

Review of When Ghosts Come Home by Wiley Cash
I loved Cash's Eastern North Carolina setting, the character of Sherriff Winston Barnes, and the pulsing racial, class-based, and family...
Sep 29, 2021


Review of Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
Haig is vulnerable and specific in his short memoir about his own experiences with mental illness and depression--and he shares the small...
Sep 13, 2021


Review of How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
ICYMI: In Matt Haig's How to Stop Time, main protagonist Tom Hazard lives for centuries but is not allowed to fall in love. When he...
Sep 8, 2021


Review of What Doesn't Kill You by Tessa Miller
Miller outlines many of the frightening, difficult, relentless aspects of coping with a chronic illness. She lays a journalistic view...
Sep 6, 2021


Review of Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy
I was intrigued by the wolves, and I was interested in McConaghy's exploration of the tensions between wilderness and civilization, but I...
Sep 2, 2021


Review of The Guide by Peter Heller
I love Heller's quiet moments as his characters reflect, and I preferred that aspect of this book--which features a main character from...
Sep 1, 2021


Review of The Wreckage of My Presence by Casey Wilson
Wilson's bubbly personality comes through in these essays, and her show business experiences were interesting, but I often couldn't...
Aug 26, 2021


Review of We Are the Brennans by Tracey Lange
Lange's Irish family story centers around Sunday Brennan, who has returned home to her New York hometown where her own secrets--and...
Aug 25, 2021


Review of Shoulder Season by Christina Clancy
The Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, atmosphere of Shoulder Season was a standout element, but the characters' interactions and some of the...
Aug 20, 2021


Review of Paper & Blood (Ink & Sigil #2) by Kevin Hearne
I enjoyed revisiting characters from Ink & Sigil, but I felt bogged down by recounted stories and detailed logistics, and I missed the...
Aug 16, 2021


Review of Dark Roads by Chevy Stevens
Stevens offers a bad guy who's easy to despise in this mystery with great passages about surviving in the wild. Characters' careless...
Aug 9, 2021


Review of A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam
This is introspective literary fiction in which Krishan examines his young life, analyzes the romantic twists and turns he's experienced,...
Aug 3, 2021


July Wrap-Up: My Favorite Reads of the Month
My very favorite books from July! Here are the books I most loved reading during the past month. I'd love to hear: what are some of your...
Jul 30, 2021


Review of Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
I had fun reading about the glamorous modeling-surfing-photography-music star family pedigree. But I felt as though the last hundred...
Jul 29, 2021


Review of Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Ursula unknowingly lives her life over and over again as Atkinson explores how choices large and small cause enormous repercussions for a...
Jul 27, 2021


Six Fascinating Second-Chance, Do-Over, Reliving-Life Stories
The Second-Chance Books I love a good second-chance book in which the main character gets the opportunity to go back and try again, redo...
Jul 23, 2021


Review of Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft
I adored the romantic setup and seemingly ill-fated attraction in Saft's young adult fantasy-mystery, but I was dissatisfied with the...
Jul 21, 2021


Review of Black Bottom Saints by Alice Randall
I appreciated learning about various key players in Black Bottom life, and I absolutely adored the vivid details Randall offered about...
Jul 20, 2021


Review of Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot #6) by Martha Wells
Fugitive Telemetry is full of more wonderfully grumpy Murderbot, flummoxed by humans' behavior and saving their skins at every turn. It's...
Jul 19, 2021


Review of Fallen: A Novel of Suspense by Linda Castillo
Castillo's Amish setting is intriguing, I didn't see the resolution of the mystery coming, and I was kept engaged while listening to...
Jul 15, 2021