M.M. (Mimi) Banning is a southern college drop-out who writes a novel at age 20 that wins the Pulitzer and sells millions of copies, after which time she withdraws from the world, never to write again. Sound familiar? (Hint: Harper Lee). All right, so it is, but from that single point author Julia Claiborne Johnson spins an exuberant tale of snark and intelligence in Be ... Read More...
Mademoiselle Chanel: A Novel
When you think of Chanel it is likely as a luxury brand of clothes, accessories, and perfume. I know for me it is because owning a vintage Chanel suit is on my bucket list. Forget seeing the pyramids, I want that boucle jacket with the gold chain sewn into the lining to make sure it hangs straight. It is fascinating, then, to read C.W. Gortner’s novel, Mademoiselle ... Read More...
Land of Dreams
When Ellie Hogan’s sixteen-year-old son leaves his expensive boarding school and heads across the country to Hollywood she wastes no time in asking questions but gets on a train from New York City and follows him. Once in L.A. she decides that rather than punish the boy she’s going to let him have his chance at fame. It’s 1942 and this is Land of Dreams by Kate Kerrigan. Ellie ... Read More...
Vintage: A Novel
Hourglass Vintage is a charming used clothing shop in Madison, Wisconsin. It is also where three women at very different stages of life meet in Vintage, the debut novel from author Susan Gloss. Violet is the owner, Amithi is a middle-aged Indian woman, who brings in much of her jewelry and clothes to sell, and April is a pregnant eighteen-year-old who thought she would be ... Read More...
The Home Place
Alma Terrebonne is doing well as a corporate lawyer in Seattle until she gets the call that her younger sister Vicky is dead. Suddenly, she has to walk away from one of the biggest deals of her career and head back to Montana, the place where her family has lived for generations. The Home Place is both the title of Carrie La Seur’s debut novel and what the Terrebonne family ... Read More...
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
I saw the world I had walked since my birth and I understood how fragile it was, that the reality I knew was a thin layer of icing on a great dark birthday cake writhing with grubs and nightmares and hunger. I saw the world from above and below. I saw that there were patterns and gates and paths beyond the real. I saw all these things and understood them and they filled me, ... Read More...
