This is book is based on the interesting concept that maybe mythical creatures (yeti, unicorns, etc) may exist or did exist. Don't worry the book is mystery/thriller, not an examination of those creatures but features a cryptozoologist who researches and does some searching for those types of creatures. So how does this all come together? Very well actually. The cyrptozoologist, Morgan Carter, is asked to help a person who has been accused of murder. The accused claims that a hodag (a local beloved mythical creature) was the murderer. And the romp begins, with some twists and turns, you eventually find out what happens - but I'm not spoiling the end for you.
Readers that like mysteries will like this book. I'm a huge mystery reader (Denise Mina, Jeffrey Deaver, Micheal Connelly, Harlan Coben - you get the picture) and I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Victoria Christopher Murray has done it again. She has found yet another remarkable, but probably unknown to most, woman and celebrated her life in this well written piece of historical fiction. In this book, Harlem Rhapsody, the focus is on a woman who should be recognized by all, Jessie Redmon Fauset. Fauset introduced the world to such luminaries as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and Nella Larsen; and those are only a few of the more famous names that she discovered and published.

Jessie Redmon Fauset was a women ahead of her time. Highly educated - a graduate of Cornell and the Sorbonne (and the first Black woman elected to Phi Beta Kappa) - Fauset was working as a school teacher in Washington, DC. However, in 1919 she moved to New York City to become the literary editor of The Crisis, the magazine published by the then 10 year old NAACP. She was named as literary editor by the founder and editor-in-chief, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois. Fauset was determined to be a novelist, editor and publisher; in short, a career woman, and unlike most women of her time, had no interest in being married and giving up her career. However, she was not above taking a lover - no other than the married Dr. Du Bois. Their relationship provides a tension to the book that keeps the reader on edge leaving you with questions like: will their relationship be discovered by his wife; will Du Bois fire Fauset from her position if she ends the affair; and, what will happen if someone on the NAACP board discovers them?

That tension remains in the background, while the reader is exposed to how Fauset finds, influences, and shapes the lives and works of her luminary stars. She also finds time to write a novel which is met with acclaim. She is truly is a remarkable woman and one that I hope the world will celebrate when Harlem Rhapsody hits the shelves and gets the readership it deserves.

If you like mystery, a little history, and a lot of intrigue you will love this book. Set in Miami in the 1920s, we first see the mansion on Biscayne Bay through the eyes of Anna, the wife of the builder. Anna and her husband, Robert, already live on Park Avenue in NYC and summer in Newport but Robert builds this house to surprise on Anna on her 40th birthday. Unfortunately the surprise is on him because she hates it (the house is too grandiose, Miami is too hot). However, resigned to living there, Anna works with the architect to design the grounds so that they complement the house and are appealing to her. Anna and Robert throw a huge party and someone falls in the bay and drowns - which is the start of the intrigue.

Fast forward 10 years and the house now belongs to a different family, and the house is said to be cursed, haunted and full of secrets. We meet Carmen who moves to the house to live with her sister and brother-in-law. It is up to Carmen to sort out the mystery and secrets as she, herself, is in danger.

Cleeton is a skilled author. She keeps the pace going at a good clip, provides luscious descriptions of people and places, and throws in a few spectacular shifts that you do not see coming. I loved this book!

It took me a few chapters to become engrossed in All You Have to do Is Call, but once it grabbed me, I was swept away. The book is set in the early 1970s just before Roe v. Wade becomes law of the land. Its focus is on a group of friends, some of whom are abortion providers (based on a real group) and others who are anti-choice. I think my early lack of enthusiasm was based more on the depressing fact that after 50 years, we are returning to back-alley abortions and the unnecessary loss of women's lives. However, I persevered with my reading and was rewarded with a great story and excellent writing.

Through a series of events, the anti-abortion character understands the need for having abortions available for some women at some points in their lives. It also shows that women are incredibly strong and when united can accomplish some wonderful feats. Let's hope that we can join together again to get the Dobbs decision repealed and women's health can be in their own hands again rather than that of the government.

King of the Armadillos should be on everyone's must-read list. Wendy Chin-Tanner style is reminiscent of Anne Tyler and Ann Patchett in that Chin-Tanner is an excellent storyteller and her command of language envelops you, so much so that I found myself frequently fully engrossed her world and paid no attention to what was happening around me.

Like many of Anne Tyler's novels, King of the Armadillos moves seamlessly through the lives of a family, in this instance the Chin family. The main character, Victor, a Chinese American teenager, is diagnosed with Hansen's disease (formerly known as leprosy) and is sent from his home in the Bronx to the Carville treatment facility in Louisiana. While at Carville, Victor interacts with a host of interesting people, including several teenagers that he quickly befriends.

Part of Victor's therapy for his fingers and hands is to learn to play the piano. This is where Chin-Tanner's writing prowess shines. Her description of the impact of music on Victor is stunning. I am not a musical person, but I think I glimpsed what musicians feel both physically and mentally when they are making music via Chin-Tanner's writing.

I must admit I was a bit deflated by the ending. There is nothing wrong with what Chin-Tanner wrote, I just wished for a different outcome for Victor, his family, and friends. However, the ending in no way diminished how much I enjoyed the book. Everyone should put King of the Armadillos on their summer reading list.

The Long Ago follows the lives of siblings from Montana in the early to mid 1960s. The brother leaves Montana via his enlistment in the Army. Two years later he comes back to find that his younger sister has disappeared and he tries to find her. We learn that the sister moved to CA and is married. But, in the age before police databases, cell phones and surveillance cameras existed, she is very hard to find - even though she is someone who was just trying to get away and not necessarily disappear. We follow the brother's and sister's lives for the remainder of the book.

The story line is well thought out and easy to follow. The characters are developed. The writing is okay which is why I gave it an average rating rather than a higher one. I found some of the writing quite repetitious (for example, there are several pages where the brother is "snapping off a salute"). Otherwise, it is an easy enjoyable story to read.

If you're looking for a pleasant story where everything works out in the end, this is the book for you.

As you can tell from the title of my review, my initial impression of the book was less than outstanding but that changed as the story progressed. The story starts with the usual trope of two sisters that have grown apart as they hit puberty and one sister, our narrator, is trying to figure out what happened. Sticking with the trope of two sisters, the narrator dresses and acts differently that what is considered "traditionally" female. Fortunately, once the story establishes the relationship of the sisters, things move along quickly.

The sisters live on a reservation in Louisiana. Like many reservations in the United States, the tribe builds a casino. Our narrator works at the casino in housekeeping and that's where the story line really picks up. She witnesses suspect behavior and tries to do something about it. Amid all this, her sister disappears. The author will break your heart describing how easy it is for Native American women to disappear and how difficult it is for tribal police to legally protect their members from the actions of non-tribal members. It opened my eyes to legal snafus that I thought had been settled decades ago.

Woven throughout the story line is a wonderful thread of traditional stories from our narrator's tribe.

I think you will enjoy this book. It's a little bit mystery, a little bit mystic and a lot of good writing.

I don't know how I can convince you to read this book, but I will do my best. It is masterpiece of plot and writing. Like a matryoshka doll, just as you get comfortable with a story line, a new plot twist is revealed. Plus, the skill at which the author toggles back and forth between two time periods is remarkable – you never get lost – and then when she intertwines all the characters from past and present, you sigh with relieve as she fits them together just like a nesting doll. I was engrossed in this book from the start to finish and I'm sure you will be too.

This engrossing novel is a must read for anyone wanting to see grit and determination in action. Our hero, Rachel, is technically a formerly enslaved person because the novel begins with the declaration of emancipation in 1834. However, emancipation was a farce as local laws were quickly enacted to keep people enslaved under what were called apprenticeships. Rachel rejects her apprenticeship status and runs away from the plantation to find her children that, over a course of many years, had been taken away from her and sold.

The first child that Rachel finds is her mute daughter working in Bridgetown – the largest city in Barbados both then and now. The daughter is going by a different name than her birth name, because being mute and illiterate cannot convey her name to others, and yet Rachel finds her through sheer determination. The two of them and a sailor named Nobody (there's a story there) join forces to find the rest of the children. The travels take them to another side of Barbados, to boarding a ship for British Guiana, where they most travel for weeks by canoe up a seemingly uninhabited river, and then by boat again to Trinidad.

The descriptions of people and places are compelling. Like the film director, Alfred Hitchcock, the author is a genius as providing just enough description and then letting your imagination fill in details to complete the imagery. As with Hitchcock, this technique can make an event more emotional and compelling than if the author used five more paragraphs of description.

At times this book was hard to read because of the cruelty of the world at that time, however, it was always interesting. Further, the author struck a good balance to keep the story line from becoming morose. It is very much worth reading to learn more about the enslaved people in the Caribbean and just to read a great book.

What an interesting collection of short stories - somewhat disparate yet somehow come together in unity. Some of the stories are fantastical and dreamlike (looking at you Fiddler, Fool, Pair), while others are down to earth. I am not a huge fantasy/speculative fiction fan and so have little compare this to which is why I went with a good rating rather than very good. I think if that those genres appeal to you then this book is for you. However, anyone who picks this up will not be disappointed.

This historical fiction novel ended too soon for this reader. It's a wonderful story that sweeps you up in the life of Sylvia Beach, owner and founder of Shakespeare & Co, a bookstore in Paris that sold books from the US and UK in English. (The current Shakespeare & Co in Paris is a different owner but opened as an homage to Beach's store).

Intriguingly, the bookstore launch was in the heady Parisian artistic times between World War I and World War II. Shakespeare & Co was soon a regular haunt for people like Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and most notably, James Joyce. The friendship between Joyce and Beach soon turned into a business relationship as Beach was first to publish the Joyce masterpiece, Ulysses. What a feat it was to bring the book to publication and then to sell it (it was banned in the United States). As if this story line wasn't enough, there is another layer that is going on simultaneously. It focuses on the relationship between Beach and Adrienne Monnier, owner of the equally admired bookstore, La Maison des Amis des Livres.

All of this is just a taste of what is waiting for you in this book. You should read it, you will not be disappointed.

Take my Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a tour de force of a novel. Inspired by true events, the story follows Civil Townsend, a fresh out of nursing school woman, working at a reproductive health clinic in Montgomery, AL. Civil quickly discovers that impoverished woman are being sterilized without their consent. When sterilization happens to two young sisters (her patients) she jumps into action and a law suit follows.

As Civil becomes more entwined with the sisters and their family, we also learn more about Civil's family. Each character in this novel is so well developed that you feel as if you know them. Watching Civil, as a young nurse, try to effect change in the sisters' lives is uplifting and painful as she struggles to come to grips with what she should and shouldn't do.

We also get to know Civil as a woman the verge of retirement from a successful career as a doctor. The author is skilled at working between the two eras and weaves the story line between the two.

The novel is ultimately about control and how the best intentions of people and the government can frequently end in tragic circumstances.

Am I glad I read this book? Yes. Did I get irritated while reading it? You betcha. (Shoplifting is not a victimless crime - those of us without a lot of money get to pay the higher prices caused by the store's loss; try telling a family whose daughter is missing that it's safe to strip/dance at dive bars near the oil fields). My irritation aside, the book is well written and the story line holds the reader's attention. I did think the book was more interesting once we moved past her childhood. Although it is important for these stories to be written, I thought the author dipped into familiar tropes when writing about her mentally ill mother.

I also kept wondering how different the author's life would be if she were a person of color. As a white woman who lives in a predominantly white state, I can only guess what would have happened but I highly doubt that the author would have gotten away with warnings instead of tickets, time served instead of more jail time, not being arrested for shoplifting...the list goes on. Again, I am glad I read this book not only for the story it told but how it made me think about my life and the lives of others.

I groaned when I read the first few pages of A Million Things, thinking here we go again, the old "child left on their own" trope. Fortunately, I stuck with it and by the next chapter, I was hooked.
This is a delightfully sad story about a 10 year-old girl (Rae), a dog (Splinter) and a hoarding old lady (Lettie) who lives next door. The resiliency of all three of them is what keeps this book interesting and from turning maudlin.
Rae's mother disappears but Rae is used to being on her own, and carries on, taking care of herself and Splinter. When Lettie falls and needs Rae's help the story line takes it's most interesting turn. Watching Rae, Lettie and Splinter form their own family is the crux of the book. And, with all families there are ups and downs, yet they keep going.
For me, the only disappointment of the book was the ending - which is very realistic - but sometimes you want to suspend reality! Read this book, you won't be sorry.

The Personal Librarian is an engrossing story about Belle da Costa Greene, a unique woman for her time and for our time as well. This piece of historical fiction is a well written and well plotted biography for a remarkable woman. Ms. Greene was the personal librarian to JP Morgan, helping and guiding him to build a library rivaled only by the best in the world. Greene started with Morgan in 1905 and served as his librarian until his death. Fortunately for all of us, after Morgan's death she continued as the librarian for the collection and helped establish it as a reference library open to all in 1924.

During the time when she and Morgan were establishing the library, Greene was taking trips to Europe and buying manuscripts and other rare pieces of art - headily spending Morgan's money (with his permission). All this doesn't sound unusual now, but the turn of the 20th century it was rare to find a woman in business, let alone a single woman, who was entrusted with and did, spend huge amounts of money on acquisitions.

However, the crux of the story is that Belle da Costa Greene was "passing" as a white woman. At first, I was frustrated by the authors' continuous mention of her passing and the anxiety it caused. After stepping away from the book for a couple of days, it occurred to me that as a white woman, I couldn't possibly know or imagine the constant terror of being discovered as a member of the Black race; especially at the turn of the century with the rise of Jim Crow laws and the KKK. After that epiphany, I found the reminders of Greene's anxiety crucial to understanding how successful she was and how amazing it was that she accomplished what she did. For you see, Greene didn't hide in the library. As a Morgan's personal librarian, she was invited to and attended the very rich people's social affairs, including lavish parties and weekend get-aways. The story has other engrossing details about Greene's life, including her affair with a married man. It was a life well lived and story well told. I hope you enjoy the book as much I did.

Every time I picked up The Fortunate Ones the Credence Clearwater Revival Song "Fortunate Son" ran through my head. If you know the lyrics, you can't help but wonder if Tarkington got some inspiration for his book from the song.

This book is the fall of the tragic hero in so many ways and you watch it play out in many of the characters. Yet, even knowing what is going to happen, Tarkington keeps you engrossed in the story.

My only complaint is the character development of Charlie and his relationship to his mother. In the beginning the two are very close, then Charlie goes to a rich private school (it is day school, he is still living with his mother) and his mother is ignored, both by Charlie and the author. We read snippets of what she is doing but the focus is almost completely on Charlie and his teenage life. Yet, when an event occurs that involves his mother (don't want to spoil it for readers) we are supposed to believe it is a life changing blow to Charlie. But for this flaw, I would have given the book 5 stars.

Tarkington is skilled writer and story teller.
Even as a life-long Northerner, I felt as though I could understand the Southern culture that Tarkington lays out for us. This is a book that all should read, and I think most, if not all, will fully enjoy.

Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres and The Woman Before Wallis did not disappoint this reader. It is based on the adult lives of Morgan twin sisters. One sister you've probably heard of: Gloria Vanderbilt, wife of Reggie Vanderbilt and mother of Gloria Vanderbilt, the famous designer. The second and lesser known sister, Thelma, is the focus of the book as she was the lover of the Prince of Wales for many years before Wallis Simpson. In fact she introduced Wallis to the Prince.

It is a whirlwind of a story, full people with incredible wealth - even during the Depression - and the trappings that the wealth brings. It is dialogue that kept me enthralled, however. The author does a wonderful job of bringing the characters to life. And, somehow she makes some of the most incredibly privileged people seem sympathetic - a true wordsmith!

If you're looking for a interesting story based on true events, look no further. I know you'll enjoy this one.

I think I would describe my relationship to psychics and mediums as "curious with a healthy dose of skepticism". This book helped satisfy my curiosity and I think made me less of a skeptic - but I'm not running out to get my cards read anytime soon. Ptacin's strength is her personal interactions with the people of Camp Etna. She is intriguing, open minded and wonderfully engrossed by what she is learning, be it dousing or table tipping. I was captivated by these parts of the book and that's what kept me going to the end. Ptacin's segues into the history of Camp Etna and the religion of Spiritualism are also brilliant - seamlessly leaving the present and weaving into the past. However, it was the history parts where the book, for me, got weighed down and tedious. If you can plow through those parts, you are rewarded with another great personal interaction with a member of the Camp Etna crew. All in all, I thought it was a worthwhile read and I certainly learned a lot about Spiritualism as a religion.

A longtime fan of The Family Fang, I had high expectations for Nothing to See Here and I wasn't disappointed. Each character was so well defined and all of their quirks and foibles served to enrich the story-telling. The pacing was excellent and it was easy to become engrossed and keep reading even though it was way past your bedtime. All in all, an excellent read.

I'm not usually a reader of war stories, real or fiction, but I was captivated by this book and its stories of women fighting the Nazis - and I think any reader would be equally engrossed. The author, Sarah Rose, is both a historian and storyteller, effortlessly weaving facts into an illustrative story of the lives of women who worked for the British as spies in Nazi-occupied France. There, they risked their lives helping to organize the resistance in preparation for D-Day.

Rose is an author that shouldn't be missed. Her passion for her subjects comes through in the careful telling of their lives and contributions to the war effort. As she points out, "Historically, women's labor goes uncounted, and women's war work was also in the shadows." Rose does an admirable job of bringing that important work out of the shadows.