
- Jun 14
Review of A Marvellous Light (Last Binding #1) by Freya Marske
The first book in Marske's duology is full of Edwardian England detail, gay love, mystery, magic, wonderful dialogue and banter, and...

- Jun 2
Review of The Impossible Destiny of Cutie Grackle by Shawn K. Stout
Stout's recently published middle-grade story is irresistibly strange, full of difficulties and a tough young heroine's gritty...

- Jun 1
Review of Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
Young Mungo offers a striking story of disappointment, abuse, Protestant-Catholic conflict, and a young, gay love forged in the intensely...

- May 25
Review of The Love of My Life by Rosie Walsh
In The Love of My Life, Rosie Walsh offers a twisty contemporary fiction novel and psychological thriller centered around a fascinating...

- May 3
Review of Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett
In Unlikely Animals, Hartnett's irresistible, oddball tragicomedy with heart, characters explore the limits and solidity of friendship...

- Apr 19
Review of Let's Not Do That Again by Grand Ginder
Much of Ginder's novel is focused on a revenge fantasy, but I was drawn more to Nancy Harrison's strong personality and political...

- Apr 7
Review of A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham
Willingham's debut thriller offers an unreliable narrator haunted by her father's decades-old serial killing--and her horrifying...

- Apr 5
Review of What Happened to the Bennetts by Lisa Scottoline
Scottoline's suspenseful mystery offers surprising depth in exploring grief while the main protagonist takes justice into his own hands...

- Mar 30
Review of The Oceanography of the Moon by Glendy Vanderah
The Oceanography of the Moon reads like a romance, with superlative moments, emotional encounters with art and music, and clean...

- Mar 17
Review of Honor by Thrity Umrigar
The issues Umrigar confronts in Honor are weighty and fascinating, but I found myself distracted by the story's pacing and an...

- Mar 9
Review of Our Woman in Moscow by Beatriz Williams
Williams's historical fiction mystery--based on real-life double agents in the Cambridge Spy Ring--is vividly set in Europe and Russia...

- Mar 3
Review of How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
Nagamatsu's science fiction centers around a resurgence of an ancient Arctic plague. These interconnected stories are odd, fascinating,...

- Mar 2
Review of The Unsinkable Greta James by Jennifer E. Smith
I enjoyed the glimpses of Alaska and peeks into Greta's musical inspirations and aspirations, although I remained confused about why her...

- Feb 23
Review of The Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart
This Depression-era-set historical fiction story tracks characters in intensely difficult situations as they successfully fight for...

- Feb 18
Review of Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi
This peek into a childhood in Kabul and a lifetime of searching and yearning is luminous and vivid in Hashimi's hands. What will this...

- Feb 10
Review of Out of Love by Hazel Hayes
I loved the idea of a relationship story told in reverse, but Out of Love touched on weighty topics that seemed to warrant deeper...

- Feb 8
Review of My Heart Went Walking by Sally Hanan
Hanan's 1980s Irish coming-of-age story is full of angst, secrets, life-and-death danger, youthful determination--and the feeling that...

- Jan 27
Review of The Last Green Valley by Mark Sullivan
Mark Sullivan explores a gripping, detailed, life-and-death period in the life of an ethnically German family at the end of World War II...

- Jan 12
Review of Betty by Tiffany McDaniel
Betty is based on the author's family stories of difficulties, abuse, tragedies, and a hardscrabble life in the Appalachian foothills of...

- Dec 13, 2021
Review of Beneath a Starless Sky by Tessa Harris
Harris's action-packed World War II story moves between the terrors of 1930s Germany and the glamour of Hollywood, and it details the...