Review of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab
This wonderfully creepy lesbian vampire story is largely about female empowerment, but also about love, discovery, reinvention, and...
Jul 24
Review of An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6) by Deanna Raybourn
While Veronica and Stoker stay close to home while entering into danger and solving the mysteries in book six of this series, Raybourn...
Jul 10
Review of Boy by Nicole Galland
Galland offers a detailed peek into the London of Shakespeare's company and the life of starring "boy player" Alexander Cooke, his best...
Jul 3
Review of Clear by Carys Davies
Davies's slim, luminous, heartbreaking novel sets a story of isolation and human connection against the brutal removal of impoverished...
Jun 3
One More List of My Favorite Historical Fiction Reads of the Year
Favorite Bossy Historical Fiction Reads of the Year I loved reading so many historical fiction books last year, this is my fourth list of...
May 16
Review of All the Broken Places by John Boyne
All the Broken Places is a novel that is linked to Boyne's novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas . The exploration of gray areas between...
May 15
Review of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen Graham Jones offers an intriguing premise--an Indigenous man with supernatural abilities enacts brutal justice--but I found the...
May 6
Review of The Jackal's Mistress by Chris Bohjalian
The deep bond that builds between an injured Union soldier and the Virginia woman who secretly takes him in is touching and complicated,...
May 1
Another Six of My Favorite Historical Fiction Reads of the Year
Six More Great Bossy Historical Fiction Reads I love to spend Fridays obsessing over my favorite reads, and I loved reading so many...
Apr 18
Review of Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
Henry's story-within-a-story adds a historical fiction element to her signature big-hearted, banter-driven, steamy, intriguingly...
Apr 15
Six More of My Favorite Historical Fiction Reads of the Year
Six More Great Bossy Historical Fiction Reads It's March, and I'm still spending Fridays obsessing over my favorite reads of the past...
Mar 21
Review of The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Whitehead, inspired by a real-life reform school that abused and terrorized boys for over a century, shares a tale of racial injustice,...
Mar 13
Review of Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine
Erin Crosby Eckstine's richly detailed historical fiction explores the life of Junie, an enslaved young woman in rural Alabama haunted by...
Feb 25
Review of To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
Eowyn Ivey is masterful at intertwining fantastical elements with the grounding of the vivid details of nature. To the Bright Edge of the...
Feb 20
Six of My Favorite Historical Fiction Reads of the Year
Six Great Bossy Historical Fiction Reads I loved so many historical fiction books last year. Here are just six of my favorite reads--some...
Feb 14
Review of The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
This middle-grade writing collaboration inserts a clever young protagonist into the behind-the-scenes World War II British codebreaking...
Feb 6
Review of Isola by Allegra Goodman
Isola , based upon the story of a real-life sixteenth-century woman, shifts between details of a life of moneyed ease and an abandonment...
Feb 5
Review of There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
There Are Rivers in the Sky weaves together three stories set in three timelines, featuring disparate characters, to explore...
Feb 4
Review of Fallen Land by Taylor Brown
The debut novel from one of my favorite authors tracks a horse thief and an orphan who bond and find love amid the turmoil and...
Jan 23
Review of The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap
Dunlap's debut novel explores early Edinburgh surgical schools, questionable methods of obtaining study subjects, a main protagonist's...
Jan 14