Tag: grief
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Book Review: Guncle Abroad by Steven Rowley
Two years ago I read the first book in The Guncle series, and I absolutely loved it. I gave it 5 stars and wrote about it here. Last night I finished reading on my Kindle book 2 in the series, Guncle Abroad (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, May 2024) and while I loved revisiting Patrick, brother Greg,…
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Book Review: A Shoe Story by Jane L. Rosen
Full disclosure: I used to love shoes. I adored ballet flats and had them in many, many colors. I had cute Keds sneakers in multiple colors. Working as a clown for a balloon delivery service, I had high-top Chuck’s in red and yellow so I could wear one on each foot with alternating socks to…
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Book Review: The White Octopus Hotel by Alexandra Bell
NetGalley is a digital platform that provides book people with FREE advance reading copies (ARCs) of books yet to be released in exchange for a review written and posted on their site, on Goodreads, on Amazon, on your own social media. Sometimes you are offered a book, but more often you request a book that…
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Book Review: My Friends by Fredrik Backman
My Friends (Atria Books, May 6, 2025) is the second book I’ve read by Swedish author Fredrik Backman (translated by Neil Smith). In its almost two months since publication it has garnered a solid average of 4.52 stars in Goodreads with over 45,000 ratings and over 9,800 reviews. At this point, does it really matter…
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Book Review: Orbital by Samantha Harvey
I’m not really sure what I want to say about this book. I finished it last night, but it took me much longer to read it than most books I read these days. Clearly displayed on the cover is the notice that it won the 2024 Booker Prize, a British award given to the best…
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Book Review: Through an Open Window by Pamela Terry
First, thank you to NetGalley and Pamela Terry, through her publisher Penguin Random House, for the ARC of this new novel, to be published on August 19, 2025. This is Pamela Terry’s third novel, and I feel that her work becomes stronger and stronger with each new book. She is a true Southerner, and her…
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Book Review: Here After by Amy Lin
I checked this book out from the new release shelf at my local public library, Aspen Hill Public Library of Montgomery County, MD, and I must admit I was drawn to it by its size and cover. It is a hardback, but it is a non-traditional size, more of the size of a diary or…
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Book Review: The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris by Evie Woods (a/k/a Evie Gaughan)
The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris is my second book by Evie Woods, although I am a bit confused whether #2 is the chicken or the egg. I loved her first (?) book, The Lost Bookshop. It was the perfect blend of a dual timeline, half contemporary and half historical, with a dash of…
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Book Review: A Happy Catastrophe by Maddie Dawson
Happy. Hopeful. Depressing. Sad. Melancholy. Engaging. Frenetic. Anxious. Tedious. Mad. Bored. Chaotic. These are all things I felt while reading Maddie Dawson’s 2020 novel A Happy Catastrophe, published by Lake Union Publishing. (Disclosure: I purchased this book on Amazon for my Kindle.) As is sometimes the case, I found out after I had finished it…
Michelle Blanchard Ardillo 