I read In a Town Called Paradox shortly after reading Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, set in the same geographic area. Paradox is, in part, the story of how cowboy movies began to be made in Utah—which is diametrically opposed to Abbey’s vision of the West,...
Strange Deaths of the Last Romantic is a genre-breaking book with elements of thriller, science fiction, New Adult, and even romance. Which may or may not be a good thing. A boy commits suicide, but doesn’t die—he simply is transported to another location—sans...
I read this book because I adored Anita Diamant's earlier novel, The Red Tent. Dogtown, a real community on Cape Ann, Massachusetts, was populated by the downtrodden in early 1800s. When its industry moved elsewhere, those who remained included widows, orphans, freed...
A Question of Betrayal is the second in Anne Perry's spy series set just prior to World War II. I found it worked well as a stand-alone novel. Elena Standish’s grandfather, Lucas, has retired from British Intelligence, MI6. She follows in his footsteps, and on her...
Waiting for the Night Song is a genre-breaking work—literary fiction blended with suspense, racial issues, and climate change. The protagonist, Cadie Kessler, is an entomologist studying beetles and how they kill trees, which in turn, because of the increase in fuel,...
I finally pulled Circe off my to-be-read pile and, Wow! I loved it, even more than I did Miller’s earlier work, The Song of Achilles. As much of mythology is male-centric, it comes as a delight and a surprise that author Madeline Miller riffs on the myth of Circe and...
Valentine begins on February 14, 1976 when a fourteen-year-old Mexican girl, Gloria Ramirez, is picked up at a drive-in by a young oil field worker, Dale Strickland. He's the son of a preacher from Arkansas and reported to be a "good boy." However, hepped up on...
The Library of Legends is a gorgeous novel, a unique blend of historical fiction—based on Ms. Chang’s family stories about the second-Sino Japanese war—mysticism, and folklore. The storytelling is enchanting. The book, due to its broad scope, is told in an omniscient...
Set in present-day Massachusetts, Hinterland is stark and poetic, with far more beneath the surface than the words indicate. It is the third book I’ve read by L.M. Brown, and as in her others, melancholy runs like a ribbon through the pages as does (it seems strange...
Take It Back is so engrossing I stayed up until two a.m. reading it, then spent the next few hours replaying it in my head. Wow! Such a great book with challenging situations and legal and moral quandaries. Mariska Hargitay (Lieutenant Olivia Benson on Law & Order...
Blind Vigil is the seventh book in Coyle's Rick Cahill private investigator series, but reads well as a stand-alone book with just enough back story splashed in to orient the reader. Cahill is not on the best of terms with the local law enforcement stemming from days...
Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery is a look at the therapeutic psychological practice of Catherine Gildiner, a fascinating memoir of how she dealt with five clients, all so severely emotionally damaged that they had to...
S. M. Goodwin pulled me into Absence of Mercy immediately with her descriptions of Jasper Lightner, a Crimean War hero with post-traumatic stress syndrome and a traumatic brain injury. The second son of a duke, Jasper inherits enough money to become independent of his...
Chip Jones is a Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist who brings to life an amazing story. A succinct synopsis is drawn straight from the subtitle of his book: The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South. To give readers some background into...
Nowhere Near Goodbye, released August 4, 2020 by Red Adept, is Barbara Conrey’s debut novel. It delves deeply into the age-old challenge women face: career versus family. I read this book because it looks at some of the same choices I, as a physician, had to make....
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