Book Reviews
Book Review: Little Voices by Vanessa Lillie

Book Review: Little Voices by Vanessa Lillie

Little Voices is Vanessa Lillie’s debut novel. It’s a murder mystery, political thriller, and psychological suspense wrapped into one. Then throw in a blazingly intense family drama of a new mother suffering from postpartum psychosis. Devon, the protagonist, is a...

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Book Review: You Beneath Your Skin by Damyanti Biswas

Book Review: You Beneath Your Skin by Damyanti Biswas

You Beneath Your Skin is Damyanti Biswas’s debut novel, and it’s a prime example of a murder mystery with plenty of twists and turns in a complex plot. Set in a smoggy New Delhi winter, the book brought to mind my travels through that part of the world—cities teeming...

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Book Review: Were We Awake by L. M. Brown

Book Review: Were We Awake by L. M. Brown

Were We Awake was released November 20, 2019 by Fomite Press. I'd enjoyed L. M. Brown's first collection of short stories (Treading the Uneven Ground) so much I was compelled to read her second collection of stories. The cover of Were We Awake brings to mind the...

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Book Review: How Fires End by Marco Rafalà

Book Review: How Fires End by Marco Rafalà

How Fires End is Marco Rafalà’s debut novel, and a stunning one it is, all about families and secrets and trauma. Told in reverse chronological order, How Fires End begins with the story of David, the son of a Sicilian immigrant in Middletown, CT. David’s mother died...

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Book Review: Derailed by Mary Keliikoa

Book Review: Derailed by Mary Keliikoa

Derailed is author Mary Keliikoa’s debut novel. Kelly Pruitt, a woman in her early thirties, has taken over her late father’s private detective agency. She's never lost the "baby fat" she gained when pregnant with her daughter eight years ago and is physically...

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Book Review: Don’t Speak by J. L. Brown.

Book Review: Don’t Speak by J. L. Brown.

Written in 2015 and independently published in 2016, Don’t Speak (Jade Harrington series, book # 1) reflects the political scene in America at that time. This thriller has a female, Whitney Fairchild, running for president against a conservative male incumbent whose...

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Book Review: Pride of Eden

Book Review: Pride of Eden

Pride of Eden, released March 17, 2020 by St. Martin's Press, is a gritty book inhabited by even-grittier characters. Author Taylor Brown pulls together a diverse cast of mostly-unlikable characters. Anse Caulfield is a Vietnam vet and retired racehorse jockey. He is...

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Book Review: What’s Left Untold

Book Review: What’s Left Untold

Two girls with totally opposite personalities, Anna and Lia, find an unlikely friendship in high school, one that survives even their interest in the same boys. They have a falling out in college—and Lia walks out of Anna’s life without further word. That event...

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Book Review: Remaining Aileen by Autumn Lindsey

Remaining Aileen is author Autumn Lindsey’s debut novel. Lindsey provides new nuances to vampire lore as she twists women’s fiction and vampire paranormal to produce a unique blend that is at times light-hearted and at others vampire-dark. It's a Twilight meets soccer...

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Review: Queen of the Owls by Barbara Linn Probst

Review: Queen of the Owls by Barbara Linn Probst

Barbara Linn Probst’s debut novel, Queen of the Owls, is stunning: gorgeous prose highlighting a book about creativity, seeing and being seen. As a former photographer and artist, this book has everything needed to intrigue me: Georgia O’Keeffe, Alfred Steiglitz,...

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Book Review: American Dirt

Book Review: American Dirt

American Dirt has been mired in so much controversy, I almost didn't read it. In the end, though, curiosity pulled me in so I could make up my own mind. The #MeToo and the #OwnVoices movements have caused a fundamental shift in America and in American literature. As a...

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Book Review: If She Had Stayed by Diane Byington

Book Review: If She Had Stayed by Diane Byington

If She had Stayed is Ms. Byington’s sophomore book and was such a joy to read I whizzed through it in one sitting. She successfully blends women’s fiction with time travel while fan-girling over scientist Nikola Tesla. Kaley Kline, a mid-thirties woman, having never...

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Book Review: The Unexpected Spy

Book Review: The Unexpected Spy

Tracy Walder’s The Unexpected Spy: From the CIA to the FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World's Most Notorious Terrorists is her memoir of her years as a counterterrorism officer in the CIA and a special agent in the FBI in the post-911 world. She makes it...

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