[responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Reviewing this book of poetry is like reviewing raw emotion - as it’s impossible (and inherently wrong) to review another’s pain, or joy, or anger, or lived experience - all that can be done is to consider the reach, or “trueness” of the words expressed in their…
[responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Elise Morgan is ninety years old, has lived the vast majority of her life in Cornwall, and as her eminently capable daughter points out, “has a good, balanced view of things”, including, (alone among her contemporaries), a lack of panic at the large-scaled housing development threatening the…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Meticulously researched, “October Storms” tells the tale of Louise Hawkes, a young woman living in central Illinois in 1897, with her two young children, Randall and Becca. The history of the time period comes alive beautifully in the author’s carefully detailed descriptions of the hardships, lifestyle, and communities that…
[responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 Sinking into this book on a rainy afternoon with a cup of tea and a cozy blanket; meeting with these characters, their beautifully articulated world and and their mesmerizing stories; I could not imagine a better place to be. Wendell Combs, a strong, somewhat austere military…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] Easily one of my all-time favorite detective series, Book 11 in the Simon Serrailler series, “A Change in Circumstance” is every bit as wonderfully engaging as its precedents. Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Serrailler, a complex man who is something of an emotional enigma, has an exceptionally close…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] Fascinating and heart-breaking, this wonderful immersive look at the true-life experiences of a gypsy gospel child, raised in the deeply restrictive Pentecostal faith by ordained pastor parents, both of them musically talented, who practice their faith primarily through the participation and organization of traveling musical revivals…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️+ [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] Devastating and brilliant, I read this book heart-first: caught up in the mystery of grief, love, loss and yearning and their impact so primal that it causes us to act in ways we arguably have no absolute control over at all. The story is told in two…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] The gang is back - the second in the series featuring Clay Wolfe, Professional Investigator (because that happens to be what they call it in Maine); his partner, the beautiful and extremely capable Baylee; retired octogenarian and solicitor Gene, who also happens to be Clay’s Grandpops; and…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] “He hadn’t planned to say this thing, but it came upon him suddenly gargantuan and magnificent, like a whale breaching the glittering surface of the sea. “ Delicately laced with story intertwined with story, so authentic they appear to burst forth as if with a will of…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [responsivevoice_button buttontext=”Listen”] It’s hard to remember a memoir read recently that I enjoyed as much as this one - this book had me totally engrossed; scribbling and highlighting notes and phrases I wanted to remember; my heart vacillating between horror at what the author endured, rage at the flaws…