Shiner was a DNF for me. I read about half, and was impressed by some beautiful writing, and the characters were fascinating…but I swear I just kept thinking about a video I saw recently, interviewing people at a diner in WV, and they went around the table talking to these nice folks who were nearly …
I’m a big Michael Connelly fan, starting with the Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller books, then most recently the stories of police officers Jenkins and Ballard (The Late Show, 2017). I hadn’t read either The Poet or The Scarecrow, so I wasn’t familiar with protagonist Jack McEvoy, but was happy to start to get to …
As an adult, I’ve never had a very healthy relationship with food (and I’m totally aware what a first world problem it is to be concerned about how to lose weight when so many people have so little). But I’ve been there, sitting in the green chairs, and being a Lifetime member of Weight Watchers …
I loved The Woman in Cabin 10. The Death of Mrs. Westaway and Turn of the Key? Meh. So I wouldn’t say I went into this as a Ruth Ware fan, but I wanted to give it another go, now that my life is stabilized enough (in a pandemic? WTF?) that if I don’t like …
Who Did You Tell? by Lesley Kara is a combo: mystery/thriller and grief/recovery guide. The main character, Astrid, has moved home with her (helicopter) mother and is trying not to drink, being sober for over six months. And it’s a struggle: as she puts it, “If I have to come home and sit in this …
Susan Straley began keeping a journal as a way to keep friends and family informed the three-month trip she and her husband George took around the USA in 2016. Her journal became her first book, Trippin’ With George: Diagnosis to Discovery in 10,000 miles, and I was pleased to receive a copy of the second …
Publication Date August 4, 2020 As a fan of true crime, particularly the woman-in-danger subgenre, I was happy to receive a copy of Betsy Bonner’s The Book of Atlantis Black from Tin House Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This sad story creeped me out a bit. The author’s sister disappeared, and …
The publisher’s blurb reads “S-Town meets I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” referencing two outstanding true crime hits of the past couple of years (the first a podcast and the second a nonfiction book about a woman’s obsessive search for the identity of the Golden State Killer). I loved both of those, so I was happy to …
Publication Date May 5, 2020 “Big Little Lies meets Presumed Innocent”? Sign me up! Kimberly McCreight, author of Reconstructing Amelia, has written another one of those books you start reading and CANNOT STOP. I loved it. Harper Collins and NetGalley provided me with a copy of A Good Marriage in return for this honest review, …
I was happy to receive a copy of Megan Miranda’s latest book from Simon & Schuster and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review because, although I can’t remember the details, I do remember liking The Last House Guest (2019). I. expected a mystery/thriller that was not necessarily a book club pick, but something to …
Because The End of October, by Lawrence Wright, is fiction, I figured I was safe and wouldn’t have sleepless nights after reading it (as was the case with Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone and Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague). “Medical thriller,” I thought. “Sounds good.” So, even though it is May 2020 and we are …
It seems at best unhelpful and at worst cruel to give a one-sentence review, so I will write something more about Anne Tyler’s Redhead By the Side of the Road, which I received thanks to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I’m not a huge Anne Tyler fan, and remember enjoying …
I always enjoy reading David Ignatius’s columns in the Washington Post, especially when he is writing about the CIA or the Middle East, both of which he has covered for decades. So when I had the chance to read a copy of The Paladin in exchange for an honest review (thanks to W.W. Norton and …
Just two years ago, in my review of Jodi Picoult’s Small Great Things, I related that “when a friend and former library co-worker basically sniffed her disapproval when I told her I liked Jodi Picoult’s books, our friendship was changed forever.” I worked for several years in public libraries and tried not to be judgmental of …
In 2019, I enjoyed J.P. Delaney’s The Perfect Wife (giving it four stars), but Believe Me was a disappointment to me, ending up with just two stars. But after I learned that J.P. Delaney is the pseudonym of Tony Strong, who wrote The Death Pit, Tell Me No Lies, and The Decoy (which was re-written and published as Believe …
I’ve been a fan of Mark Bowden’s wiring for years. Black Hawk Down, Killing Pablo, etc. I’m also a fan of the true crime genre, so I jumped at the chance to get a copy of The Case of the Vanishing Blonde from Grove Atlantic and NetGalley in exchange for this honest review. The title …
Adam Mitzner is a practicing attorney in New York who has somehow found the time to write eight legal thrillers set in New York. Just about a year ago, I reveiewed A Matter of Will, and began my review by saying “I don’t recall reading anything by Adam Mitzner, and I have no idea why!” …
The Herd by Andrea Bartz sounded like just the kind of escapist fluff to get me through another weekend of sheltering in place: a murder mystery featuring glitzy female New York thirty-something Harvard grads who are just starting to make their mark professionally. The title refers to a super-selective members-only womens’ community that features professional …
The Best of Friends, by Lucinda Berry, explores the dynamics between and among a group of teenage boys (who are best friends) as well as their three mothers (BFFs forEVER) when a terrible tragedy occurs. Written by a trauma psychologist (yikes), the story is told from various perspectives and (TBH) at first I had to …
David Parrish, a retired tech writer, was a part-time baseball coach many years ago. When he learned that one of his former players, Jon Bowie, had died, Parrish was stunned. As a friend, he talked to friends and family, trying to understand what police and the medical examiner had ruled a suicide. Jon had been …