

Review of In Memoriam by Alice Winn
Alice Winn's account of the unrelenting slog of World War I and the beautiful young men set against each other in the trenches serves as...
Jul 30, 2024


Review of The Goddess of Warsaw by Lisa Barr
Lisa Barr's World War II-set historical fiction follows a Jewish resistance fighter and spy through the Warsaw Ghetto to her second act...
Jul 25, 2024


Review of All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker
Whitaker offers several interconnected storylines, and while each one individually appealed to me, I felt a growing lack of connection to...
Jul 23, 2024


Review of The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason
ICYMI: Daniel Mason's atmospheric, mysterious, languorous story is of a shy piano tuner's trip to Burma to get the piano of an eccentric...
Jun 27, 2024


Review of A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
ICYMI: Towles's closed-door tale of a Russian aristocrat under house arrest in a grand Moscow hotel manages to be at times playful,...
Jun 20, 2024


Review of Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
ICYMI: The post-Depression-era city of New York is such a powerful presence in this story, it feels like a main character. I was taken by...
Jun 19, 2024


Six Great Stories about Brave Women During World War II
Tales of Brave World War II Women Other titles I considered listing here were the Bossy five-star read All the Light We Cannot See; The...
Jun 14, 2024


Review of Rednecks by Taylor Brown
In this mix of fictional and fascinating historical elements, Brown crafts a character-driven story of the shocking, widespread, deadly...
Jun 12, 2024


Review of The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger
I was intrigued by the post-World War II repercussions on small-town Minnesota and by the dark secrets coming to light, but found myself...
Apr 18, 2024


Review of The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
Katherine Arden, author of the captivating Winternight trilogy, here shares a mysterious, haunting historical fiction story with a...
Apr 9, 2024


Review of The Excitements by C. J. Wray
C. J. Wray's story of elderly British sisters who played key roles in fighting the enemy in World War II offers lots of heart, sassy...
Mar 27, 2024


Review of People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
ICYMI: I love Geraldine Brooks's stories, and I was intrigued by the detail, the meticulous research behind the tale, and the inspiration...
Mar 21, 2024


Review of The Women by Kristin Hannah
Hannah offers a meaty story about Vietnam and the nurses who served there, suffered, and were largely forgotten or denied; this storyline...
Mar 20, 2024


Review of Pope Joan: A Novel by Donna Woolfolk Cross
Donna Woolfolk Cross offers a fascinating historical fiction tale of a pioneering, headstrong, brilliant figure whose existence has been...
Mar 14, 2024


Review of King Nyx by Kirsten Bakis
The gothic story King Nyx offers haunting imagery, sinister mysteries, unreliable memories, resurfacing past trauma, missing persons,...
Mar 12, 2024


Review of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
The mystery bookends feel largely unimportant to the story, the cast of characters sometimes feels endless, and the story meanders, but...
Mar 6, 2024


Review of The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen
Pylväinen's novel explores the cooperation and conflict among cultures in a mid-nineteenth century community in the Arctic Circle,...
Feb 22, 2024


Review of The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn
The Whalebone Theatre begins with offbeat children's performances on a lazy, decadent English estate in the 1920s and builds to the...
Feb 21, 2024


Review of Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs #1) by Jacqueline Winspear
Maisie Dobbs is a formidable, dogged, whip-smart investigator working to ferret out the truth in the aftermath of World War I in this...
Feb 20, 2024


Review of Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher
Lex Croucher's queer medieval rom-com--the author's debut young-adult novel--is an absolute gem; it's full of excellent banter and lots...
Feb 13, 2024
