Children are missing from Cambridge, the town’s Jews have been blamed, and King Henry II is receiving less revenue while the Jews are in hiding. Clearly something must be done. Enter Adelia Aguilar. She has been trained at the world-renowned and forward-thinking school of medicine in Salerno, Italy. Her specialty? Corpses. She is a mistress Continue Reading…
We take so much in our daily lives for granted. Bill Bryson looked around his house one day, realized how little he knew about the everyday objects surrounding him, and, being Bill Bryson, decided to research and write a book about them. I read this slowly as my before-bed book, and I’m not sure that Continue Reading…
Emmett Conn is 92 years old and he has started having seizures and disturbing dreams/flashbacks. His early years are a mystery to him anyway. He awoke in a British hospital in WWI, a Turkish soldier mistakenly picked up after he was severely wounded. That’s as far back as he can remember. But now in his Continue Reading…
Abby Sinclair is the neglected daughter of a plantation owner. Three years after the end of the Civil War, she is still mourning the loss of her uncle and her family is still adjusting to the loss of their slaves. When her father decides to move the whole family out to the Outer Banks of Continue Reading…
Moses Froben, an opera singer of world-renown, raised a son who could not possibly have been his own. When his son asked how they had come to be together, Moses would studiously avoid the question. On Moses’s death, however, his son found a memoir that told of Moses’s humble beginnings and how father and son Continue Reading…
The Christmas Box is about a young couple and their young daughter who move in with an elderly widow to help her out with light chores in exchange for rooms. Mary, the widow, becomes an adopted grandmother to them all and feels compelled to pass on wisdom she has gained with her years. This was Continue Reading…
After college, Rachel Shukert ended up working for free for a well-known experimental theater director. The play took a brief tour of Europe, and Rachel was thrilled when she found out that her passport had not been stamped. That meant she could stay in Europe as long as she wanted without a visa, since no Continue Reading…
Have you ever wondered exactly where some of our more common phrases come from? Judy Parkinson sets out to give a brief definition and history of some colorful, common English sayings. I found this book interesting and I learned a lot. For example, “Put a sock in it!” comes from the days of the old Continue Reading…
William Bromley is a World War II veteran living in 1950’s London. In the war, he led a mountaineering expedition that ended disastrously. He has never moved past this and started living again. He’s just existing–teaching school, admiring the secretary from a distance, spending Friday evenings with his one friend, and visiting his father on Continue Reading…
My seven-year-old cousin and fellow lover-of-all-things-fairy, Natalie, convinced me to read this by reciting the cover blurb to me: “Part comedy, part love story, part everything-but-the-kitchen-sink.” What fairy tale fan could resist that? Not this one! I loved that the defining characteristics of the characters weren’t their beauty or lack thereof. Chris is intelligent, kind, Continue Reading…
Professor Random has sneezed Alice right out of Wonderland. He sends young Henry Witherspoon into the book to find her and put her in her place before the world as we know it comes to an end. But Henry accidentally gets sent into the wrong book. Luckily, he meets the unflappable doodle witch, Winnie Flapjack, Continue Reading…