5 Stars. In my zeal to read a new book by Sarah Addison Allen, I found that I had inhaled this book in two sittings. Oops. No savoring the prose here. But a friend had sent me an ARC so I feel the need to write a more reasoned review and I wanted another chance to take my time with the book anyway. So I’ve read this twice within […]
3 Stars. I’m just not the reader for magical realism in literature. Oh, I do just fine with Sarah Addison Allen’s light touches of fantasy in otherwise contemporary novels. But a huge black beast of an unknown species adopting a family? Spirits wandering the house? Curses? Mermaid girls? All in dark historical fiction? I just […]
3 Stars. I read The Other Boleyn Girl and The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory years ago and enjoyed them both. I have some understanding of England’s history under Henry VIII though and I know pitifully little about the Wars of the Roses. That lack affected my enjoyment of The White Queen a bit. There’s a family tree at […]
4 Stars. I enjoyed this but as a woman who has chosen not to have children, I don’t think it speaks to me the same way it speaks to mothers or those who long to hold little ones in their arms. But even I found Mabel and Jack’s plight heartbreaking and rushed to find out exactly what was going on with the little snow girl. Was […]
5 Stars. First of all, I loved listening to this audiobook. Each part has a different narrator and they each do a fabulous job. What I really loved were the musical numbers by Corky Siegel. If Mike was playing “America the Beautiful” in the text, a harmonica would play the song softly in the background, for example. That kind of thing is […]
3.5 Stars. It’s been so long since I read Garden Spells that I felt just a bit lost as I started this. The outlines settled in quickly for me though. My favorite chapters were the ones about Bay. That nameless longing for something, knowing it’s out there, just not being able to reach it–I think we all felt something like this as teenager […]
Okay, this was weird. But it was a weird that I liked. Astronomer Irene Sparks decides to move back to Toledo on the day that she almost simultaneously creates a mini black hole in her lab and learns that her alcoholic mother has died. She’s always wanted to go back home and work for the […]
3 Stars. When I first read this, I thought it was another solid four-star book from Sarah Addison Allen. But now that months have passed, it’s faded away and I’m only left feeling that it was a decent entry in her body of work. I’m bumping it back to three stars. Devin may have been my favorite character. She’s a bright child […]
The Lenore women grow a rare flower that is the secret ingredient in their powerful perfume. Each generation, only a few women are chosen to wear their coveted scent. These women inevitably rise to the top of their professions and become the envy of the world. But Willow, Mya, and Lucia Lenore, the current generation, […]
Um, I think I missed something. This book’s average rating on GoodReads is 4.47 as I write this and I’m rating it 2 stars. Where did I go wrong? It’s been a while since I finished so I won’t be able to get too specific. First of all, I didn’t particularly care for the writing […]
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 […]