Miri is a small teenage girl from the mountains. She feels inadequate in her village because she isn’t allowed to help in the quarry, the lifeblood of trade. She tries her best to help every way she can, but she just knows that everyone must think she’s a burden. One day, with the spring traders, […]
Gemma Doyle is living in India, but she desperately wants to move back to England. As 16-year-old girls will do, she’s bickering constantly with her mother over it. One day, in the midst of an Indian market, tragedy strikes and Gemma gets sent back to England. But she also starts having strange visions. Can the […]
Synopsis from GoodReads: In 1887, a young Arthur Conan Doyle published A Study in Scarlet, creating an international icon in the quick-witted sleuth Sherlock Holmes. In this very first Holmes mystery, the detective introduces himself to Dr. John H. Watson with the puzzling line “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive,” and so begins Watson’s, […]
Mma Ramotswe has just gotten engaged to Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni. But she’s not going to let a little thing like that change her life too much. She’s still running her business and solving mysteries with her unique blend of luck, insight, persistence, and wisdom. I’m missing something. I know I am. Too many […]
Sara Stevenson has shamed her family and has been exiled to a remote Scottish island for months. Along with her lady’s maid, Kate; Kate’s husband; and the lightkeeper, William, she will have to weather a long winter, unsure of the fate of her lover. I thought this was pretty good. It’s not exactly my typical […]
Renata DeChavannes is reeling from personal loss. She runs home to her grandmother in Alabama, seeking answers to questions about her mother. I don’t have a lot to say except that I can’t help but feel like this has been done before. Younger generation, digging in the past, looking for parents’ secrets. Sound familiar? I’m […]
The Bliss family has a secret. A lot of bakeries say that their pastries are like magic but their pastries really are magic. Oldest daughter Rose loves helping out in the kitchen but she hasn’t been allowed to do much more than fetch ingredients and she’s never been entrusted with any magical recipes. But when […]
Old friends Ellis, Julia, and Dorie have rented a beach house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a month. They’ve realized that their lives are moving along quickly and they want to spend some time together again. Ellis makes the arrangements and they all show up for a lazy vacation for the month […]
Ishmael Beah was about 12 years old when Sierra Leone’s civil war found him. He and his brother were visiting friends in a neighboring town and got cut off from their family. Their world descends into chaos and they are left trying to survive on their own. Oh my gosh. This was just heartbreaking. I […]
Yunior has cheated one too many times. The smartass Dominican narrator of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is just not in a good place. In a series of short stories set around different events in his life, he reflects on how he has arrived at this point. This is so hard for me […]
Alba Ashby is mortified. On the cusp of a brilliant career as a historian, she’s lost everything, including her hope. Then she finds herself at the house at the end of Hope Street. Peggy, the eccentric caretaker of the home, invites Alba in and starts to regale her with stories of the house’s more famous […]