Reviews

I have never read such lovely and perfect stories in all my life. And I would never, ever call myself a short story reader (I might say that Alice Munro is my only exception, but I don’t even really read her).

Blood, Bones, and Butter—the title piqued my curiosity.  For the audiobook, Hamilton has a pretty straight tone as a reader, which made me hesitant at first, but it’s true to her personality and works surprisingly well for me as a

Brutally raped and murdered, Kate Sumner’s body washes ashore on a remote bank in Southern England. Elsewhere, her 3-year-old daughter is found abandoned.  The police are left to figure out why Kate was murdered but Hannah, a witness to the crimes, was left unharmed. Did the killer know or sense that Hannah was unable to speak and communicate the events she witnessed?

Don’t be scared away by the title!  The Case for God is not facile defense of religion with an overt agenda, like other books with similar titles.  Instead, historian of religion (and former n

The Poisoner’s Handbook, by Deborah Blum tells the tale of the birth of modern forensic medicine. Set against the backdrop of Prohibition, moonshine and corruption, this nonfiction offering reads like a crime thriller. The science of the book is accessible without being condescending.

Historical Fiction is set in the past, either before the author’s birth or at least 50 years in the past. The main characters are generally fictional but the settings are usually real and attempt to accurately capture the history, manners and social conditions of the times. Attention to historical facts and detail is imperative.

On a day like any other day, the Others arrived. Their mothership lit up the sky and the human race was forever changed. The Others came in waves taking away electricity, bringing upon the world a plague, sending out evil drones to take care of the survivors, and now, they have taken on the form of humans.

Before reading Doc by Mary Doria Russell, the only thing I knew about the famous Doc Holiday was that he looked remarkably like Val Kilmer and often suggested his peers might be Daisies. What a delight to read about this fascinating and complex gentleman. Russell tells Doc’s story from the very beginning; John Henry Holiday’s birth. His hold on life was tenuous from the start, as he was born with a hare-lip.

“Today I moved to a twelve acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water.”  Al Capone Does My Shirts is set in 1935 on Alcatraz where Capone is an inmate working in the prison laundry.

When Thomas Avery’s son, Daniel, is killed in the Pyrenees, Thomas leaves California to retrieve Daniel’s body.  Once he gets to France, Thomas discovers that Daniel was walking the Camino de Santiago, which is a pilgrimage that is, at its roots, spiritual but is taken for many other reasons.  For his own personal motives, which are both glaringly obvious and maddening