Tyrannosaur Canyon is the first in the Wyman Ford series. Though the cover leads the reader to think this is a reboot of Jurassic Park, it is not. Rather than dealing with the de-extinction of lost dinosaurs through DNA manipulation, Tyrannosaur Canyon is a...
Relic is the first book in the twenty-four book Pendergast series. It is exactly what the hype promises: a melange of mystery, thriller, horror and science fiction set in the Museum of Natural History in New York City. Starting with the murder of two young boys, the...
The Deadly Tea is the fourth in the Invisibles series by Rachel Dacus. They can be read as standalone, however. The series begins when two sisters, Saffron and Elinor inherit a house, on the western coast of Italy, which is haunted by the ghost of Percy Bysshe...
I read Tim O’Brien’s powerful novel The Things They Carried, my favorite Viet Nam story, about ten years ago and finally got around to reading If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home, his memoir on his time just before and during his term in Viet Nam. If...
No Friend to This House is Natalie Haynes’s retelling of the story of Jason and the Argonauts, but with Medea as the central character. It is told in the points of view of almost anyone (human, god, animal, ship) who had a part in the story, such as Alcimede, Jason’s...
Vincent van Gogh’s iconic painting, Wheat Field with Cypresses, is “the most expensive purchase” made by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In Breaking van Gogh, James Grundvig investigates the painting and its provenance. From southern France, this painting...
Scrap: Salvaging a Family is an emotionally devastating look at a a family fractured by silence and secrets, an exploration of inherited generational trauma, and the ultimate healing and resolution of the author’s relationship with her father. The story is told in...
In The Children of Jocasta, Natalie Haynes revisits the story of Oedipus Rex we all probably read in high school but with a twist or two or three. Jocasta is fifteen when she is married to Laius, an elderly king who prefers men to women and hunting to ruling his...
Fossil Feud is a cute romance set on a paleontological dig in Montana. Ripley Adams has become a freelance fossil hunter after being driven out of academic research after her boyfriend, Will Stone, betrays her by stealing her research and laying waste to her...
Vacancy is the second novel in Jann Alexander’s Dust series, set in the fictional small town of Hartless in the Texas Panhandle. It is told from multiple points of view: Charlene, a poverty-stricken young mother with a kindergarten daughter and another child on the...
In The Drowning Game, Nadia Brenner goes to Singapore and finds that Cass, her sister, has jumped from a fortieth-floor hotel balcony. Devastated, Nadia must arrange for the transportation of her sister’s remains back to the Pacific Northwest, regain ground that Cass...
This review includes the seven mysteries in the Thomas the Falconer series including The Ruffler’s Child, A Ruinous Wind, The Jingler's Luck, The Ramage Hawk, The Mapmaker’s Secret, the Maiden Bell, and The Muscovy Chain. The series is complete, so you don’t have to...
One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow follows the lives of two families, the Webbers (Substance and Nettie Mae) and the Bemises (Ernest and Cora), who live in eastern Wyoming, within walking distance of each other but with no other humans within twenty miles. Mr....
I enjoyed Barbara Nickless’s prior Sydney Rose Parnell four-book series and the Dr. Evan Wilding three-book series, so I thought I’d like the first of her newest Benedict Hoffman and Helen Belle series, A Voice in the Dark. It has a Criminal Minds feel, and with its...
The Botticelli Secret is a mix of art history and thriller. Though the plot was highly improbable and at times thin, the book was fun to read. When Luciana, a lovely Florentine prostitute, is chosen as the model for Flora, a goddess in Botticelli’s painting...
Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance is not my typical read, but I’m glad I ventured into it. A Tarzan fan from my grade school days, I confess to a fondness for feral children, and the hero of this book is truly a child of extraordinary circumstance. Born with...
Ariadne Unraveled is a retelling of the lives of Ariadne, the woman who gave Theseus a ball of yarn to guide him through the Minotaur’s lair, and Dionysus, a relatively new god of fertility and wine, so new he doesn’t have a seat on Mount Olympus. Typically I enjoy a...
Ransom is the 26th (so far) in Daniel Silva’s spy series starring the legendary Israeli spy and art restorer, Gabriel Allon. I fell in love with the series years ago because Silva so successfully melds art, art history, and thrillers and because, unlike other spy...
All Who Wander is a fascinating look at the long-term effects of insufficient love, emotional and physical abuse, as well as poor choices in relationships and life in general. Brooke, trapped in a broken family (one that’s missing a mother but has an added stepbrother...
Wisdom Corner is the second in the Virgil Wounded Horse mystery series. Like its predecessor, Winter Counts, it is set on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and picks up where that novel left off. Virgil has become an “enforcer,” administering justice when...
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