Book Review: Lies by T.M. Logan

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4 disco balls

Publish date: September 11, 2018 by St. Martin’s Press
Category: Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Mystery, Crime

Joe is a loving husband and father: a grade school teacher, steady eddie type who doesn’t enjoy conflict. I feel he was rather frustrating in that he never gets mad enough (you will see what I mean). He and his son are driving home when they spot his wife’s car (Mel, who is supposed to be at work) pulling into a hotel. They of course follow her to surprise her. There he finds Mel meeting up with her best friend’s husband, Ben; who is in a mad state. After a scuffle with Joe, Ben goes missing. Guess who is the suspect?Read More »

Book Review: The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

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4 disco balls

Published: January 9, 2018 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Category: Contemporary Fiction

What an interesting concept for a book! Four siblings – during their youth – will visit a fortune teller who will tell them each individually the date of their death: no sibling telling the other. How they live the rest of their lives may- or may not – be dependent on “knowing.”Read More »

Book Review: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

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4 disco balls

Published: September 9, 2014 by Knopf
Category: Sci-fi, Dystopian
Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Novel (2015); PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Nominee (2015); Sunburst Award Nominee for Adult (2015); John W. Campbell Memorial Award Nominee for Best Science Fiction Novel (2015); British Fantasy Award Nominee for August Derleth Award (best horror novel) (2015); The Rooster – The Morning News Tournament of Books (2015); NAIBA Book of the Year for Fiction (2015); Toronto Book Award Nominee (2015); The Great Michigan Read (2015); Women’s Prize for Fiction Nominee for Longlist (2015); Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Fiction (2015); National Book Award Finalist for Fiction (2014); Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Fiction (2014)

In this intricate, elegantly woven tale, the fate of five people at the end of civilization will connect in such a delicate, yet powerful way; some of them not ever meeting each other.Read More »

Audiobook Review: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin, narrated by Ann Richardson


Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin
Narrator: Ann Richardson
Length: 8 hours and 11 minutes
Publisher: Post Hypnotic Press Inc.
Released: Dec. 8, 2017
Genre: Classics

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm has delighted readers for over 100 years. Published in 1903, when girls were inevitably depicted as pretty, gentle and proper, Rebecca Rowena Randall burst onto the scene of children’s literature. Sent to live with her prim and proper Aunt Miranda, who is expecting her much more demure sister, Rebecca is a “bird of a very different feather”. She has “a small, plain face illuminated by a pair of eyes carrying such messages, such suggestions, such hints of sleeping power and insight, that one never tired of looking into their shining depths….” To her Aunt Miranda’s continual dismay, Rebecca is exuberant, irrepressible, and spirited – not at all “proper” or “demure”. She wins over her aunt soon enough, and the whole town, and thousands of readers and listeners everywhere.

In 1904, author Jack London wrote Kate Douglas Wiggin: “May I thank you for Rebecca?…. I would have quested the wide world over to make her mine, only I was born too long ago and she was born but yesterday…. Why could she not have been my daughter? Why couldn’t it have been I who bought the three hundred cakes of soap? Why, O, why?” And Mark Twain called Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm “beautiful and warm and satisfying”. This recording, narrated by Ann Richardson, whose sweet voice has a facility for accents and character voices, is a satisfying listening experience you’ll want to revisit. Upcoming from Post Hypnotic Press is a new annotated print/eBook edition of this book, with illustrations from the original publication and a new introduction, as well as a work-book for children.

Read More »

Book Review: Tell Me You’re Mine by Elisabeth Norebäck

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3.5 disco balls

Publish Date: September 4, 2018 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Category: Suspense, Mystery, Domestic Thriller

Want to read upcoming new releases before they hit the shelves? Join Penguin Random House’s First to Read program – its free – to gain access to a variety of books. That is how I was able to read Tell Me You’re Mine by Elisabeth Norebäck.

When I read the synopsis for Tell Me You’re Mine I was sold. I am a fan of suspense/thriller books and the “is this my long lost daughter” narrative seemed very intriguing. Read More »

Book Review: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

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BFS –> Paris

4.5 disco balls

Published: February 6, 2018 by Algonquin Books
Category: Contemporary Fiction, Family Life

I started this book in Belfast, brought it with me to Paris and Avignon, and wound up finishing it in Nice. I could say that this book is quite the world traveler.

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Nice, France

I am tardy to the party in reading this book; mainly due to the fact that love triangles make me uncomfortable and I try to avoid them like the plague. What forced me to read this – and thank goodness for it because I was missing out – was my book club’s August pick.

Three’s Company? More like three’s a crowd. 

The 1+1+1=3 equation is as follows: Andre and Celestial are childhood best friends, Roy and Andre are college friends, Roy and Celestial meet through Roy. VoilàRead More »

Book Review: Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

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3.5 disco balls

Published: March 7, 2017 by Riverhead
Category: Contemporary Fiction, Magical Realism, Fantasy
Man Booker Prize Nominee (2017); Los Angeles Times Book Prize Nominee for Fiction (2017); National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for Fiction (2017); Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Fiction (2018); Folio Prize Nominee (2018); Kirkus Prize Nominee for Fiction (2017); Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Fiction (2017); Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize Nominee for Fiction (2017)

This book is deep dude.
But, in all seriousness, author Mohsin Hamid did an exceptional job at conjuring up my inner psyche and putting it to work. The first half of this book I was sucked in and kept stopping and thinking “wow, what would this be like for me?” and even more so “this is all too relevant and that is scary.”Read More »

Book Review: Tied to Deceit by Neena H. Brar

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just chilling at the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, Northern Ireland

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3 disco balls

Published: August 4, 2018 by Penguide Books
Category: Mystery, Domestic Thriller

Synopsis: On a drizzly August morning, the inhabitants of the hill town of Sanover, Himachal Pradesh, wake up to the shocking news of the murder of the exquisite, secretive, malicious, and thoroughly immoral Devika Singh.

As Superintendent of Police Vishwanath Sharma begins to sift through the hidden secrets of Devika Singh’s life, it becomes evident that everyone who knew her seems to have a clear-cut motive for killing her.Read More »