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The Widow Nash: A Novel

August 1, 2017

widow

  Call me vulgar, but when a book opens with a young woman, a father who’s dying of syphilis, missing money and a murderous ex-fiancé, I’m all in. It’s the early 1900s, the young woman is twenty-four-year-old Dulcy (short of Leda Cordelia Dulcinea) and her father, Walton Remfrey, is an eccentric but brilliant inventor and engineer with a penchant for women (hence the ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 20th century, book clubs, Counterpoint, historical fiction, mystery, women

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

Before the Fall by Noah Hawley

June 7, 2017

mystery

Just in time for vacation reading! Noah Hawley's suspenseful mystery is being released in paperback- which is even better because it makes for easier transport to the beach/pool/porch/hammock/wherever you get to hang out and read in the summer.           True horror, you see, comes not from the savagery of the unexpected, but from ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, Grand Central Publishing, mystery

May Reading Recap

June 2, 2017

May

  To call this month’s reading recap a mashup is an understatement. It could also be the library checkout recap or even the non-fiction recap—which is huge because I’m virtually certain I’ve never read more than one non-fiction book a month, much less four. And on all kinds of subjects! But there you have it. May also turned out to be another monster month for how much I ... Read More...

7 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Feature, Fiction, Non-fiction, Reading Tagged: beauty, Bloomsbury, fashion, food, health, mini-reviews, mystery, William Morrow

Something Wicked This Way Comes: Mini-Reviews

May 24, 2017

Shakespeare

  In a surprising bit of synchronicity, I read two great novels recently that both referenced Shakespeare—which is why the quote from Macbeth for this post’s title. Also, because there is a lot of wicked in both these novels. In New Boy, Tracy Chevalier adapts the very grown-up themes of Othello to 1970s elementary school. Then M.L. Rio uses Shakespeare’s plays as the ... Read More...

8 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: childhood, Flatiron Books, friendship, mini-reviews, mystery, retellings

Burntown: A Novel

May 10, 2017

burntown

  When you are eight-years-old the lines between what is real and what is imagined can still get blurred. So, it might be difficult for Miles to explain to police that he saw a man wearing a chicken mask kill his mother. Except that his statement isn’t even needed—the mask is found in the family’s garage and his father is booked on a murder charge. He commits suicide in ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Doubleday, mystery, New England

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