I was afraid this book might be a little “sappy” for me. I like emotional reads but rarely read the kind of books described as “heartwarming”, and this book about a friendship between a dying teenager and an elderly woman fit that bill. But it came highly recommended by Modern Mrs. Darcy’s Best Books of Summer 2022,…
I loved this novel about a strong, opinionated woman in the early 1960s who is a chemist, a single mother, and the star of a cooking television show. This sort of novel could easily become trite but it never did. Elizabeth Zott has to deal with sexism, harassment, and assault, as she navigates the world of science…
I appreciate books that are hard to categorize because they cross genres. Not surprisingly, this debut novel by Blitz Bazawule, a musician, artist, and filmmaker, does exactly that. The Scent of Burnt Flowers tells the story of a young Black couple, Melvin and Bernadette, who flee the United States in 1966, after a violent altercation with…
I was offered a review copy of Stacie Murphy’s new novel, The Unquiet Dead, a historical mystery set in 1893. Since it was a sequel, I decided to read A Deadly Fortune first. I loved both of them and highly recommend them for anyone who likes historical mysteries. A Deadly Fortune, Murphy’s debut novel, introduces…
This is the kind of historical novel I love – it’s a decades-spanning family saga that builds on the author’s own family history. In this debut novel, Fu tells a story that parallels that of her father, who is born in China during the Japanese War of Aggression in the 1940s and the Chinese Civil…
This is a book I’ve been recommending lately, and it’s one you may not have heard of (I discovered it through Modern Mrs. Darcy’s summer reading list. This debut novel is a story about a dysfunctional family in small town Texas, and it’s based on the stories and themes of classical mythology. I thought it was fantastic.…
A few months ago I posted about the 2021 Women’s Prize longlist. At the time I had only read two of the books, Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi and The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (both excellent). Since then I’ve read four more of the books from the longlist: Piranesi, Luster, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps…
This was a strange read, and not quite what I was expecting, but I really got into it. It’s set in a dystopian future where wilderness spaces have nearly all been destroyed. A nameless government sections off the Last Wilderness and no one can access it, except for Park Rangers and a group of 20 people…
I loved this book, from beginning to end — and it’s a book that stayed with me long after I put it down. In fact I recently re-read the last chapter, just to hear it one more time. I keep thinking about how moving this book was for a debut novel, and how beautifully written.…
I really enjoyed this story about a week in the life of a young woman in Northern Ireland. Majella is in her mid-twenties and lives with her mother in the very small fictional town of Aghybogey during the time of “The Troubles”. Her day to day life is ordinary – she cares for her mother…
Angeline Boulley is a former co-worker of mine, and though I don’t know her well, I was excited for her first novel to come out, and even more excited to receive an advanced review copy. I hoped I wouldn’t be disappointed, and I wasn’t. In fact, this book was everything I could ask for, with…
You’ll have heard of this book because of the awards it won in 2020, including the Booker Prize. This story of a young boy growing up with an alcoholic mother in 1980s Glasgow is worth the read. It’s dark, but once I finished it, I missed the characters. By the time you finish it, Shuggie…
The Book Stop 