Kelley Armstrong — A Rip Through Time (Book Review)
In A Rip Through Time, Kelley Armstrong creates Vancouver police detective Mallory Atkinson. Mallory is visiting her gravely ill grandmother in Edinburgh, Scotland. The year is 2019. Until one evening when Mallory goes jogging and unexpectedly finds herself waking up...Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half (Book Review)
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett is a complex and layered novel about secrets. At the center of the story are twin sisters, Stella and Desiree. Raised in small-town Louisiana, everyone around them focused on the color of their skin. The entire community of...Vaddey Ratner — In the Shadow of the Banyan (Book Review)
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner is about a gentle girl in a brutal country. While the book is fictional, its roots exist in the author’s own life. This enhances the intimacy of the tale. Young Raami is only seven when civil war overwhelms Cambodia. As a...Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (Book Review)
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead is a multi-layered book. The publisher promotes it as, “… a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.” And yes, all of that is in there. But Whitehead also waxes philosophical about...The Hungry Tide — Amitav Ghosh (Book Review)
Author Amitav Ghosh introduced me to both the Sundarban Islands and Irrawaddy dolphins. The islands are at the easternmost part of India and continue into Bangladesh. I first discovered Ghosh’s unique style of environmentally conscious fiction in Gun Island. That book...Diana Gabaldon — Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (Book Review)
Diana Gabaldon takes on the politics and harsh realities of the Revolutionary War in her newest Outlander book, Go Tell the Bees that I Am Gone. Of course, it still focuses on the time-traveling family of Claire and Jamie Fraser. But the story’s intensity centers on...Hala Alyan — Salt Houses (Book Review)
Hala Alyan creates a compelling multi-generational portrait of a family living in the Middle East in Salt Houses. She follows a mostly chronological pathway, starting with the matriarch Salma on the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding. Then we follow the family members...Tan Twan Eng — The Garden of Evening Mists (Book Review)
Early in The Garden of Evening Mists, Tan Twan Eng writes, “I felt I was about to enter a place that existed only in the overlapping of air and water, light and time.” This is an accurate description of a book that layers topics of Japanese garden design, Buddhist...Susanna Kearsley — The Vanished Days (The Scottish Series) Book Review
The Vanished Days by Susanna Kearsley is historical fiction set in both Edinburgh and Leith, Scotland. The time periods vary from the late 1600s to the early 1700s, which both included the famous and oft-chronicled Jacobite uprisings. It’s a story of a young woman and...Kiran Millwood Hargrave — The Mercies (Book Review)
Kiran Millwood Hargrave crafts a story of community and strength in her historical fiction novel, The Mercies. Set in a remote Norwegian coastal village called Vardø in 1617, the story centers on two women. Maren Bergensdatter is barely out of her teens when a...Jodi Daynard — The Midwife’s Revolt (Book Review)
Jodi Daynard takes readers back to the early days of The Revolutionary War in The Midwife’s Revolt. It’s historical fiction in the purest sense, with a focus on a singular time and place. And Daynard adds the challenges of being a woman alone in eighteenth century...Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai — The Mountains Sing (Book Review)
Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is a celebrated Vietnamese poet. With the release of her 2020 book, The Mountains Sing she’s also a novelist. The book is an intimate view of the Tran family and their struggles across decades and generations. Nguyễn uses two story lines to shape...Liese O’Halloran Schwarz: What Could Be Saved—A Genre Spanning Story (Book Review)
Liese O’Halloran Schwarz crafts a family drama / mystery in What Could Be Saved. It’s set in current day Washington, D.C. as well as early 1970s Bangkok, Thailand. The Preston family—parents Genevieve and Robert and siblings Bea, Laura, and Phillip—go to Bangkok for...Jojo Moyes: The Giver of Stars (Book Review)
I think of Jojo Moyes as a contemporary fiction author. So, The Giver of Stars surprised me since it’s solidly historical fiction. Of course, she does tell it through the eyes of a modern woman. The women at the heart of this book grapple with the same things we do...Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian (Book Review)
Chris Bohjalian’s new book, Hour of the Witch, is proof to me that even a beloved author sometimes writes a book that feels like a dud. Your mileage may vary, but despite having elements I usually love, this book just didn’t do it for me. I love journeying back in...Bookshop.Org Affiliate
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