-
Continue reading →: Reviewed: “Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books” by Kirsten Miller
Banning books was all the rage a little while ago. Very trendy and ‘woke’ (or anti-woke, it’s hard to keep these things straight, no pun intended) those who were decreeing what a person could and could not read claimed. That doesn’t get quite as much attention lately, though. Now the…
-
Continue reading →: Reviewed: “Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age” by Kathleen Sheppard
It was sixth grade Social Studies. I forget exactly what Mrs. Melquist was teaching us but I remember a slideshow, and I remember that it included pictures of the treasures found in King Tut’s tomb. That was the first I knew of archaeology and Egyptology. And I was hooked. Not…
-
Continue reading →: Reviewed: “The Perfect Sister” by Stephanie DeCarolis
Stephanie DeCarolis’ latest mystery thriller novel, The Perfect Sister, is the story of Alex Walker’s search for her missing sister in the enclave that is the Hamptons. In short, the Walker sisters don’t belong in the Hamptons and that makes it all the harder to find out what happened that…
-
Continue reading →: Reviewed: “The Wives: A Memoir” by Simone Gorrindo
Reviewing a memoir is never easy because it feels like passing judgment on how someone else lived their life. Simone Gorrindo’s memoir is the story of her life as an Army wife, and in a sense the lives of Army wives more generally speaking. I’m not a military wife and…
-
Continue reading →: Reviewed: “Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America’s Second Slavery” by Earl Swift
Sometimes it’s necessary to read and understand things that make a person uncomfortable. At the risk of sounding pretentious, those are teachable moments. And Earl Swift delivers a profoundly important one with his telling of the so-called ‘Murder Farm Massacre’ in Jasper County, Georgia in 1921. It isn’t easy to…
-
Continue reading →: Reviewed: “The Other Man” by Farhad J. Dadyburjor
Farhad J. Dadyburjor’s The Other Man is a story that delivers the message that it is never too late to claim the identity you want your life to have. It may be absolutely terrifying to face family, friends, and society at large and announce who you want to be and…
-
Continue reading →: Reviewed: “The Divorcées” by Rowan Beaird
Being a lover of historical fiction novels has its pros and cons. A pro is that there are countless different types of historical fiction, though admittedly a lot of them are war-focused, and you’re never at a loss for options. A con is that it’s awfully easy to get stuck…
-
Continue reading →: Reviewed: “Granite Harbor” by Peter Nichols
There are a few keys to a good murder mystery thriller: Granite Harbor gets three of those things almost absolutely right and although the fourth one drags a little, it’s carried by the others for what turns out to be an easily readable murder mystery thriller. The story of murder…
-
Continue reading →: Reviewed: “After Annie” by Anna Quindlen
Anna Quindlen’s novel After Annie doesn’t come out until March 2024 but the hype for it is already building… it should be noted that I’m writing this review in November 2023 because I got hooked by the hype and had received an advance copy of Quindlen’s latest novel so I…
-
Continue reading →: Reviewed: “Across a Broken Shore” by Amy Trueblood
As you’ll see at the end of this review of Amy Trueblood’s Across a Broken Shore, there are things in this story that some people might find hard to read for pleasure. None of it, however, is gratuitous. And so the things that might make a reader uncomfortable; i.e. religious…