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Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

July 7, 2017

midnight

  I’m a sucker for fiction about books and bookstores so to find a novel about them that is also set in Denver, Colorado (where I lived and still have family living) means I didn’t have any choice but to read Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore. Add in the fact that in the first ten pages, Lydia, a kindhearted bookseller, discovers Joey, one of her favorite misfit ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: debut, murder, mystery, Scribner

Great Summer Reading: The Windfall

June 26, 2017

windfall

The first month of summer is wrapping up so before things get too far along I have a week’s worth of great books to share. Each one makes for perfect summer reading!   It is every entrepreneur’s dream to have their creation sell for a boatload of money. For Mr. Jha the dream comes true when his website is bought for $20 million—the kind of money that changes lives. ... Read More...

9 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, Crown, cultural, debut, family, India, wealth

Fake Plastic Love

May 18, 2017

fake

  After almost five years of writing about books I kind of thought I’d seen it all. Not literally or in every way, but I firmly believed that plot and prose were inextricably intertwined. The best prose couldn’t save a bad plot and vice versa. Today I have to back off that belief because I just read a book that I really liked, but with writing that made me a little nutty. ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: coming-of-age, contemporary life, debut, Flatiron Books, friendship, Manhattan, new adult, retellings

Salt Houses: A Novel

May 15, 2017

salt

There are plenty of times when fiction ventures into territory that is unfamiliar—in fact, that’s one of the reasons I love it so much. But Salt Houses, the debut novel from Hala Alyan is about a subject that I almost can’t wrap my mind around. The fact of having been driven out, by force or war, from not just your home, but virtually every country where you’ve settled. For ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, debut, family saga, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Middle East, war

The Witchfinder’s Sister

May 3, 2017

witchfinder

  The Witchfinder’s Sister is Beth Underdown’s dark novel of dark times. It’s 1600s England and Alice is pregnant, her husband is dead and she must return to live with her brother whom she hasn’t seen in five years. Her brother who wanted to become a minister, but due to their father’s death had to earn a living as a scribe. Now grown, he has become the man charged with ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 1600s, Ballantine, book clubs, debut, England

Feast of Sorrow: A Novel of Ancient Rome

April 24, 2017

feast

  One of the grandest things that can happen to a reader is coming across a book with a new perspective on a subject they’ve read about extensively. Recently, I read Crystal King’s Feast of Sorrow, a novel about Italy in the time of Caesar Tiberius, because, hello, I read all of the Colleen McCullough Masters of Rome books and just finished reading a novel about Nero. I ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: debut, food, historical fiction, Italy, Touchstone

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