The Witch of Willow Hall by Hester Fox Book Review
The Witch of Willow Hall by Hester Fox Book Review The lowdown from Goodreads Publication Date October 2, 2018 Two centuries after the Salem witch trials, there’s still one witch left in Massachusetts. But she doesn’t even know it. New Oldbury, 1821 In the wake of a scandal, the Montrose family and their three daughters—Catherine, Lydia, and Emeline—flee Boston for their new country home, Willow Hall. The estate seems sleepy and idyllic. But a subtle menace creeps into the atmosphere, remnants of a dark history that call to Lydia, and to the youngest, Emeline. All three daughters will be irrevocably changed by what follows, but none more than Lydia, who…
The Heart of War: Misadventures in the Pentagon by Kathleen McInnis Book Review
The Heart of War: Misadventures in the Pentagon by Kathleen McInnis Book Review The lowdown from Goodreads Publication Date September 25, 2018 The Devil Wears Prada meets Catch-22; a novel about a young woman’s journey into the heart of Washington’s war machine. Dr. Heather Reilly has been an anti-war activist since her brother died fighting the Taliban. But her crushing student loans drive her to take a job working on a peace plan for Afghanistan, in the last place on Earth she ever thought she’d be employed: the Pentagon. On her first day, however, her position is eliminated and she’s shuffled to a war-fighting office focused on combating Russian aggression. Unfortunately, she knows…
Women of the Dunes by Sarah Maine Book Review
Women of the Dunes by Sarah Maine Book Review The lowdown from Goodreads Publication Date July 24, 2018 From the author of the acclaimed novels The House Between Tides and Beyond the Wild River, a rich, atmospheric tale set on the sea-lashed coast of west Scotland, in which the lives of a ninth-century Norsewoman, a nineteenth-century woman, and a twenty-first-century archeologist weave together after a body is discovered in the dunes. Libby Snow has always felt the pull of Ullanessm a lush Scottish island enshrouded in myth and deeply important to her family. Her great-great-grandmother Ellen was obsessed with the strange legend of Ulla, a Viking maiden who washed up…
The Return of the Ripper: Sherlock Holmes & Lucy James Mystery #7 by Anna Elliott & Charles Veley Book Review
The Return of the Ripper: Sherlock Holmes & Lucy James Mystery #7 by Anna Elliott & Charles Veley Book Review The lowdown from Goodreads Publication Date June 12, 2018 Diamonds can be deadly! In October 1897, a deadly serial killer returns to London, just as Lucy and Jack are planning their wedding and Sherlock is launching a high-stakes investigation at the request of diamond mogul Cecil Rhodes. With Watson, the Baker Street team soon find themselves enmeshed in a deadly conspiracy, with tentacles that reach far beyond the shadows of Whitechapel. Sherlock and Lucy will need more than their usual deductive brilliance to defeat their latest adversary, or else the case…
Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford Book Review
Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford Book Review The lowdown from Goodreads Publication Date September 12, 2017 For twelve-year-old Ernest Young, a charity student at a boarding school, the chance to go to the World’s Fair feels like a gift. But only once he’s there, amid the exotic exhibits, fireworks, and Ferris wheels, does he discover that he is the one who is actually the prize. The half-Chinese orphan is astounded to learn he will be raffled off–a healthy boy “to a good home.” The winning ticket belongs to the flamboyant madam of a high-class brothel, famous for educating her girls. There, Ernest becomes the new houseboy and befriends Maisie,…
The Italian Party by Christina Lynch Book Review
The Italian Party by Christina Lynch Book Review The Lowdown from Goodreads Publication Date: March 20, 2018 A delicious and sharply funny page-turner about “innocent” Americans abroad in 1950s Siena, Italy. Newly married, Scottie and Michael are seduced by Tuscany’s famous beauty. But the secrets they are keeping from each other force them beneath the splendid surface to a more complex view of ltaly, America and each other. When Scottie’s Italian teacher–a teenager with secrets of his own–disappears, her search for him leads her to discover other, darker truths about herself, her husband and her country. Michael’s dedication to saving the world from communism crumbles as he begins to see…
The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell Book Review
The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell Book Review The lowdown from Goodreads Publication Date March 6, 2018 When Elsie married handsome young heir Rupert Bainbridge, she believed she was destined for a life of luxury. But with her husband dead just weeks after their marriage, her new servants resentful, and the local villagers actively hostile, Elsie has only her husband’s awkward cousin for company. Or so she thinks. Inside her new home lies a locked door, beyond which is a painted wooden figure–a silent companion–that bears a striking resemblance to Elsie herself. The residents of The Bridge are terrified of the figure, but Elsie tries to shrug this off as…
The Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin Book Review
The Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin Book Review The lowdown from Goodreads Publication Date January 16, 2018 Hollywood, 1914. Frances Marion, a young writer desperate for a break, meets “America’s Sweetheart,” Mary Pickford, already making a name for herself both on and off the screen with her golden curls and lively spirit. Together, these two women will take the movie business by storm. Mary Pickford becomes known as the “Queen of the Movies”—the first actor to have her name on a movie marquee, and the first to become a truly international celebrity. Mary and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, were America’s first Royal Couple, living in a home more…
The Stolen Marriage by Diane Chamberlain Book Review
The Stolen Marriage by Diane Chamberlain Book Review The lowdown from Goodreads Publication Date October 3, 2017 In 1944, twenty-three-year-old Tess DeMello abruptly ends her engagement to the love of her life when she marries a mysterious stranger and moves to Hickory, North Carolina, a small town struggling with racial tension and the hardships imposed by World War II. Tess’s new husband, Henry Kraft, is a secretive man who often stays out all night, hides money from his new wife, and shows no interest in making love. Tess quickly realizes she’s trapped in a strange and loveless marriage with no way out. The people of Hickory love and respect Henry…
A Bridge Across the Ocean by Susan Meissner Book Review
A Bridge Across the Ocean by Susan Meissner Book Review The lowdown from Goodreads Published March 14,2017 February, 1946. World War Two is over, but the recovery from the most intimate of its horrors has only just begun for Annaliese Lange, a German ballerina desperate to escape her past, and Simone Deveraux, the wronged daughter of a French Resistance spy. Now the two women are joining hundreds of other European war brides aboard the renowned RMS Queen Mary to cross the Atlantic and be reunited with their American husbands. Their new lives in the United States brightly beckon until their tightly-held secrets are laid bare in their shared stateroom. When the voyage ends at…
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