Category: books
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Book Review: My Favourite Mistake by Marian Keyes
First of all, my feelings about this book are mostly due to my own mistake, and as an avid reader with thousands of books under my belt, I have to admit it is a rookie mistake I shouldn’t have made. This is my first Marian Keyes book, and although I’ve seen her name and numerous…
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Book Review – Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties, and the Making of Wallis Simpson by Paul French
First, thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC of this work of nonfiction, a history of sorts of Wallis Simpson, the late Duchess of Windsor, and the time she spent in China in the mid-1920s. I have long been drawn to nonfiction works about the Royal Family of Great Britain and…
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Book Review: Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger
Everyone knows the saying, “Like mother, like daughter,” or “Like father, like son.” We all inherit certain traits and characteristics from our parents and pass on some of them to our own children. In my case, though, it is more like, “Like father, like daughter.” My father was a first-class storyteller. Sometimes they started out…
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Book Review: Death and Croissants by Ian Moore
Cozy mysteries are my favorite genre, and I especially like those set in foreign locales, but for some reason this one sort of dragged for me. Although set in the Loire Valley of France, it didn’t feel very French to me, perhaps given the protagonist and MMC is British, but he is supposedly fluent in…
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Book Review: Sandwich by Catherine Newman
Have you ever read a book where you loved it with all your heart but you didn’t love the protagonist who is also the narrator telling her own story in first person? In this instance there is no escape from this person that you aren’t really fond of. This is the case of the novel…
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Book Review: The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl
While considerable thought goes into packing clothing for an overseas vacation, especially when visiting multiple countries with differing climates, I give equally as much thought into what I will read on the trip. My Kindle is always fully loaded and downloaded and ready to go. For my recent trip to Ireland and France, I had…
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Book Review: Booked for Murder by P. J. Nelson
Writing under the pseudonym P. J. Nelson, the author of Booked for Murder (An Old Juniper Bookstore Mystery) said in his bio that he had done a great many things, most of which appear to involve acting and theatre, but, he has never ever run a bookstore. This was a little nagging thought I had…
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Book Review: The Gardener‘s Plot: A Mystery by Deborah J. Benoit
First of all, when I read the author’s bio for this book, I was 100% IN and immediately requested an ARC of this new mystery from Macmillan Publishers via NetGalley. This is Deborah Benoit’s debut novel and The Gardener’s Plot won the First Crime Novel Competition sponsored by Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America. Prior to…
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Book Review: House Swap by Olivia Beirne
After reading two heavy hitters, Elizabeth Strout’s Tell Me Everything and Ann Napolitano’s Within Arms Reach, both of which I absolutely loved, I needed something lighthearted and fun. This book had popped up recently on my Amazon Kindle Daily Deals, so I added it to my bulging TBR list on my Kindle. I zipped through…
Michelle Blanchard Ardillo 