Reviews by Sande O. (Rochester, NY)

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Love and Other Consolation Prizes
Love and Other Consolation Prizes: A Novel
by Jamie Ford
Bookended Lives (7/11/2017)
Love and Other Consolation Prizes, by Jamie Ford is a wonderful, tender historical historical novel. It is a bookend style that begins with the 1902 Seattle World's Fair and ends with the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. The cast of characters is actually very small, but we get …more
The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins
The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins
by Antonia Hodgson
The Good Old Days of the 18th Century (1/7/2016)
The author who writes historical fiction chooses the extra burden, because not only must she devise an entertaining and intricate plot, and appealing characters, but also create a detailed and historically authentic world in which they live and die. Antonia Hodgson, the …more
Crazy Blood
Crazy Blood
by T. Jefferson Parker
I went to the ski lodge party and found I hated everyone (1/6/2016)
Whenever I start a new novel I look forward to meeting characters I would love to have as friends. In Crazy Blood, I could find not one person I would love to meet for hot chocolate. The only hope I saw was brother Robert, but he exited the plot early. I had hope for Wylie' …more
He Wanted the Moon
He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him
by Mimi Baird with Eve Claxton
She Wanted to Know her Father (2/18/2015)
In Mimi Baird's search for her father Doctor Perry Baird, we get to follow her sad lifelong journey from childhood to 75. Although he died a broken man in 1960. Doctor Baird was lost to Mimi in 1944 when he suffered a critical manic episode and was confined to a mental …more
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
by Katherine Boo
A Compelling Look at India's Motivated Poor (1/17/2012)
Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist Katherine Boo has given readers a fascinating look at the poor in a slum near Mumbai's international airport. These poor are not stereotypical, however, they are individuals with names, histories and personalities. They are entrepreneural. …more
The Orphan Master's Son
The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel
by Adam Johnson
A Story of Obsession (11/20/2011)
Adam Johnson's view of life in North Korea is not for the feint of heart. Though fictional, it has the eerie sound of ultimate truth. This is a society without love, without hope, without any human emotion. The "beloved" leader is the source of all. There is nothing beyond …more
The Borgia Betrayal
The Borgia Betrayal: A Poisoner Mystery Novel
by Sara Poole
Boring Borgias (6/22/2011)
Whenever I read an historical novel, my first test is how the author creates a sense of time and place. On this count Sara Poole is spot on in her novel, The Borgia Betrayal. The reader definitely feels the sense of fourteenth century Rome. It is vibrant, earthy and …more
Outside Wonderland
Outside Wonderland: A Novel
by Lorna Jane Cook
I wanted to care more about these people (2/8/2011)
Out of Wonderland is a book I kept wanting to like. As I read it I wanted to care about the three children: Alice, Dinah and Grif, but I didn't. I didn't like them, though I did want to know what happened to them in the end, I wasn't really invested in their fates.

I was …more
The Wave
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean
by Susan Casey
The Perfect Wave Book (8/25/2010)
100 foot high waves? The mind boggles. Hundreds of sailors lost at sea every year due to rogue waves? Lloyds of London is on the line to pay out. Is climate change the cause or the effect? Why do a small cadre of surfers follow the really, really big waves around world from …more
Losing My Cool
Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture
by Thomas Chatterton Williams
Now I think I understand a lot better (4/22/2010)
Hip hop music and culture always eluded me. Being a white female I failed to see the allure, but having read Thomas Chatterton William's new autobiography, I think I get it now. This is an extremely well written voyage into the world of modern day black youth. Although …more
Still Life
Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy
by Melissa Milgrom
Riveting Read (1/27/2010)
I have always found taxidermy fascinating. A little strange perhaps, but interesting. I spent 8 years in grad school at the University of Wyoming so I get the "trophy" aspect of "stuffing" animals, and I remember the museum dioramas from childhood and I've read about …more
Savage Lands
Savage Lands
by Clare Clark
Riveting and Thought-provoking Read (12/6/2009)
Clare Clark takes the reader into a very primitive land in her historical novel, Savage Lands. This is not the Louisiana of the antebellum South, this is the pioneer land of 18th century French, English and Native American combatants. The initial background is the French …more
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