By Donna VanLiere ** Publication Date 6 October 2020 ** 4 stars Christmas books are my thing. My husband won’t watch Hallmark movies, so I immerse myself in sappy, happy books themed around love and happiness at Christmas time. Here is another to add to the list. In 1972, Joan is living in a small …
By Alice Hoffman ** Publication Date 6 October 2020 ** 5 stars It is the late 1600s and Hannah Owens has found a baby in a basket in a snowy, open field. The baby is wrapped in a blanket stitched with the name Maria. Perched on the basket is a crow. Hannah takes the baby …
By Jeremy Robert Johnson ** Publication Date 29 September 2020 ** 4.5 stars Turner Falls is a perfect little ski town in the high desert of eastern Oregon. Quaint, friendly, as long as you’re not Lucy or Bucket. Lucy and Bucket are “brown” and outcasts from most of the Turner Falls students. Spring Meadows High …
By Donald Friedman ** Publication Date 29 August 2020** 3.75 stars Owen Berk is called upon to investigate the untimely death of his boss’s cousin, one psychologist named Albert Snaedeker. Albert was in for a routine colonoscopy/polypectomy when he met his end by exploding on the operating table. The hospital maintains that Albert simply neglected …
by Kathleen Y’Barbo 4 stars Annie may be British, and distantly in line for the throne, but she’s not the royalty kind. Annie wants to be a detective and live her best life away from the throne. Grandmother, Queen Victoria, might have other ideas though. When the Queen interferes on behalf of her father to …
by Imogen Clark ** Publication Date 28 July 2020 ** 4 stars Cecily has disappeared on an unplanned vacation to Kefalonia, Greece. Her three grown daughters are looking for answers, and their father won’t give them. Cecily, meanwhile, isn’t quite sure what she’s doing in Kefalonia either. It all started with an envelope and a …
By Heidi Perks ** Publication Date 18 August 2020 ** 4.25 stars How mad do you have to be to exact revenge on someone? How far are you willing to go to make someone pay for a mistake? Enough to suffer the consequences? Enough to commit arson and murder? Three Perfect Liars tackles these questions …
By Emily Adrian ** Publication Date 28 July 2020 ** 4 stars Best friends. Inseparable. One boy. Both attracted to said boy. Only one ends up moving to New York and living with him. Carrie is left behind. Carrie who had a baby at 18 and has managed to become a sought after tattoo artist …
By Alex Landragin ** Publication Date 28 July 2020 ** 4 stars What a unique concept and story. Crossings deals with a rare manuscript, supposedly written, in his own hand, by Charles Baudelaire. Tragedy follows anyone who has had hands on the manuscript. One of the wild concepts of this tale, is the fact that …
By Erin Hahn ** Publication Date 21 July 2020 ** 4 stars Luke Greenly and his twin Cullen host a popular local podcast called Grass is Greenly. The twins couldn’t be more unalike – Luke blonde and quiet, Cullen dark and flamboyantly gay. Their dad is a former punk rock superstar still madly in …