Reviews

Retta Lee Jones concludes her high school career by belting out the best version of the Star Spangled Banner at the graduation ceremony that anyone in Starling, TN has ever heard. Retta however, couldn't wait for it to be over, high school, that is.

The Clearing by Heather Davis is a kind of time travel romance. Amy, a senior in high school, has moved to a small town to live with her great aunt after her suffering physical and mental abuse at the hands of her boyfriend.

Time of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch is about the road not taken. Jillian Westfield has what many would call the perfect life.

If you liked (or loved) Dee Henderson's O'Malley Series you will enjoy (or love) Lynette Eason's new series Omen of Justice which begins with Too Close to Home.

Like many of her other books, Laura Lippman's latest book I'd Know You Anywhere is loosely based on a true crime.  Many of the details are changed, and this is a work of fiction.

In this early Lawrence Block thriller five characters are thrown together in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. Interwoven in the assassination story is the story/biography of how Fidel comes to power in Cuba. Written in 1961 shortly before the Cuban Missile crisis Block captures the time period and doesn't shy away from pulpy language.

I don't think anything I can write will be as compelling as this from one of the five, a murderer named Turner.

This book had great potential, and many great moments, but doesn’t deliver in the end.  After a night out with her four single girlfriends, Julie decides to travel the globe interviewing single women for a book about dating in different cultures.  It’s a great premise, except that Julie gets air sick every time she flies and is too shy to talk to strangers on her own. Fortunately, one of her friends is able to fly across the world to each country she visits to hold her hand.

Classed as a Mystery Thriller at the local bookstore and as Fiction at JCL, The Expected One follows protagonist journalist Maureen Pascal as she does research for her new novel. In the process, she discovers ancient mysteries involving the Cathar peoples of southwest France and uncovers legends including Mary Magdalene and a gospel that she wrote describing her life as Jesus’ wife and his teachings.

This is an older mystery, one I read shortly after it was first published in 1983, but it has stuck with me for many years, so when I recently found the library had a newly published edition, I reread it.  I was not disappointed--the characters inhabiting the small, terminally ill coal-mining town in Pennsylvania are still the rock solid working class, some of whom are immigrants and some first-generation Americans decended from their Italian and Polish parents.  The struggle to rise beyond the coal mines and unemployment are leading some of the residents to investigate  earn

The Proteus Operation is about World War II. It’s about time traveling and alternate histories. It’s about quantum mechanics. And it’s about the human spirit and the lengths humans are willing to go to improve their, and others’, future. A group of scientists, diplomats and military personnel travel from a bleak, hopeless 1975 to a still-hopeful 1939.