🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟➕ A cornucopia of all things Dog, I read this gem with a warm doggie on my lap, straight through on a rainy afternoon. And what a delight that was! Crisscrossing time (past and future), and covering myths, historical happenings, re-interpreted poetry, philosophy, Buddhism, science fiction — and all of…
🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 Are we exposed by, defined by, the worst thing we’ve ever done? Do our actions teach the world how to label us, hate us, mistrust us — or are we better than that, all of us, people who are struggling, who mess up (often royally), who often mean well,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟➕ Finally getting to this incredibly well-received book, it’s clear what all the praise was about. This is an incredible read — a saga really, about love and loss and what a human can bear. When the absolute worst is your new reality, how does one envision hope, then reach…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 The second book I have read from this author, each of which I have loved. “Needle Lake” is surprisingly tender, intensely atmospheric, and utterly compelling — with a main protagonist as heart-tuggingly authentic as an imagined character can possibly be. Based in a small town north of Seattle, Washington,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 A really interesting premise that comes out of nowhere, messes with a readers brain, and leaves one more than a little awed at the creative mind that inspired it. With a writing style that reminds this reader of Joanne Trollope, this story is a blend of family and relationship…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 A heart-tugging and thoughtful look at love, loneliness, and searching — for answers to the secrets that all humans yearn to untangle — What makes a life “good”, and what, in the end, is it all “for”? Told in the voices of multiple characters, between these pages we will…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 A terrific all-around read — combining a mystery, a love story and a whole lot of historical intrigue — all wrapped up in a multiple-POV, multiple-timeframe narrative that makes for a unique and mesmerizing experience. Greta Schneider and her family are native East Germans, living in Berlin in 1982,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Achingly beautiful, a book that builds from a gentle start, pooling silently like sunlight as the story takes hold, gradually revealing a radiating luminosity that made this reader, upon reaching the final page, long to begin the story all over again. Drenched with nostalgia that sets a tone that…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 A read for my library book club, I found myself reading this gorgeous novel pretty much straight through. A story that sharply, without apology or sugar-coating, cuts through it all — our global predilection for NIMBY-ism, hate, and hypocrisy, underscored by generations of war and conquest — to lay…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Like a giant ball of fluffy wool, this absolutely delightful read will tangle you up completely, so sweetly snug you will want to stay more than a while. Written to take place over a three-day period, this book is narrated in the first-person voice of Gail Baines, a sixty-one…