⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] Chillingly prescient, insightfully nuanced and disturbingly evocative, this historical epic, based in New Orleans, follows the turbulence that rocked the state of Louisiana in the years following the Confederate loss of the Civil War. The second in a historical series from this author featuring Emmett Collins, I…
⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] Set in the early days of WW1 in Merseyside, Lancashire, this story follows the journey of Anna and Ellie, two young female nurses, who long to do their part to help in the war effort. It’s a grim and difficult period for those left behind -…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] With a story-telling style (and hints of magic) reminiscent of Ray Bradbury, and populated by darkly flat-affect characters straight out of Patricia Highsmith, this set of short stories is interesting, unusual and intriguingly compelling. Each of the stories features a story spun around a main protagonist…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] With an interesting (and very socially intermingled) cast of police characters, this Scottish crime book, the first of the new DC Jane Renwick series, is off to an intriguing start. Part procedural police mystery, and part what-do-police-officers-do-in-their-social-lives, this story begins with a emotional wallop and the psychological…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] Middle-school mayhem magic. Austin Davenport, grade six, is an everyman (or an everymiddle-schooler, at least). Slightly nerdy, awkward, insecure and trying desperately to fit in with the “cool” kids, Austin and his struggles are immediately relatable and universally compelling. Where he differs though, is in that Austin…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] “You give up traditions at your peril. One day you’ll look back and not remember who you are.” Imagine it’s 1909, and you, a Jewish teen accompanied by your family, survivors of the Russian revolution at a terrible cost, land in NYC to begin a new life.…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] Who inspires you? The author of this fascinating collection of non-fictional stories asked this very question to twenty people, beginning with one author-selected subject, and then following the chain organically by meeting with each interviewee’s inspirational choice in sequence. The result is a wonderful compendium of…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] I had no idea what to expect in a book with such a strange title. So I looked it up. Sophomania: A delusion of having superior knowledge. And armed with that definition, as you now are, I began reading one of the most unusual mysteries I’ve…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] What happens when a life-time of learned defenses suddenly stop working? This is a story about revenge, misogyny, rage and the sort of evil that keeps you awake at night. But at the heart of it, this is really a story about love. About guilt. And…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] Inspired by true events beginning in 1944, and populated with characters who are composites of real-life heroes and villains, this meticulously researched and wonderfully evocative novel is WWII at its most chilling. With WWII instead of the Cold War fueling the fear and desperation-driven machinery of…