⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 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 had not…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 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 war-time counter-intelligence…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ What a gorgeous book. Quiet and unassuming, this book takes you into the mind of Maren Markey, as she re-lives her junior-high and high school years through an old journal she finds and reads as she is preparing to move away from home to college. Equally suitable for a…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book is great fun, and the perfect introduction to what I’m sure will be one terrific crime series. Clay Wolfe (oh, what an awesome name!) Is a former Boston homicide detective, who has now moved back to his home town, the idyllic Port Essex, situated on a coastal…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The House of Rougeaux is a sweeping multi-generational family history, beginning in the late 18th century on the isle of Martinique where we are introduced to the healer Abeje (Marie) and her brother Adunbi (Guillaume), bonded slaves and the children of Iya, who was herself brought over from Africa…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Revenge. Secrets and Lies” is a chatty, engrossing story revolving initially around four pensioners, (two couples), living in a quiet British village. The author does a wonderful job introducing us into the everyday life and quaint charm of this community and these characters, who feel like people you may…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Emotional. Thoughtful. Poignant. Eva (Evangeline) is a twenty eight year old woman, a photographer, who is fascinated with old and crumbling things. Eva becomes part of a group of “urban explorers” who visit derelict and abandoned buildings - each of them looking for beauty and yearning for a connection…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Please tell me this will be a series! Set in the year 1910 in and around London, “The Wrong Sort to Die” completely captivated me from page one, and I found it hard to stop reading until I was all done. Our main protagonist, Margaret, is a sharp, gutsy,…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I adore first-person present-tense novels. There is something so claustrophobic, so intense, so jumpy about being in another person’s head as their world unfolds - whether real or imagined, you feel it all, and in the slowly building structure of a novel that reads like a emotionally-dizzying journal, the…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ It’s been a while since I read an endearing rom-com, and I can so understand the appeal. Some days there is nothing quite like losing yourself to the pages of a charming work of fiction, - one with quirky and unusual characters, who each aren’t aware of the others…