Somehow I seem to be reading a lot of books set in the American or Canadian West which truly resonate with me: the works of Richard Wagamese, Peter Heller, and now Kent Haruf's trilogy: Plainsong, Eventide and Benediction. Plain song, for which Haruf’s Plainsong book...
This is the third book I’ve read recently about World War II and the pillaging and looting of Europe by the Germans. The others were the nonfiction Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel and the women’s fiction The Last Masterpiece by Laura Spinelli. Each of them takes a...
The Last Masterpiece is set in 1943 Italy as the Allies try to beat back the Germans and Italian Fascists. The reader meets Eva Brunner, a German photographer, who, to prevent her father from sending her little brother off to war, volunteers to go instead. Her father...
The Monuments Men has been on my to-be-read list pile since it came out, and I finally started it because I finished The Last Masterpiece by Laura Morelli dealing with the same subject. As someone with a lifelong interest in art and a former resident of Italy, this...
Rare book seller Ashlyn Greer has a unique gift: when she picks up a book, she senses the echoes of its previous owners’ emotions. When two custom-bound volumes come into her possession, she begins a bit of detective work to discover who wrote them. There is no author...
I'm a sucker for books about art and books that somehow capture the splendor of nature. Peter Heller’s The Painter wins on both counts, with the added attraction of a stark, precise prose that deftly renders complex emotions, the joy and grief of the human condition....
In The Wolf and the Woodsman, Évike is the only woman in her village without magical powers. The locals claim her corrupted bloodline is the problem: her father was a Yehuli man, a tax collector from the capitol. The king, who is consolidating his powers with pagan...
Face of Greed is the first in author James L’Etoile’s Detective Emily Hunter Mystery series. I’ve read and enjoyed his earlier Nathan Parker and Detective Penley series. Readers who enjoy noir, thrillers, police procedurals, and suspense will enjoy his books. James...
Play of Shadows is the third in Barbara Nickless’s Dr. Evan Wilding series. Kudos to her for developing an atypical protagonist (Evan Wilding is a dwarf with an enormous intellect and a PhD in semiotics) and thrillers that are atypical to say the least. I love reading...
Odyssey’s End is the tenth book in Matt C. Coyle’s Rick Cahill private investigator series. I am currently up-to-date on this series and have enjoyed following PI Rick Cahill’s life. Like the other books in the series, Odyssey’s End has enough back story sprinkled...
This series of three books (The Vanishing Woman, The Disappearing Man, and The Tubman Train) is based on true stories of how slaves escaped from their southern masters in pre-Civil War days. The crux of each tale is true, but parts are fictionalized. The Vanishing...
I always enjoy reading Kathryn Gauci’s extraordinarily well-researched historical fiction. The Embroiderer is a multi-generational, multi-point of view family saga spread from Constantinople to Smyrna to Athens then on to Cairo and England from 1822 to 1973. The book...
This is my third book by Lt. General (Ret’d) Roméo Dallaire, the UN commander during the Rwandan Genocide in 1993-1994. Though suffering from significant PTSD from his experiences there, Dallaire has pushed forward with multiple volumes based on current research that...
Set in a dystopic MAGA-esque near future, My Name Is Iris explores the dark side of the United States and fascism. Iris Prince and her husband have drifted apart over the years. Their divorce is unsurprising, but the lack of drama regarding it is. Iris (originally...
The Blue Monsoon is the second in the Blue Mumbai Thriller series, following The Blue Bar, but can be read as a standalone. Senior Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput is called to a bizarre murder at a Hindu place of worship, a Kaali temple: a man has been killed, his face...
Faed to Black is the second in a two-volume series by fantasy writer Sarah J. Sover and is a mystery involving the fae world. The story begins in book 1, Fairy Godmurder, in which Gwendolyn Evenshine drops out of her family and goes to the Academy to become a fairy...
As I revised my novel about the Rwandan genocide, Hunting the Devil, I ran across another memoir by retired Canadian Lieutenant-General and Senator, Roméo Dallaire, in which he describes his twenty year battle with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). I had read his...
This is a review of the three-volume series The Stone Stories which includes The Walrus Mutterer, The Amber Seeker, and The Lyre Dancers. The first, The Walrus Mutterer, told from the point of view of Rian, a teenager living in Great Britain during the Iron Age...
During the World War II, Amie Stillwell lives in England and serves as a photo interpreter for the Allies. When the war ends, she works in Washington, DC, for several years but is eventually fired to make room for returning veterans. In a quandary, she returns to her...
Shadow is a Colour (as light is), an ambitious novel even for a seasoned writer, is particularly ambitious as a debut novel. I started out not liking it and, after several false starts and stops, nearly put it aside as a did not finish. For some reason, I persisted...
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