🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 “Sports and war are two of the world’s greatest equalizers”. A Canadian author/teacher’s exhaustively and beautifully-researched treatise into the history of sport, focusing on the systemic racially-abusive treatment of black, indigenous and other marginalized communities (including Japanese-Canadians) from the earliest days of organized amateur and professional leagues, to what…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 As much a sweet and immersive love-story as it is a cracking-good small(ish)-town detective story, this book got under my skin and into my heart in a way that was totally unexpected. Ben Ames, our first-person POV narrator, is an ex-cop, now running a one-man PI agency in Calgary,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 A brisk, entertaining, well-written and engaging police procedural, this series follows the caseload of New Scotland Yard DCI Steve Burt, Head of the Special Resolutions unit, where he leads a team (mostly assembled case-by-case) of crackerjack detectives and specialists tasked with resolving the serious crimes that no other department…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 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 read -…
🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2 Like a hot cup of tea on a drizzly afternoon, coming home to another installment of the “HedgeHog Hollow” series is a creature comfort - a warm and cozy settling into your bones, as you sink into your favorite chair and prepare to sip and read and catch up…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 1/2 A profoundly chilling thriller, seamlessly blending horror, suspense, police procedure, somewhat-unpredictable twists and turns, and a masterful smattering of characters, including a strong and interesting female lead - Detective Senior Sergeant Veronika Pope. Head of the Special Crime Squad, which investigates cold cases in and around Perth, Australia,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Clay Wolfe, the nattily-dressed, roguishly-charming, ex-Boston-homicide-cop-turned-PI, is unfurling; growing up - expanding his reach (both emotionally and professionally) into thornier, darker and more challenging arenas - a fascinating budding shift for this already top-notch PI crime series. Book 3 in the Clay Wolfe story, - situated amongst miles of…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Haunting and unsettling, this chapbook of profoundly beautiful poems captured my heart. With many written in a mesmerizing stream-of-consciousness style, the author (poet) blends vivid imagery plucked from the natural world, (almost hallucinogenic in the brightness of its metaphorical flow), with the poignant and evocative musings of a soul…
Book Two in the Hedgehog Hollow series, this warm and wonderful story is as magical and uplifting as each of Book One and Four (both of which this reader devoured, on the path to delightedly working a way through the entire series). A warmhearted and tenderly-crafted character, our main protagonist,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Warm, compassionate and cozy, this book is the closest you will ever come to a giant literary hug. The first in the Hedgehog Hollow series, this reader, after reviewing and falling in love with Book 4, (#aWeddingatHedgeHogHollow) is going back (with great joy) to read and review the entire…