Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Most Anticipated Books of 2025!

Reviews by Laura L. (St. Paul, MN)

If you'd like to be able to easily share your reviews with others, please join BookBrowse.
Order Reviews by:
The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell
by William Klaber
A woman ahead of her time. (1/26/2015)
Meet Lucy Ann Lobdell. The world doesn't really know who she is yet and but she is poised to take the world by storm. This is a fictionalized true story about a woman who chooses to live life on her terms .

Lucy Ann Lobdell has a daughter and is not making enough money to support her. She doesn't want to re-marry and work for free the rest of her life and her future prospects look dim. It is 1855 and women have little or no rights, stuck in their positions, second to men. Lucy makes a bold decision one day. She wear her brothers old britches, cuts off her hair and decides to head out the door as a man looking for work. She changes her name to Joseph Lobdell.

She grew up in New York, moved to Pennsylvania as Joseph and then to Minnesota before it became a state. Trouble seemed to follow Joseph. All she wanted was to live her life in peace and raise horses and maybe hope that someone would love her. Yet most people did not accept her for who she was, a person way ahead of her time.

Klaber has written an amazing book of historical fiction. The characters, based on real people, are vibrant and leap off the page. There is a fiery passion in Lucy to life an authentic life and Klaber portrays her struggles and the worlds reaction to Lucy with precision and respect. Quite simply, Klaber has written a page turner.

I loved this book and I predict it will be one of the best books I read in 2015.
I cannot stop thinking about Joseph and her courageous life and I'm telling everyone I know to read it.
King Peggy: An American Secretary, Her Royal Destiny, and the Inspiring Story of How She Changed an African Village
by Peggielene Bartels, Eleanor Herman
King Peggy (1/5/2012)
I am really enjoying King Peggy and have decided to read the book aloud to my 9th grade World History class. The culture, customs and history of Ghana are fascinating and the author does a good job of following Peggy's journey from secretary to King. I laughed out loud a few times, rolled my eyes a bit but all in all this book is enjoyable and I am glad I got the chance to read it. I already recommended King Peggy to a friend of mine traveling to Ghana in the Spring. P.S. My students are learning a lot from it.
  • Page
  • 1

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Demon of Unrest
    The Demon of Unrest
    by Erik Larson
    In the aftermath of the 1860 presidential election, the divided United States began to collapse as ...
  • Book Jacket: Tell Me Everything
    Tell Me Everything
    by Elizabeth Strout
    Elizabeth Strout's Tell Me Everything picks up where her previous book Lucy by the Sea (2022) left ...
  • Book Jacket: The God of the Woods
    The God of the Woods
    by Liz Moore
    Bestselling author Liz Moore's latest novel, The God of the Woods, begins with a disappearance. ...
  • Book Jacket: Becoming Madam Secretary
    Becoming Madam Secretary
    by Stephanie Dray
    Our First Impressions reviewers enjoyed reading about Frances Perkins, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Memory Library
by Kate Storey
Journey through the pages of this heartwarming novel, where hope, friendship and second chances are written in the margins.
Book Club Giveaway!
Win My Darling Boy

My Darling Boy by John Dufresne

The story of of a man whose son collapses into addiction and vanishes into the chaotic netherworld of southern Florida.

Enter

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

D T the B O W the B

and be entered to win..

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.