[responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] 🌟🌟🌟🌟 A softly graceful look at what could be called destiny, fate, or simply the lucky encounter of two troubled Londoners, looking for escape, a second chance, and the healing embrace of a gorgeous (if somewhat decrepit) country mansion in the magnificent Sussex Downs. The first in a…
[responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 As dependable a treat as the coldest, sweetest, ice-cream on a summer day, any book by Ann Cleeves, including this hot-off-the-press installment (#10) in the glorious #Vera series, will not disappoint. Vera, back with all the brash, brave, headstrong (and unabashedly offensively-leaning) determination she brings to any…
[responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Like sinking into the softest pillow, reading this book takes you into a world so compelling that you will find it impossible to leave behind. With a story told in an alternating “Before” and “After” timeline, centering around a horrifying murder committed in the opening pages, this…
[responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] 🌟🌟🌟🌟 A gentle and charming book, the final in the trilogy, brimming with the bluest skies of summer; a houseful of noisy, dusty renovations; budding romances; troublesome tenants; family secrets, loss and grief, and last but certainly not least, forgiveness, love and the long-overdue tranquility of solace. Abigail…
[responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 A gritty and haunting look at the ravages of shame and abuse extending from childhood into the life-long decay of self and identity, this book is somewhat reminiscent of the also magnificent “Shuggie Bain”. A graceful and compassionate triumph - a brilliant book that will hurt to…
[responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 The second installment of the Callum Burke series comes back with a wallop, every bit as intense, gripping and unputdownable as its brilliant predecessor. Rich with raw and well-drafted characters, this book (and this series) reads very much like an authentically gritty behind-the-scenes look at police procedure,…
[responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 A fascinating, insightful and oh-so-wise look at love, through the eyes of a master psychoanalytic therapist, long versed in the compassionate practice of rooting out “dilemmas we face in relationships, which draw couples together and tear them apart.” Through the composite sketches provided of thirteen semi-fictional couples,…
[responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] 🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2 A captivating YA read, sparkling with starlight and magical realism, a tough and unmistakably tender heroine, an existential quest, and a whole townfull of lost and lovely souls. Welcome to Hadley, Arizona. Belutha, our main protagonist, is sixteen years old, a social misfit and an "invisible girl",…
[responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Wildly original, this all-verse rendering of an age-old story hits so many notes on so many levels that to attempt to define it would be to constrain it. Profoundly moving, lyrical and beautiful, tragic and infuriating - a feminist tribute to every woman (literally “every” woman) who…
[responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 A beaker of “bubbly, fizzy happiness”, this gentle, uplifting marvel is so sweet and so endearing you will yearn for a sequel. Luckily, for this reader, there is a prequel, and another book by this talented author just waiting to dive into. Lucinda Green, a 40 year-old…