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Reviews by Claire M. (Sarasota, FL)

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The Language of Secrets
The Language of Secrets
by Ausma Zehanat Khan
The Language of Secrets (11/10/2015)
A post 9/11 Canadian terrorist plot brings out the political tensions within subsets of the RCMP and Muslims in the department and those connected with a local terrorist cell in a mosque in Toronto. Inspector Esa Khattak and his partner Rachel Getty become enmeshed in an …more
Girl Waits with Gun
Girl Waits with Gun
by Amy Stewart
Girl Waits with Gun (8/11/2015)
This delightful adventure reminds me of Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames; adventure series for girls back in the 50's. This is an adult version but one of historical fiction. Our chief heroine, Constance Kopp is taller, braver, and quite formidable for a woman in 1914. She and …more
Dangerous When Wet
Dangerous When Wet: A Memoir
by Jamie Brickhouse
Sex, Drugs, Rock&Roll. And Mama (3/20/2015)
A searingly forthright memoir from a high level publishing exec recounts his escalating drinking problem, his need for one night stands, and the power his mother's love held over him. Jamie Brickhouse grew up in Texas in an outrageously dysfunctional family and moved to NYC …more
Irritable Hearts
Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story
by Mac McClelland
Irritable Hearts (1/4/2015)
McClelland writes an intensely personal and deeply researched memoir of years of her life in the clutches of PTSD. That she actually functioned through most of it is perhaps because she sought subject specific help and had friends, two therapists and a new lover who …more
Island of a Thousand Mirrors
Island of a Thousand Mirrors
by Nayomi Munaweera
Island of a thousand mirrors (4/22/2014)
Munaweera is an exciting and talented new voice. Her descriptive powers are enormous and in using both sides of the Sinhalese/Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka, a case for the casualties of war-that are really the innocent families of both sides-becomes paramount. The violence …more
The Cairo Affair
The Cairo Affair
by Olen Steinhauer
The Cairo Affair (12/20/2013)
Engrossed in reading the story, towards the end I put the book down and thought about spies and diplomats, moles, double agents, wives of any or all of them and wondered what possesses them. Although I felt the story was plot driven I was pushed to think about what drove …more
Last Train to Istanbul
Last Train to Istanbul
by Ayse Kulin
Last Train to Istanbul (10/1/2013)
A little known aspect of WWll, Ayse Kulin relates the efforts by Turkish diplomats to aid Turkish and other Jews out of Nazi occupied France. Although it's a compelling story, telling it as a historical novel I think compromises part of the tension of the actual events by …more
How to Be a Good Wife
How to Be a Good Wife
by Emma Chapman
How to be a good wife (8/22/2013)
Wow! What a wonderful read this book was! Skillful writing and plotting takes us through the lonely marriage of Marta Bjornstad. There are feminist issues raised tracing the marriage from its shadowy beginning; a husband too dominated by his mother who seemingly is …more
The Lion in the Lei Shop
The Lion in the Lei Shop
by Kaye Starbird
The Lion in the Lei Shop (6/3/2013)
The unreliability of memory, mothers and daughters, a signal event in U.S. history: these are the stones of this story about an army family at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Through the sometimes overlapping, sometimes colliding memories of mother and daughter we learn …more
Golden Boy
Golden Boy
by Abigail Tarttelin
Golden Boy (1/7/2013)
The younger, not yet so golden brother of the protagonist Max says "You may be different like me, Max, but the good news is that we're living in a world of different people." A wonderfully prescient view from a 10 year old that should be a part of the thinking of most all …more
With or Without You
With or Without You: A Memoir
by Domenica Ruta
With or Without You (11/27/2012)
Domenica Ruta begins her memoir in quite a humorous way - how she and her mother go to smash the windshield of a car and how they want to hear the sound of breaking glass. Nikki is the glass that never quite breaks no matter how abused or self abused she is. Nikki is a …more
Niceville
Niceville: A Novel
by Carsten Stroud
Niceville (5/16/2012)
Kind of a southern gothic, Niceville is a town with a few other worldly characters who calmly murder in cold blood and then take a literate note of their surroundings. This is a really good read that has sharp dialogue and those calculating masters of murder and mayhem. The …more
Cloudland
Cloudland: A Crime Novel
by Joseph Olshan
Cloudland (3/6/2012)
Wilkie Collins is credited as being the father of the modern mystery story and he plays a prominent role in Cloudland. A scenario in an unfinished tome of his is pursued as the origin of the serial murders committed in this novel that is based on a never solved series of …more
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
by Katherine Boo
behind the beautiful forevers (1/9/2012)
Down the road from the Mumbai airport, behind the beautiful forevers - a series of painted cement walls - lives a community of indigent people whose lives I sometimes read with my eyes half covered, hoping to avoid the death of one more young person whose hope had run out. …more
Salvage the Bones
Salvage the Bones: A Novel
by Jesmyn Ward
Salvage the Bones (8/7/2011)
This is so well written that I even got through most of the dog fight. Narrated by a young girl, Esch, who describes her daily life in a swamp in Louisiana as Katrina comes closer and finally bears down on the poorest of the poor, it is a heartbreaking story but one that …more
Outside Wonderland
Outside Wonderland: A Novel
by Lorna Jane Cook
Outside Wonderland (2/26/2011)
A good beach read. I was interested in the repercussions of how children's lives would be affected by the loss of both parents as they became adults but really found nothing except the emotional disconnect of either the writer or the characters. The heavenly device was a …more
The Beauty of Humanity Movement
The Beauty of Humanity Movement: A Novel
by Camilla Gibb
The Beauty of Humanity Movement (12/25/2010)
At once both a brilliantly conceived novel about the past and present in Vietnam, and an inquiry into family, love and responsibility, Camilla Gibbs writes with familiarity with the country: in particular the trauma, deprivation and political turmoil the north experienced …more
The Stuff That Never Happened
The Stuff That Never Happened
by Maddie Dawson
The stuff that never happened (9/9/2010)
I began to read and thought "oh, no!" but found myself caught up in the story of Annabelle, a young, naive California girl married without a thought in the 70's to Grant, a man of inaccessible emotions. The '70's were a time of sexual and emotional upheaval which created a …more
Learning to Lose
Learning to Lose: A Novel
by David Trueba
Learning to Lose (6/1/2010)
A great read! A story of 3 generations of a Spanish family in Madrid and the ramifications of choices they’ve made. Fate has certainly set before them incidents that lead to those choices and the questions of immigration and sport as business are issues in the background.

…more
The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors
The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors: A Novel
by Michele Young-Stone
A Perfect Strike (4/29/2010)
Read this book! I was hooked from page one and the characters just grew on me, even the unsympathetic. The parallel stories of Buckley and Becca were destined to connect at some point and the plotting drove it forward. I had not thought about lightning stricken survivors …more
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