Pacific Northwest Archives - The Gilmore Guide to Books

The Heart of Winter

Catherine — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 07:49:27 +0000

When Abe and Ruth meet on a blind date while students at the University of Washington it’s not love at first sight. In fact, it’s not even like. Ruth finds Abe to be stodgy, full of himself, and boring. He, on the other hand, is captivated by her vivacious personality and her varied interests, even […]

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Bear by Julia Phillips

Catherine — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:28:49 +0000

Small, character driven novels have not been good reading for me recently so I was surprised to be drawn into Bear. Somehow, author Julia Phillips makes the unexpected presence of a large bear in the lives of two downtrodden women magnetic. Elena and Sam are sisters living on an island off the Washington State coast. […]

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A Wild and Heavenly Place

Catherine — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 07:58:10 +0000

A Wild and Heavenly Place by Robin Oliveira begins in 1870s Glasgow where orphaned, teenage Samuel, is living hand-to-mouth working in a shipyard and taking care of his little sister. He’s in love with Hailey, a wealthy girl he admires from afar. Until circumstances throw them together and they begin to fall in love, only […]

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The Return of Ellie Black

Catherine — Tue, 07 May 2024 07:29:52 +0000

A father and son hiking in the forest in Southwestern WA encounter a young woman, emaciated and bruised. Her name is Elizabeth Black and she’s been missing for two years. This is the attention-grabbing opening of Emiko Jean’s new novel The Return of Ellie Black, a tactic she uses superbly right up until the end […]

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Remarkably Bright Creatures

Catherine — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 04:14:11 +0000

Hello, everyone! I’m easing back in today with a novel that melted my curmudgeonly heart. Remarkably Bright Creatures is a debut by Shelby Van Pelt that takes place in Sowell Bay, a fictional small town in northern Washington State. Tova is an elderly woman, who works nights cleaning the town’s aquarium. It’s quiet work that, […]

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If, Then by Kate Hope Day

Catherine — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 07:10:44 +0000

It feels a bit as if alternate realities are all the rage in fiction this year, which is not too surprising if you pay attention to what’s happening in the real world. First, there was The Dreamers, where people fell asleep and dreamed of different lives. Dreams so vivid that upon awaking they believed their […]

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Red Clocks by Leni Zumas

Catherine — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 08:29:42 +0000

From the very beginning reading Red Clocks is like looking through a very grimy window. Everything is tinged with dirt and difficult to see, much less see clearly. Four women, each speaking in alternating chapters and never revealing their names, only their most defining characteristic: the Biographer, the Mender, the Wife, the Daughter. In […]

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5 Star Week: Before the Wind

Catherine — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 07:23:35 +0000

There’s no better way to wrap up a week of fabulous 5 star reading than with one of my favorite books of 2016. Jim Lynch is a Seattle author and this lovely book about a quirky family of sailors works even if you hate water. It just came out in paperback so I’m talking it […]

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Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist

Catherine — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 08:48:19 +0000

Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist is one of those novels that runs on pure adrenaline. Author Sunil Yapa drops the reader into the chaos of the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle with such force that the fight or flight mechanism kicks in and there is no choice but to […]

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Nonfiction November: Book Pairings

Catherine — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 08:40:09 +0000

This week the Nonfiction November folks (Katie at Doing Dewey, Lory at Emerald City Book Review, Rachel at Hibernator’s Library, Julz at Julz Reads and Sarah at Sarah’s Book Shelves) asked for reading pairings—book that complement each other in the way of other pairings like food and wine, clothes and accessories, chocolate and well…chocolate. Here are a […]

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