Book Reviews
BOOK REVIEW: Mistress Masham’s Repose by T. H. White

BOOK REVIEW: Mistress Masham’s Repose by T. H. White

In the last year or two I’ve embarked on re-reading books by T.H. White that I read years ago as well as H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, who turns to the guidance of T.H. White as she raises a goshawk. Long a King Arthur fan, I first read The Once and Future King (a...

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BOOK REVIEW: All We Were Promised by Ashton Lattimore

BOOK REVIEW: All We Were Promised by Ashton Lattimore

All We Were Promised, a debut novel by Aston Lattimore, gives a different historical perspective on Philadelphia history. The book involves three young Black women in quite disparate levels of society. The main character, Charlotte, was named Carrie as a child and...

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BOOK REVIEW:  Mia’s Journey by Diane Byington

BOOK REVIEW: Mia’s Journey by Diane Byington

In Mia’s Journey, author Diane Byington creates a genre-bending novel combining science fiction, paranormal activity, and women’s fiction. Mia Gray took over her brother’s dream of becoming an astronaut after his death. She’s worked for years to be assigned to a...

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BOOK REVIEW: Among Schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder

BOOK REVIEW: Among Schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder

I enjoyed reading Kidder’s nonfiction books, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World and Strength in What Remains, and decided to catch up on some of his backlist. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author with what I feel...

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BOOK REVIEW: The Trials of Apollo series by Rick Riordan

BOOK REVIEW: The Trials of Apollo series by Rick Riordan

Having recently read the Rick Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus series, I decided to tackle his Trials of Apollo series (which includes The Hidden Oracle, The Dark Prophecy, The Burning Maze, The Tyrant’s Tomb, andThe Tower of Nero) and found it just as enjoyable. Zeus...

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BOOK REVIEW: Rifted Hearts by  M.A. Guglielmo

BOOK REVIEW: Rifted Hearts by M.A. Guglielmo

I had read the short story prequel to this fantasy/paranormal/LGBTQ romance (“Witch City Rift”) which helped clarify a bit of this book and introduces some of the characters (like Remi Gatti, the villain/love interest in the male/male romance), but Rifted Hearts is...

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BOOK REVIEW: The Lion Seeker by Kenneth Bonert

BOOK REVIEW: The Lion Seeker by Kenneth Bonert

I'm finding, as I get older, reading books that are thought-provoking or emotionally crushing (such as books on genocide) I have to read in stages. Because of the emotional discomfort The Lion Seeker brought, I started out not wanting to review it. It was painful to...

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BOOK REVIEW: Every Living Thing by Jason Roberts

BOOK REVIEW: Every Living Thing by Jason Roberts

Every Living Thing is a wonderful account of two men in a competition of their own making to name every living creature on earth. They were nearly exactly contemporaries, being born only months apart—Carl Linnaeus, born May 1707, while Buffon was born in September...

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BOOK REVIEW: The Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan

BOOK REVIEW: The Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan

I credit Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series with engendering my son’s love of reading. We read that series aloud to each other, every word, all 407,960 of them. I loved them as much as he did. He’s grown up now, but I have a youngster who loves fantasy in the house...

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BOOK REVIEW: Daughters of Warsaw by Maria Frances

BOOK REVIEW: Daughters of Warsaw by Maria Frances

Daughters of Warsaw is a dual point-of-view historical fiction novel, split between the present time in Seattle and World War II Warsaw. Lizzie in the Pacific Northwest has suffered a series of miscarriages and is wallowing in self-pity and grief when she discovers...

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BOOK REVIEW: A Moth to Flame by Joe Clifford

BOOK REVIEW: A Moth to Flame by Joe Clifford

I’ve read most of Joe Clifford’s works and found A Moth to Flame to be his best so far. He tells the story of two sisters: Jess, the elder, who had been found dead at the bottom of a ravine twenty-five years earlier, and Lydia, the younger, now an investigator for the...

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BOOK REVIEW: The Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley

BOOK REVIEW: The Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley

The Zanzibar Chest was absolutely fascinating. It’s terrific reading, so good it was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize. It is far more than a mere memoir or travelogue. Hartley was born in Kenya and still resides there, so he writes about events on the...

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BOOK REVIEW: Return to Lerici by Rachel Dacus

BOOK REVIEW: Return to Lerici by Rachel Dacus

Return to Lerici is the second of a so-far two book series, continuing the story of the Greene sisters begun in The Invisibles. Half-sisters Elinor and Saffron are bound by a father who abandoned them as he pursued a near-infinite series of infidelities. After being...

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BOOK REVIEW: Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa

BOOK REVIEW: Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa

During the recent upsurge in hostilities between Israel and Palestine, I stumbled across Mornings in Jenin by the American-Palestinian author, Susan Abulhawa. After reading its heart-wrenching words and being moved to tears many times, I placed it on my keep-forever...

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