’s with her boyfriend Simon at his parents’ vacation home in Vermont and they’re preparing to go out on a climb. This day is the first and last time we’ll hear from Nina. From this point on, when she doesn’t return from the trip, this fiendishly devised tale is a book ... Read More...
The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn
When three members of my family rave about a novel, I really don’t have much choice but to read it, which is how I found myself immersed in the early days of WWII with a young Ukrainian sniper. A female sniper fighting on the front lines in Kate Quinn’s propulsive The Diamond Eye. Lyudmila Pavlichenko is still a teen and a single mother when Hitler invades Russian ... Read More...
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
Margo is 19 and languishing at community college when she is swept into an affair with a married professor. She ends up pregnant and decides to have the baby. What follows in Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a story and characters that are frustrating, quirky, and endearing. Let’s jump right into the frustrating. My pragmatic nature trampled my romantic side decades ago so a ... Read More...
The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding
The euphoria felt in England at the end of World War II was slowly replaced by the realities of an eviscerated economy and the continued need for rationing. The engagement of the much-loved Princess Elizabeth to a dashing naval officer and prince was a ray of sunshine for a worn-out country. And for any woman who’s ever dreamed of a wedding what could be more ... Read More...
