The Abominable
Our valley is in darkness, but Everest blazes far beyond and above us in a cold, powerful, self-contained isolation. That strikes me as terrifying. In 1924 the British alpine climbing community was...
View ArticleThe Visionist
In The Visionist: A Novel, Polly Kimball, her brother Ben and her mother are running for their lives. After her drunken father passed out on his bed, Polly accidentally dropped an oil lamp in his...
View ArticleThe Pink Suit
The pink suit is both the description of the outfit worn by Jacqueline Kennedy when her husband was assassinated and the name of Nicole Mary Kelby’s new novel, The Pink Suit. The novel traces the...
View ArticleCalifornia: A Novel
There is no prelude in Edan Lepucki’s debut novel, California, no introduction to life in a time of normalcy. Instead, the novel begins with Cal and Frida living in a small house in a forest somewhere...
View ArticleWinter Street
It’s Christmas Eve and Kelley Quinn is trying to make sure everything at his bed and breakfast is ready for their biggest party of the holidays. All is going well until he walks into a guest room and...
View ArticleA God in Ruins
In her new novel, A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson answers the question that arises when one is spared from death but others are not: Is my life worth it? In her previous novel Life After Life Ursula...
View ArticleImagine Me Gone
Imagine Me Gone is a novel of family, characters, beginning with a woman who marries a man she knows has a problem she can’t fix or help him overcome. In 1963 Margaret marries John, despite his...
View ArticleInvincible Summer
Less than a quarter of the way into Invincible Summer and I realize why the novel feels so comfortable—I’ve superimposed the characters from Four Weddings and Funeral over the ones Alice Adams...
View ArticleYou Will Know Me
Devon is a gymnast and has been a gymnast probably since she was in her mother’s womb. Something as little as losing two of the toes on her right foot when she was a toddler wouldn’t and didn’t...
View ArticleIt’s Not You, It’s Me: Today Will Be Different
If Herman Koch is the master at writing all the unpleasant things we might think about our fellow man, then Maria Semple is the heart behind the tough things we think about ourselves. In her newest...
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The Futures: A Novel
Evan and Julia are college sweethearts who decide to take the next step and begin post-college life together in NYC. But while Evan is on a clear path in the world of finance, Julia is a bit more...
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The Arrangement: A Novel by Sarah Dunn
How to describe Sarah Dunn’s new novel The Arrangement? All that is in my head is the Seinfeld episode where Jerry and Elaine decide to break the standards of friends and become...
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Startup: A Novel
If your goal in writing a novel is to start conversation than Doree Shafrir succeeds in Startup. On the surface the novel is a quick-read satiric look at the young tech industry springing up in NYC,...
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April Reading Recap
Safe to say that April stayed more true to form than March, in that we had A LOT of rain, which is fine because now we have flowers everywhere. My reading was not quite so productive. I did have a 5...
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Great Summer Reading: The Identicals
Happy second Friday of the summer and the cap to my great summer reading week! This one is almost a no-brainer because Elin Hilderbrand is the quintessential light, vacation-reading author and her...
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Gather the Daughters
Initially, it’s difficult to tell the time period in Jennie Melamed’s novel, Gather the Daughters. It is life on an island with little in the way of modern conveniences—no indoor plumbing, no...
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The Dreaded DNF: Summer Edition
What can I say? 2017 is halfway over and my reading has been bipolar all year. I might think it was me, but I know too many other readers who report the same thing—high highs and low lows. And then the...
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The Good People: A Novel
She felt as though her soul was grinding itself into powder under the weight of her own unhappiness. Nóra and her husband, Martin, are raising their dead daughter’s son because his father can’t....
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November Reading Wrap-Up
Who knew November could be a blockbuster month for reading? I can’t go so far as to say the books were blockbusters, but I read a lot of them. The best part? I redeemed myself during Nonfiction...
View ArticleRed Clocks by Leni Zumas
From the very beginning reading Red Clocks is like looking through a very grimy window. Everything is tinged with dirt and difficult to see, much less see clearly. Four women, each speaking in...
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