I had a hard time getting into the first few pages of Monkey Temple, mostly because I didn't feel well-grounded at the onset. However, I was soon captivated. As a woman of a certain age (roughly the same age as Jules, the protagonist of Monkey Temple), I found myself...
The Resurrectionist of Caligo by Wendy Trimboli and Alicia Zaloga is a gothic fantasy with Victorian England overtones, Jack-the-Ripper type murders, political intrigue, a bit of romance, and some magic tossed into the mix. It’s a delight to read with an original...
Dianne Freeman’s debut novel, the first in the Countess Harleigh mystery series, A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder, is a witty romp of a Victorian mystery. The second in the series, A Lady’s Guide to Gossip and Murder, is just as delightful. Frances (Lady...
Laurel, Runaway Love Story’s heroine, is a free-spirit who wants to be an artist. Her plans are derailed time and again by her own lack of commitment and tendency to run away when things don’t go her way. In Runaway Love Story, her plans are again derailed, this time...
I read this novel because I enjoy being transported to different places and cultures. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal reveals the immigrant experience in Britain, particularly in the Sikh community of London’s Southall. The protagonist, Nikki, a...
Neon Empire is a dystopian novel in keeping with works by George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. The author vividly describes a plausible near-future world in which social media is even more overt than it is now. The city, Eutopia, has been built on a Native American...
The Forgetting Flower intrigued me as it is described as a slow-burn thriller, and it certainly is. Author Karen Hugg expertly juggles secrets, half-truths, lies, and flashbacks while gradually leading the reader into the labyrinth of the gritty underground of Paris....
Caitlin Bergman, an award winning journalist, returns to the university to receive an honorary degree. She missed getting it twenty years earlier because she bailed out of college weeks before earning her degree. In her thank-you address, she spontaneously reveals...
The DNA of You and Me is Andrea Rothman’s debut novel. It looks at what happens when romantic love conflicts with a woman’s chosen career. Emily, the main character, is a rational, somewhat cold, introverted-to-a-fault scientist. She feels she was born to be alone and...
If you like Victorian era mysteries, you’ll enjoy this book by Patricia Marcantonio. Felicity Carrol, a blue-stocking female, is determined to become a detective in the 1870's. She is spunky and tenacious. This book isn’t the usual Victorian heroine attending teas,...
The Winter Sister is a dark mystery/thriller. Author Megan Collins accurately captures the effects of grief on a family, particularly that of Sylvie, a teenager whose old sister, Persephone, is murdered. Fifteen years later, the murder remains unsolved, and the...
I read Because You're Mine, Rea Frey's second novel, released on August 6, 2019 by St. Martin's Griffin, because I enjoyed her debut novel, Not Her Daughter. Because You're Mine is told from three points of view (Lee, the mother of Mason, a spectrum child; Noah,...
Set in the late 20th century Ireland, Treading The Uneven Road is a collection of nine inter-related short stories about a fictional Irish town located between on the road from Dublin to Sligo. The highway bypassed the village, leaving its residents and their...
I chose to read The Marriage Clock because I’m always interested in reading own voices writing about their culture. About this time last year I read a book the premise of which was finding a man through an on-line dating website. Though that book was comical, at the...
Turner's historical fiction novel, Angel in the Fog, is the third in his alternate history series in which Lincoln was not assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. I enjoyed the historical content, the suspense, and the action. Having read the first two in the series...
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