Book Reviews
BOOK REVIEW: Broken Bayou by Jennifer Moorhead

BOOK REVIEW: Broken Bayou by Jennifer Moorhead

Broken Bayou is author Jennifer Moorhead’s debut thriller. Protagonist Willa Watters, a child psychologist with a new book to promote, throws herself off the deep end during her first major television interview about the book. To escape the blowback, she returns to...

read more
BOOK REVIEW: The Poppy Field by Caroline Kellems

BOOK REVIEW: The Poppy Field by Caroline Kellems

I enjoyed The Poppy Field very much, reading it in two sittings. An evangelical preacher from Indiana is called to preach the Gospel in Guatemala and drags his wife and two children there very much against their will. From the moment they land, they are faced with...

read more
BOOK REVIEW: Hearts that Cut by Kika Hatzopoulou

BOOK REVIEW: Hearts that Cut by Kika Hatzopoulou

I had a hard time getting into Hearts that Cut. I suspect it might have helped to have read the first of the duology (Threads that Bind) before digging into this one. I simply never felt settled or oriented until about one-third of the way through. I found it so...

read more
BOOK REVIEW: Midnight in Istanbul by Kathryn Gauci

BOOK REVIEW: Midnight in Istanbul by Kathryn Gauci

As always, Kathryn Gauci's research is impeccable as she returns to the Middle East with Midnight in Istanbul after her last book being set in the Pyrenees. She really captures the atmosphere of Istanbul, its food and culture, as well as its post-Ataturk cosmopolitan...

read more
BOOK REVIEW: Gazelle by Rikki Ducornet

BOOK REVIEW: Gazelle by Rikki Ducornet

Gazelle is a fascinating glimpse of the expatriate world in Cairo in the 1950s. Lizzie, a thirteen year-old American girl, her mother, and her father (an expert on war) have moved there because of the father’s Fulbright scholarship. The mother, a blonde Scandinavian,...

read more
BOOK REVIEW: A Quantum Love Story by Mike Chen

BOOK REVIEW: A Quantum Love Story by Mike Chen

A Quantum Love Story is a quantum physics meeting Fifty First Dates sort of romance; though it doesn’t meet the Romance Writers of America definition of a romance, it is a slow-burn romance that fizzles out before true completion. When a San Francisco particle...

read more
BOOK REVIEW: Ragnarok by A. S. Byatt

BOOK REVIEW: Ragnarok by A. S. Byatt

Ragnarok: The End of the Gods is a novella that retells the Norse myths, covering the history of the world from creation to destruction, through the eyes of a woman looking back at her childhood during World War II. She and her mother have evacuated from London to the...

read more
BOOK REVIEW: Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear

BOOK REVIEW: Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear

Dinosaur Summer is a coming-of-age story set in an alternate past after the two world wars. On a plateau in South America, dinosaurs still exist. In the 1920s, the creatures were captured and used in circuses. The top circus at the time was the Lothar Gluck Circus...

read more
BOOK REVIEW: Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru

BOOK REVIEW: Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru

Give me a book about art and artists, and I’m a happy reader. I find Blue Ruin particularly interesting because it raises many questions about what art is, what it’s like to produce it, and how much of an artist’s life is performance. I'm still pondering it several...

read more
BOOK REVIEW: Five Days in Bogotá by Linda Moore

BOOK REVIEW: Five Days in Bogotá by Linda Moore

Linda Moore has given readers another art heist thriller. As in her debut novel, Attribution, the art world becomes a dangerous place despite the supposed calm of museums and art galleries. Five Days in Bogotá is a pulsating thriller within the world of art, yet the...

read more
BOOK REVIEW: Say My Name by Joe Clifford

BOOK REVIEW: Say My Name by Joe Clifford

Say My Name is an interesting blend of true crime fiction and somewhat autobiographical fiction. Clifford writes of an author who, post-divorce, has returned to his childhood home to teach a summer session at a local university. When the job falls through and two...

read more

-Let’s Connect-

I love to hear from writers and bibliophiles!

Author Suanne Schafer: The Art of Words.

Be a Fire-Starter

If you love literature, art, photography, exclusive sneek peaks, author giveaways, and things that light up the soul, you will want to sign up for Suanne's low-volume newsletter...

You have Successfully Subscribed!