Tag: writing
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Book Review: Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
What a wild ride of a book! I finished Mad Mabel last night and this morning I had to go back and read the last chunk of pages again. Just to be sure I had all the facts straight. This novel, the 11th by Australian author Sally Hepworth, is told in dual timelines, labeled “Then”…
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Book Review: Split Second Thirty-Two Switcheroo (Stephanie Plum #32) by Janet Evanovich
Yes, that’s right, Stephanie Plum #32, and I’ve been along for the ride ever since the summer of 2002 when I ran into a friend at my local public library who was carrying the then recently published Hard Eight, the 8th in the Stephanie Plum series. She said they were a lot of fun to…
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Book Review: The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
If this book review sounds like I can’t make up my mind, that’s probably because I can’t. I just finished The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett, and I really don’t know how I feel about it. The Calamity Club is the sophomore novel of Kathryn Stockett, whose debut novel The Help has sold over 15…
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Book Review—I Was a First Alto in the 1980s: Poems by Deborah Garrison
My love for reading poetry did not come about from my childhood of always having a book in my hand, under my desk, or beneath the covers late at night. It also didn’t come about from my degree in the Humanities. It came about from teaching middle school language arts for almost 20 years, with…
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Jodi Picoult’s Tattoo ¶
Tattoos are seemingly everywhere. They are proudly displayed on body parts of every age, skin color, and ethnicity. I attended a wedding recently and was seated at a table of 30-somethings. All women, except for the husband of one of the women. One of those 30-somethings was my own daughter. These women were all professionals…
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Book Review: Time Life Books The Good Cook – Beverages
In 1982 Time Life Books commissioned a series of 28 books to be edited by Richard Olney. The series was to be called The Good Cook, and there would be one issue for each major category of foods. In 1982 I was gifted the first few issues of the series and continued purchasing the rest…
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Book Review: The Survivors Guild by Gabriella Saab
The Survivors Guild (yes, that is how it is titled, no apostrophe) by Gabriella Saab is another story based loosely upon the sinking of the Titanic. This book however is less about the Titanic, less about those lost to the sea, and less about the unsinkability of that majestic ship. It is about the survivors,…
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Book Review: We Don’t Talk About That by Amanda Schoepp
We Don’t Talk About That is a soon to be published work of nonfiction written by Amanda Schoepp. It is part memoir, part biography, part diary, part psychological study, and part true crime story. It is about a very dark moment in 1963 in the DesHotel family of Louisiana, and that darkness dripped down and…
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Book Review: The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies by Kate Westbury
A lot of the recently published novels that I am reading, whether it is historical fiction, cozy mystery, or contemporary fiction, don’t seem to be particularly well-written. The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies (The Oxford Guide #1) by Kate Westbury is a paradox for me. It is well-written, but the plot and character connection…
