🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 The second book I have read from this author, each of which I have loved. “Needle Lake” is surprisingly tender, intensely atmospheric, and utterly compelling — with a main protagonist as heart-tuggingly authentic as an imagined character can possibly be. Based in a small town north of Seattle, Washington,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 An utterly charming and mostly unexpected treat, best described as the love child of ‘The Durrells’, ‘Pride and Prejudice’, and an add-your-own-favorite cozy mystery. Set on the idyllic island of Corfu in the year 1898, the story is told by Minnie Harper, a smart and restrained thirty-three year old…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟➕ A memoir unlike any you will read, this is a gorgeously written, unputdownable look at the life of Maggie O’Farrell, one of my favorite novelists, and in particular, the seventeen times this particular life has almost ended. If Maggie appears to have more than the “normal” amount of brushes…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 A lively cozy mystery featuring the colorful cast of characters introduced in the first Meredith Island mystery, “Secrets in the Water”, also reviewed by this reader. The series is set amidst a charming Welsh remote island inhabited by a tight knit community, including Kate Galway, a retired teacher and…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Filled with passion and angst, this is a book tailor-made for anyone who has ever aspired to write - or rather, to be a “writer” — a seemingly innocuous label that, for those in the literary “know”, carries an inordinate amount of weight. A label that can invoke literary…
A memoir and a somewhat complicated review — for a story beginning with horrific child abuse and leading to what will become a life-long adult search for healing — that could not help but raise all sorts of emotions in this reader. Empathy, pain and compassion. Curiosity and hope. Wonder,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 A charming cozy mystery, the third in a series featuring Miranda Abbott, and the first experienced by this reader. Miranda Abbott is a former TV detective, a sort of everyone’s favorite Jessica Fletcher, who traded in her sophisticated acting chops to star in a blissfully cheesy, but highly popular,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 A fascinating look at the hidden dangers of glucose spikes, and what we can do to avoid them. Written by a biochemist, (aka the @GlucoseGoddess), this is an accessible and terrifically informative introduction to our metabolism, — the effect the food we eat (and a number of other surprising…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 Is there anything more terrifying than a panic-laden run through a dark and desolate woodland, heavy footsteps not far behind? This fast and dread-inducing literary run leads us through two timelines — the first encompassing a horrific crime, twenty years ago, irreversibly damaging to the victims, participants, and all…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 An absolutely charming regency romp, hilarious in parts and thoughtful in others, that totally captured the heart of this reader. In an early nineteenth-century era when women are chattel (beholden to their male counterparts), when Lydia Hayworth, the low-born daughter of a now-wealthy gentleman, finds herself “accidentally” betrothed to…