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The House of Hawthorne

May 6, 2015

hawthorne

Erika Robuck is an author who loves to explore the lives of other authors through her fiction. She continues this tradition in her latest, The House of Hawthorne, by following Sophia Peabody as she is courted by and eventually weds Nathaniel Hawthorne. With her outstanding attention to detail and thorough research Robuck uses Sophia’s perspective to provide insight into her ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, historical fiction, NAL, New England, writers' lives

Free Range Reading: Tinkers

December 8, 2014

tinkers

Tinkers opens with George Crosby, lying on a bed in the living room of the home he built himself, as his mind swirls and flows between the reality of his family gathered to bid him goodbye to the most exquisite reminiscences on life itself and his place in its great tiled framework. …I will remain a set of impressions porous and open to combination with all of the other ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, family, literary, New England

Belzhar: A Novel

October 1, 2014

belzhar

  Imagine a small boarding school for “fragile” teens in rural Vermont and within that school an exclusive English class to which only 4 or 5 students are handpicked to join. With this Meg Wolitzer makes her debut in YA fiction. Having read and loved The Interestings, her last adult novel, I knew I had to give Belzhar a try. The school is The Wooden Barn and Jamaica (known as ... Read More...

8 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, coming-of-age, Dutton, magical realism, New England, young adult

The Arsonist

July 25, 2014

arsonist

  In Sue Miller’s The Arsonist Frankie Rowley has returned to the small town of Pomeroy, New Hampshire- a beach town where she spent summers with her family and where her parents, Alylvia and Alfie, have now retired. She has left behind her life in Africa where she spent years working for an organization that helps feed children. She hopes that a quiet summer at the beach will ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary fiction, Knopf, literary, New England

The Headmaster’s Wife

March 3, 2014

headmasters wife

Some books are written with the intent to stun a reader with surprise and don’t offer much beyond that. Others, like The Headmaster's Wife by Thomas Christopher Greene, use the surprise (the double surprise, even) as a jumping off point to much deeper issues. It is also a life lesson, one that I failed, because I jumped without thought into the novel’s initial trope of a ... Read More...

15 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, mystery, New England, suspense, Thomas Dunne Books

Mercy Snow

January 15, 2014

mercy snow

  I’m not a mystery/thriller aficionado so I can’t pretend to know all of the various plot types but from my limited experience there are two ways to go: the-questions-keep-coming, working up to a sonic boom of truth or the reader is in on the mystery and it’s a race to the finish to see if anyone in the cast will figure it out in time. Both ways work, depending on how well ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, Grand Central Publishing, mystery, New England

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