Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Reviews by Elizabeth B. (Sunnyvale, CA)

If you'd like to be able to easily share your reviews with others, please join BookBrowse.
Order Reviews by:
The Tudor Secret: The Elizabeth I Spymaster Chronicles
by C. W. Gortner
The Tudor Secret (4/13/2011)
This was a fun book to read. Having read both non-fiction and historical fiction of the Tudor period, I found this perspective entertaining, an imaginative perspective of some of the events and persons of this period of history. However, I would have preferred richer descriptions of the characters and less predictable plot development.
The Hand that First Held Mine: A Novel
by Maggie O'Farrell
The Hand That First Held Mine (3/18/2010)
This is one of the best books I've read in the past two years. The writing was exquisite. I was intrigued with how the author went between the two sets of main characters, of different generations, in both conventional and non-conventional ways. In on particular way, I felt like I was watching a movie, something I haven't experienced before. Additionally, the author developed the characters in such painstakingly, intricate ways. Their identities didn't hit the reader over the head, but you got to know them slowly, meticulously. The reader's perspective and location also shifted at times in the novel, which made the novel seem more lifelike.
The Things That Keep Us Here: A Novel
by Carla Buckley
The Things That Keep Us Here (11/23/2009)
I loved this book. I am an avid reader, but have not lately come across a book I did not want to take breaks from. Some books take awhile for me to warm up to the characters, but by the second page, I found myself quite interested in caring for this family. I was impressed with the way the author just plunked us into their lives, and then kept thickening (enriching) their characters chapter after chapter, often in very subtle ways. And while the topic seems particularly pertinent in today's times, the ways in which the author propelled the reader forward with the plot makes me think it could stand alone with or without today's issues at hand. My sense is that this book would appeal to a wide variety of people due to several themes running through the story.
  • Page
  • 1

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...
  • Book Jacket: My Friends
    My Friends
    by Hisham Matar
    The title of Hisham Matar's My Friends takes on affectionate but mournful tones as its story unfolds...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Great literature cannot grow from a neglected or impoverished soil...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.