I was somewhat familiar with Dr. Pennebaker’s work through his 2014 title Expressive Writing: Words That Heal, and as a lifelong journal keeper, his ideas have always resonated with me. So I was pleased to receive an advance copy of Opening Up by Writing It Down, Third Edition: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and …
Melody Warnick’s This Is Where You Belong came to my attention at a great time! It was at the start of another gorgeous summer on the Central California coast, at the beginning of the tourist invasion — and we started thinking about how nice it would be to not get stuck in traffic or feel …
All These Perfect Strangers by Aoife Clifford grabbed me for two reasons: first there was the teaser I read: “This is about three deaths. Actually more, if you go back far enough. I say deaths, but perhaps all of them were murders. It’s a grey area. Murder, like beauty, is in the eye of the …
Ink and Bone by Lisa Unger was high on my TBR list, but for some reason I kept not really getting into it. It had a couple of things that I don’t really “get” – namely, visions and tattoos. Both of these are fine for others, but just don’t do it for me…in my fiction …
I’ve been a fan of Mary Kubica’s densely plotted novels, including Pretty Baby and The Good Girl (a big hit with a book club I belong to) – so was looking forward to her latest effort, Don’t You Cry. The story unfolds along two tracks: the first involves the mysterious disappearance of Quinn Collins’s roommate …
This is another one of those CREEPY psychological thrillers involving young women who were friends as teenagers, then they lose contact, and years later they reconnect with more or less unpleasant results. In this one, Heather and Edie are the two main characters. The novel is definitely creepy and it all leads to a horrifying …
I’m a huge fan of Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley mystery series, often described as “literary mysteries.” So when a new (to me) author’s book is described as a literary mystery, I’m in! I was eager to read Susie Steiner’s Missing, Presumed, knowing nothing about her work or ability to deliver the kind of story I …
My Sister’s Grave, the first book in Robert Dugoni’s Tracy Crosswhite series, came out in late 2014. I loved it. I thought Tracy was a smart, strong woman with fierce determination (evidenced by her dogged pursuit of her sister’s murderer). In fall of 2015, the second book in the series, Her Final Breath, made me …
I was slightly hesitant about this novel when I read it was a story told…backwards? I still recall the vivid impression the movie Memento had on me back in 2000, and I wondered how a novelist might pull off this kind of storytelling. But I wanted to give it a fair try, and OMG I …
Because for me McKenzie is a local author, there was considerable publicity about this title earlier in 2016, and the cover caught my eye (Brilliant, BTW)! So I was eager to dive in to it, because it sounded like it had it all: quirky female protagonist, commentary on the whole Palo Alto-Silicon Valley-nouveau-riche scene, dysfunctional …
The first book in this series, Black Fridays, was released in 2012, and I have been recommending the author and the series ever since. The author and the protagonist, Jason Stafford, share the life experience of being Wall Street types, and the information about that whole complex way of life is interspersed throughout the series…but …
Love this !!! Not only does it feature titles that I would have been salivating over based on the author alone, it also includes some authors who are totally unknown to me. This will be extremely useful to anyone involved in library collection development, as well as anyone just looking for “the good stuff.” Good …
OMG. OMG. OMG. I just finished an AMAZING book! Now that I have that out of the way, let’s talk about Close Your Eyes by Michael Robotham (wish I knew how to pronounce his last name), which is the 8th in the Joe O’Loughlin series…but truly, if you haven’t read any in the series, you …
Cold Barrel Zero by Matthew Quirk. TBH, I am not sure why I wanted to read a military thriller. But apparently I did, and I thank NetGalley for an advance copy in return for my honest review. Now, TBTH (TOTALLY!), this review is based on my husband’s reaction to the book, because I didn’t actually …
The God’s Eye View by Barry Eisler OK, just to get it out of the way, this book seriously creeped me out…but mostly in a good way, I THINK. There were several aspects of it that affected me, including the plot, the technology, and at least one of the three main characters. Make that two of …
I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh For starters, I loved this book, which I was surprised to learn is Clare Mackintosh’s debut novel (can’t wait for the next one!) Secondly, I need to word this carefully, so as not to give anything away… There is a horrible hit-and-run accident, and a young boy is …
Linwood Barclay books are fun reads! He has now written seven books set in the fictional upstate New York town of Promise Falls. (The first five, in order of publication, are Too Close to Home, Fear the Worst, Never Look Away, Trust Your Eyes, and A Tap on the Window. Broken Promise and this latest …
In so many ways, I loved this book…as I hoped and somewhat expected, being a Quindlen fan. It is filled with people who are so well-developed, they were incredibly real to me as I read, thanks to Quindlen’s familiar skill at developing characters in her “family fiction.” The protagonist, known as Mimi (real name Mary Margaret), is …
I actually read Holly Seddon’s book Try Not to Breathe on Groundhog Day…highly appropriate, since there was so much about it, both in plot and tone as other things I have read recently (esp. Girl on the Train). There are several interesting characters in the book, especially the two women Alex and Amy, who are …
I admit, I was not familiar with The Austen Project, which includes Joanna Trollope’s retelling of Sense & Sensibility, Emma retold by Alexander McCall Smith, and Val McDermid’s version of Northanger Abbey. Curtis Sittenfeld is the latest author hired by the Austen Project to bring Austen’s stories from the early 19th into the early 21st …