Reviews by Julie P. (Fort Myers, FL)

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The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant
The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant
by Liza Tully
The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant (3/15/2025)
I had recently been reading several more serious books so when I saw the title of this one, I thought it might be just what I needed. And I was right. This is a book that doesn't take itself too seriously. The two main characters are a mix of old and young, knowledgeable …more
Beast of the North Woods
Beast of the North Woods: Monster Hunter Mysteries #3
by Annelise Ryan
Beast of the North Woods, by Annelise Ryan (11/17/2024)
This is the third in the Monster Hunter series, and while I'm a huge fan of mystery and thriller series, this was one I hadn't heard of before. Professional cryptozoologist, Morgan Hunter, is called to solve the murder of a fisherman whose body is found slashed in the woods, …more
Harlem Rhapsody
Harlem Rhapsody
by Victoria Christopher Murray
Harlem Rhapsody, by Victoria Christopher Murray (9/12/2024)
As in The Personal Librarian, co-written with Marie Benedict, Murray brings to light an accomplished young woman who was responsible for encouraging many young black writers at a time (1912) when getting their work known was a difficult endeavor. Jessie Redmon Fauset
is …more
Follow the Stars Home
Follow the Stars Home
by Diane C. McPhail
Follow the Stars Home (5/8/2024)
I love historical fiction, and this was a topic about which I knew little - the first steamboat on the MIssissippi River, how it came to be, and the story of its first journey, but this novel failed to engage me for some reason. Maybe it was the writing, which seemed overly …more
Panther Gap
Panther Gap: A Novel
by James A. McLaughlin
Panther Gap (3/26/2023)
This is one of those books that defies genres: it's a thriller, an environmental diatribe, a saga of two siblings, and an exploration of mystical relations between human and animals. I quickly became immersed in the plot and characters, although the writing is extremely …more
The Immortal King Rao
The Immortal King Rao: A Novel
by Vauhini Vara
The Immortal King Rao (4/17/2022)
How to describe this debut? Is it dystopian fiction about biotechnological innovation? Is it historical fiction about a family in newly independent India in the 1950s? Or is it science fiction about a new world order where citizens are shareholders? It's a back and forth …more
Peach Blossom Spring
Peach Blossom Spring: A Novel
by Melissa Fu
Peach Blossom Spring (3/10/2022)
"Chinese history is sad," the author's father would say, and this fictional version of his life bears testament to that statement. Melissa Fu was determined to flesh out what she knew of her father's early life and eventual immigration to America, and her debut novel …more
The Paris Bookseller
The Paris Bookseller
by Kerri Maher
The Paris Bookseller (11/15/2021)
Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres; I love reading about eras, people, and places I was previously unaware of. So reading about the literary life in Paris in the 1920s, the published authors, the up-and-coming writers, and the trials and tribulations involved …more
The Personal Librarian
The Personal Librarian
by Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
The Personal Librarian (2/6/2021)
Marie Benedict seems to have discovered a sure thing: write a novel about a real-life, strong, independent woman whose achievements need to be recognized by the world. Her newest book, The Personal Librarian, is the story of a young African American woman, passing as white, …more
The Smallest Lights in the Universe
The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir
by Sara Seager
The Smallest Lights in the Universe (7/15/2020)
A heartfelt memoir from an award-winning astrophysicist who grapples not only with being a female in a male-dominated field and on the autism spectrum, but a mother of two young boys who discovers that her husband is suffering from terminal cancer. It's engagingly written, …more
Creatures
Creatures
by Crissy Van Meter
Dreary Creatures (10/21/2019)
Creatures is a well-meaning but unfocused novel of yet another dysfunctional family - daughter raised by alcoholic, druggie father with some help from her mostly absent mother - all taking place on an island off the coast of California. At times the writing shows flashes of …more
Yale Needs Women
Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant
by Anne Gardiner Perkins
More than about Yale (7/16/2019)
The author started writing this as a PhD dissertation, but it reads as anything but! This is a very engaging account of the first group of women students at Yale in 1969, but this book encompasses so much more - the struggle for women's rights in the 1970s, campus safety in …more
The Kinship of Secrets
The Kinship of Secrets
by Eugenia Kim
The Kinship of Secrets, by Eugenia Kim (10/15/2018)
With so many books written about World War II, it was refreshing to read one about a lesser known conflict, the Korean War. Maybe refreshing is not the appropriate word to describe a conflict that tears a nation apart, divides its citizens, and involves the United States in …more
Her Name Is Rose
Her Name Is Rose
by Christine Breen
Her Name is Rose (2/16/2015)
A debut novel about a young Irish widow who, without telling her adopted daughter and her best friend, travels to Boston to (hopefully) discover the whereabouts of her daughter's birth mother, something she promised her husband on his deathbed that she would do. The story …more
First Frost
First Frost
by Sarah Addison Allen
First Frost, by Sarah Addison Allen (11/15/2014)
When I first started reading First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen, I thought the story sounded familiar, and then I realized that this book continues the story of the Waverly sisters, first begun in Allen's 2007 title, Garden Spells. First Frost is as filled with magic and …more
Small Blessings
Small Blessings
by Martha Woodroof
Small Blessings (5/20/2014)
Small Blessings was one of those books that I didn't want to end. It was a gentle story full of quirky characters who all had their own obstacles to overcome. I wanted them to live down the street from me so I could continue to be part of their lives. There are a lot of …more
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