Reviews

With the exception of  Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (which was excellent) and an assortment of travel books, cookbooks and self-help books (that I never finish), I do NOT do non-fiction.  I am a fiction mystery reader with medical and legal thrillers thrown in.  I enjoy a fast, exciting read and that is exactly what Jon Bower

Calgon take me away!  One morning, Manhattan attorney, thirty something Emily, wakes up to the realization that neither her personal life (married to James, thirty something driven attorney), nor her professional life (corporate attorney drone in a large firm) are what she wanted when she graduated from law school and imagined her future life.  So, Emily packs a few things, throw

This movie is a documentary and a biography of Yves Saint Laurent, one of the most influential fashion designers. L'Amour Fou was made shortly after YSL’s death in 2008, for the occasion of Christie’s long awaited auction of YSL’s spectacular estates and his priceless ar

Death Cloud is the first in Andrew Lane’s excellent new series about young Sherlock Holmes.  Lane, a Brit who has written fan fiction for Doctor Who and James Bond, explains in his afterword that, “Arthur Conan Doyle gave little away about Sherlock’s early years… That has gi

The Inner Circle is a wonderful political thriller.  Beecher White is an archivist at the National Archives in Washington DC.  Clementine Kaye is a woman from Beecher’s past who asks him to help her find his father, a man who attempted to murder the current presid

It’s Passover and Laurel, a junior in high school, her little brother and parents celebrate at their neighbor’s home.  Following the meal everyone decides to go to the ice cream shop for dessert.  Laurel and David, the neighbor’s son, both decide to forego the ice cream—Laurel to do homework and David to do whatever it is David does these days.  W

Wild Things by Clay Carmichael is the story of an 11-year-old girl named Zoe, whose first-person narrative—tough and knowing but also full of humor and curiosity—grabbed me after the first page.

Juliette has not been touched for over three years. She has not seen a single soul, except for the hand that brings her food once a day, if she is lucky. Juliette can never be touched. It is her curse that she has borne since her infancy, and it is the cursed ability that landed her in an asylum and torn away from a life where she was shunned by everyone, including her parents.

No one loves anthropomorphisization more than me. So Unlikely Friendships is just the kind of book I like to savor over a warm mug of cocoa. Holland describes “friendships” between species, sometimes even predators with prey. Everyone knows about the gorilla Koko and her kittens, which are included here.

This fictional story takes us to an Indian Brahman household of the 1800s.  The book tells a story of a Sivakami a woman who was married at 10 and widowed at 18 (just as her husband, the village healer, predicted).