While many people will feel THE EXILES is a five-star book and while I would have felt the same several years ago, my taste has evolved. I didn’t love it. I liked it, but I don’t have the heart to give it just three stars. It was such a nice, if somewhat predictable, story.

After Evangeline’s father dies, she becomes a governess in early 19th-century London. But after she has an affair with the adult son of the household, she ends up pregnant and in Newgate prison. From there, she is shipped with other prisoners to Australia.

On board, Evangeline meets Hazel, a midwife and herbalist. It is Hazel, not Evangeline, who plays the largest part in this story.

But this book is also about a third female, Mathinna. She is an Aboriginal child, taken on a whim to live among white people.

I read that this is to be made into a TV series. It is sure to make great TV.

THE SNOW CHILD by Eowyn Ivey is simply a retelling of a Russian fairy tale. It doesn’t live up to the many reviews of it that I read. The book is full of unanswered questions.

Right up to the second-from-last page GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn should be rated 5. Every page of the book builds more and more tension. It really is the best kind of book: unputdownable.

But the end: Other reviewers have said that it comes as a surprise. True. But I didn't like it. It is as if Flynn couldn't think of an end to the story so just stopped.

The end should be rewritten.

WHEN SHE WOKE by Hillary Jordan was a pleasant surprise for me. From what I had heard, I had expected a futuristic book about a world where abortion was a crime punishable by turning the criminal’s skin red. Yes, there’s that. But there’s so much more to it. And Jordan’s writing is very good.

You can believe me. This comes from a pro-lifer.

At first, I thought my expectations were accurate. But, although pro-lifers in this book have tunnel vision and are cruel, which might have irritated me, the story has so many twists and turns, I really did enjoy it.

My biggest surprise about WHEN SHE WOKE was that so much happens in a relatively short book. I say “relatively” because most books that have this much action are twice as long as WHEN SHE WOKE.

Too many authors love the way they write so much that they write too much and subject the reader to many paragraphs that can easily be cut without detracting from the story. But Jordan has cut the garbage paragraphs in WHEN SHE WOKE. Don’t skip. Jordan’s writing is concise, and all of it is necessary.

CITY OF WOMEN was a disappointment. The dialog and many of the situations are just plain corny. The story is loaded with convenient coincidences. The woman who helps hide Jews in World War II Berlin is, at the same time, a tramp who can't get enough sex, then pretends to be shocked about others' sexual experiences.

The author said he wanted to put ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. But that's not what this book is. These people are not ordinary; they're unrealistic and ridiculous.