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Reviews by Cathryn Conroy

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Internal Medicine: A Doctor's Stories
by Terrence Holt
Superb Writing...As Engrossing as a Novel (4/22/2023)
To become a physician, I believe, requires as much of a spiritual calling as it does to become a priest, minister or rabbi. If a fat paycheck is the primary motivator for a career in medicine, I suspect that person will not survive residency. Exhibit A: This book.

Writtenmore
Burial Rites
by Hannah Kent
A Dark, Disturbing Book--And You Must Read It! (4/22/2023)
This is a dark book. With an even darker ending. But that's not a spoiler because this extraordinary tale by Hannah Kent (published in 2010 when she was only 25 years old!) is based on actual historical events. While it is a novel, the author's prodigious research gives themore
A Certain Age: A Novel
by Beatriz Williams
Delicious! Delectable! Daring! Oh, Dahling...You Simply Must Read This! (4/22/2023)
Delicious! Delectable! Daring! Oh, dahling...you simply must read this. Great literature it is not, but it is so much fun. So between Joyce Carol Oates, Jane Austen and Anne Tyler (all of whom I highly recommend), read this sinfully delightful book by Beatriz Williams.

It'smore
Ordinary Grace
by William Kent Krueger
Ordinary Life, Extraordinary Story (4/22/2023)
It's summer 1961 in New Breman, Minnesota. JFK is president. It is a time of innocence. Kids wander everywhere in this small town--in the fields, down by the river, on the railroad tracks. But this idyllic town is rocked by five deaths--accidents, suicide, homicide--in justmore
The Lady of the Rivers: A Novel (The Cousins' War)
by Philippa Gregory
Read With Caution (You Will Be Hooked--and It's the First of a Six-Part Series!) (4/22/2023)
If you read this book, do so with caution! Why? It's really good. And it's the first in a series of six books (with a seventh reportedly in the works). I read the second in the series, "The White Queen," first, and it's even better than this one.

Written by Philippa Gregory,more
Midwives
by Chris Bohjalian
A Not-to-Be-Missed Story of Tragedy and Consequences--and Love (4/22/2023)
I don't know what most impresses me about author Chris Bohjalian's writing in this book:
--He wrote from a woman's perspective.
--He wrote with the knowledge of a physician.
--He wrote with the knowledge of an attorney.

And he pulled it off expertly!

When a woman giving birthmore
The Fortunes
by Peter Ho Davies
A Work of Literary Genius (4/22/2023)
Plain and simple: This is a work of literary genius.

But this is what it is not:
• It is not an easy read. Don't even think of taking it to the beach.
• Even though it is billed as a "multigenerational novel," it is not. It is four novellas about four people spanning 100more
Vinegar Girl: Hogarth Shakespeare Series
by Anne Tyler
Laugh-Out-Loud Funny! (4/22/2023)
If just the thought of reading Shakespeare is enough to make you groan, grunt or growl, this is just the book for you!

As part of the Hogarth Shakespeare project in which the Bard's plays are retold for a modern audience by some of today's best-selling authors, themore
Innocent Traitor: A Novel of Lady Jane Grey
by Alison Weir
Mesmerizing! (4/22/2023)
Even students of British history who know how this story ends will find this fictionalized version (that is solidly based on historical facts) a riveting and even mesmerizing read. Author Alison Weir masterfully tells the life story of Jane Grey, known as the nine-day queenmore
Big Little Lies
by Liane Moriarty
Delicious and Gossipy--But With a Vitally Important Message (4/22/2023)
This is one of those rare books: A delicious, gossipy, laugh-out-loud funny, escapist read with an intricate "can't-put-it-down" plot with a message that is quite profound. And while there is a murder--we are told that at the beginning--it's not a classic style murdermore
Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic
by Sam Quinones
This Should Be Required Reading--For Everyone (4/22/2023)
This should be required reading--for everyone.

"Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic" is the tragic, frightening and prescient story of the heroin and opiate epidemic in the United States. And if you think none of this applies to you, that is all the moremore
The House Girl
by Tara Conklin
A Magnificent Book (4/22/2023)
This book is two disparate stories with loose threads that bind them together, and first-time author Tara Conklin brilliantly succeeds in weaving this tale of Josephine Bell, a slave on a Virginia plantation in the mid-1800s, with the modern-day story of Lina Sparrow, amore
The Little Stranger
by Sarah Waters
A Good Ghost Story, But Way Too Longwinded (4/22/2023)
Imagine "Downton Abbey" meets "Rebecca." Well, a downtrodden, shabby, dilapidated Downton Abbey, that is. This gothic ghost story set on a crumbling and decaying English estate just after World War I tells the story of a small family--Mrs. Ayres and her two grown children,more
We Are Not Ourselves
by Matthew Thomas
This Book Is Profound. And It's Also a Great Disappointment. (4/22/2023)
This book is profound. But it is also a great disappointment.

This is the story of Eileen, an Irish-American from a working class family in Queens, who marries Ed. Together they have a child, Connell. This is the story of their lives--Eileen's determined quest for a largemore
Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
by Margot Lee Shetterly
They Helped Break the Color Barrier as They Helped Break the Sound Barrier (4/22/2023)
You don't know this story. This is almost a secret story. Not because it was kept secret on purpose; it was just not deemed to be worth telling. But it is not a secret any longer. Thanks to this book and the movie with an all-star cast we are now privy to the extraordinary--more
My Name Is Lucy Barton: Amgash Series #1
by Elizabeth Strout
As Nearly Perfect as a Novel Can Ever Be (4/22/2023)
This is a story about the human condition. Of happiness. And sadness. Of love. And hate. This is a story of life--childhood, marriage, motherhood. It's all here in a very short book that will grab your heart and not let go. It is a simple story written in exquisite prosemore
Anything Is Possible: Amgash Series #2
by Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout Is My New Favorite Author (4/22/2023)
I just want to say this first: Elizabeth Strout is my new favorite author. She consistently writes with an empathetic and wise compassion of the human condition. Her books touch my heart.

"Anything Is Possible" is a continuation--not a sequel--to "My Name Is Lucy Barton." Domore
House of Names
by Colm Toibin
A Chilling and Dramatic Page-Turner (4/22/2023)
If you think Greek mythology is boring, dull and ancient, think again. "House of Names" by Colm Tóibín is an exciting, thrilling and imaginative retelling of the story of Clytemnestra's murder of her husband, Agamemnon, after he brutally sacrificed their 16-year-oldmore
The Sleepwalker
by Chris Bohjalian
Brilliant! This Book Will Give You Goosebumps (4/22/2023)
Imagine a mountain. A boulder is on the top. The wind and rain eventually--but slowly--push the boulder inch by inch to the crest. And then gradually it begins to tumble down that mountain...ever so slowly at first and then it picks up an inexorable amount of speed until itmore
A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles
An Extraordinary and Charming Book (4/22/2023)
In 1922, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov is declared by the new-to-power Bolsheviks of being a Former Person and is sentenced to house arrest. It just so happens that the good count, a highly-educated, well-read aristocrat who has never worked a day in his life, has lived formore

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