In a dual narrative, author Sena Jeter Naslund explores the lives of a modern-day fictional author, Kathryn Callaghan–a “woman of a certain age,”–and artist Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, famous for painting portraits of Marie Antoinette. Both women are looking back over their lives, evaluating their choices and reflecting on their losses. I am not the Continue Reading…
Max Trader is a luthier who wakes up one morning in a body not his own. After the initial panic and a little further investigation, Trader finds out that charming, womanizing rake, Johnny Devlin, has wished for a different life and somehow they have traded bodies. Devlin has no intention of trying to switch back. Continue Reading…
Synopsis from GoodReads: Award-winning “New York Times”-bestselling author Ann Patchett (Bel Canto, The Magician’s Assistant) returns with a provocative novel of morality and miracles, science and sacrifice set in the Amazon rainforest–a gripping adventure story and a profound look at the difficult choices we make in the name of discovery and love. In a narrative Continue Reading…
Molly Ayer has messed up one too many times. She’s caught up in the foster system and her latest mistake has left her with a choice of either fifty hours of community service or going to juvie. Her boyfriend searches around and finds out that his mom’s employer, 91-year-old widow Vivian Daly, needs help cleaning Continue Reading…
When Charlotte Brontë died, she left 20 pages of a novel behind. Clare Boylan decided to finish it. A little girl is enrolled in a private girls’ academy. She is shy and reclusive, but the headmistresses make much of her because it’s obvious that her benefactor has money. Trouble arises when her benefactor can’t be Continue Reading…
Eleanora Cohen’s birth is full of omens. The town where she was born was under siege, her mother died in childbirth, and a flock of exotic hoopoes come to roost at the house and just stay. Otherwise, her very early years were fairly normal. Her father married his dead wife’s sister, who did her duty Continue Reading…
In WWII France, the French police rounded up over 13,000 Jews and held them in a huge stadium, the Vélodrome d’Hiver, for days before shipping the survivors off to concentration camps. This is the fictional story of one little girl who was taken and what her life might have been like. It’s also the story Continue Reading…
A group of comrades-in-arms have almost all gone back to live in the rural area where they came from. Some are faring better than others but they all seem to be at a loss as to what to do with themselves now that the war is over. Things change when their long-time leader, Kunessin, finally Continue Reading…
Cassandra Moon, firmly in her 40s, is finally getting married. She’s been taking care of others all her life and now she’s looking forward to having someone else take care of her for a change. All she has to do is walk down the aisle and say “I do.” So why does she find herself Continue Reading…
Dena Nordstrom is on the verge of making it big as a female newscaster in 1970s New York, but she’s not dealing well with the stress of the job and some unresolved issues from her past. This was enjoyable enough. My favorite parts featured the extended family living in Elmwood Springs, Missouri. I kept reading Continue Reading…
**SPOILERS FOR SOULLESS, CHANGELESS, AND BLAMELESS** Alexia Maccon, nee Tarrabotti, is back in residence at Woolsey Castle. She’s gloriously pregnant, not very happy with the way the infant-inconvenience is trying to slow her down, and firmly resolved to keep on with her daily business as usual. When a ghost appears to her and manages to Continue Reading…