A giant dome suddenly appears over the town of Chester’s Mill, Maine one beautiful October day, and the townspeople are left to their own devices. That’s a lame synopsis, but I don’t want to give anything more away. What would you do if you were cut off from the rest of the world? Perhaps more Continue Reading…
“I should have thought it obvious,” I said impatiently, though even at that age I was aware that such things were not obvious to the majority of people. “I see paint on your pocket-handkerchief, and traces on your fingers where you wiped it away. The only reason to mark bees that I can think of Continue Reading…
On a beautiful July evening, nine-year-old Katie Mackey disappears on her way to the library. And our hearts break. I just don’t know where to start. It’s hard not to compare this to Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, but there’s a huge difference. As I remember it, The Lovely Bones dealt with the family’s grieving Continue Reading…
Weezie Foley is back and better than ever. She’s trying her best to win Savannah’s historic district decorating contest, but the couple across the street are throwing tons of money into their efforts. To add to her troubles, her boyfriend Daniel always becomes decidedly Grinch-like at Christmas, and she just can’t get him into the Continue Reading…
We first meet Crystal Spangler when she’s a dreamy twelve-year-old Virginia mountain girl, in the summer before she begins high school. We follow her as her dreaminess leads her to look for meaning, or for herself, in all the wrong places. I adore Lee Smith’s work. She writes about the mountains of Virginia. I’m in Continue Reading…
I can’t even really say what this is about without giving anything away. Let’s just say that the stupidest angel’s mission to create a Christmas miracle goes horribly, hilariously awry in ways that only Christopher Moore could write about. This wasn’t quite as funny as I expected it to be, but I think since reading Continue Reading…
3.5 Stars. Charlotte just isn’t quite Henrietta, Letty, or even Mary. She spent much of the book just fantasizing about Robert. While interesting enough, I kept waiting for the comedy of misunderstandings and the adventure of French spies pitted against our faithful British crew to get started. About halfway through, things […]
4 Stars. You should see my copy of this book. One of my co-workers, who, for various reasons, has only recently seen how much I read, saw all the neon post-it flags sticking out of the side of my book and asked me what on earth I was doing. I blushed and tried to explain how the people in Bailey White’s humorous little […]
4 Stars. Olive is obviously at the heart of this collection of stories. It’s very easy for fictional characters to be all good or all bad. I had moments where I hated Olive, cheered her on, admired her, pitied her, and even loathed her. But if you look deeply inside all of us, isn’t that the way we would really feel about […]
4 Stars. I enjoyed this one so much more than the first one that I was left wondering if I just read that one at the wrong time or if Larsson really improved that much between one book and the next. Whatever it was, this was way, way better than I expected, and I’m glad it was chosen as one of my groups’ monthly reads. In all […]