Review of Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine
Erin Crosby Eckstine's richly detailed historical fiction explores the life of Junie, an enslaved young woman in rural Alabama haunted by...
Feb 25
Review of To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
Eowyn Ivey is masterful at intertwining fantastical elements with the grounding of the vivid details of nature. To the Bright Edge of the...
Feb 20
Review of Grey Dog by Elliott Gish
Grey Dog begins as an immersive historical fiction story of a young teacher with a shocking past in 1900s rural England, but it becomes a...
Jul 31, 2024
Review of The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees explores past Turkish-Greek conflicts in a small island community while illustrating the...
May 28, 2024
Review of The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young
June struggles with the complicated implications of her family's curse of hallucinations and mental illness...until she realizes that the...
Oct 26, 2023
Review of The Night Ship by Jess Kidd
Kidd's dual-timeline historical fiction, based on actual events, shines in its vivid settings, richly imagined characters, sea voyage...
Mar 8, 2023
Review of Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen
Addison Allen's magical realism story is set on an island off the coast of South Carolina and offers lots of heart, interactive ghosts,...
Jan 25, 2023
Review of The Change by Kristen Miller
The Change explores the power of menopausal women and the poignant strength of friendship; supplies satisfying revenge fantasies and...
Jun 15, 2022
Review of The Impossible Destiny of Cutie Grackle by Shawn K. Stout
Stout's recently published middle-grade story is irresistibly strange, full of difficulties and a tough young heroine's gritty...
Jun 2, 2022
Review of What You Can See from Here by Mariana Leky
Leky's book is full of magical realism, friends who are like family, some absurd, fablelike elements, and an ongoing exploration of...
Nov 4, 2021
Review of The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Coates took his time building the story, and I felt as though he deliberately kept us in a plodding pace to emphasize the unwavering,...
May 13, 2021
Review of The Harpy by Megan Hunter
This slim, intriguing book packs a punch, featuring revenge fantasies mixed with magical realism. Lucy and Jake are the parents of two...
Jan 20, 2021
Three Books I'm Reading Now, 1/18/21 Edition
01 Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo Evaristo won the Booker Prize in 2019 for this novel, which I'm listening to as an audiobook...
Jan 18, 2021
Six Historical Fiction Mysteries to Intrigue You
I love an intersection of historical fiction and mystery, two genres I love. Some of the books listed here also have supernatural elements.
Oct 30, 2020
Review of The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman
Hoffman made me feel anchored to the characters and the emotions, concerns, and life-and-death decisions the three women grappled with....
Jan 4, 2020