Broken Country (Reese's Book Club)
by Clare Leslie Hall
Disappointing (5/1/2025)
Lies, secrets, and more lies. This is what this book is all about.
Set in the late '60s, this is a book about a poor girl falling in love with a rich boy. They are both out of their element, but it works...for a while.
I don't particularly like books that promote cheating on one's spouse, but there was a tiny bit of something that told me I should read this until the end. With that said, there are huge twists and turns in the final few chapters that sort of make the cheating make sense.
This was quite the emotional novel that deals with cheating, the death of a child, and another unexpected death.
Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel
by Bonnie Garmus
Wonderful (5/1/2025)
I don't know what to say about this fantastic debut novel, except WOW!
This is a must-read for both Baby Boomers and Millennials. This book shows that, as complex as it is to be a woman with a career now, you don't have anything over the women who were cracking the doors open for you. However, this is not an easy read and may trigger some sensitive issues.
At times, this book is humorous; at times, it is downright tragic, and almost always leaves you, as a woman reader, feeling frustrated. Unfortunately, things like this are still occurring even at the first quarter of this new century.
This book takes place in the late 1950s, then moves on to the early 1960s, when women were just starting to realize their worth as more than just homemakers and mothers. Actually, much of this ideology originated during World War II, but that is not relevant to this novel.
But more than a books look about the unfairness to women searching for something different; this is a love story, a mystery, and a chick-lit novel.
This was one of the most fabulous books I have read so far this year. I found myself laughing, crying, frustrated, and jumping with joy. I just wish it had been longer.
I highly recommend this book to all readers.
Bad Boy: An Inspector Banks Novel
by Peter Robinson
Lacking Action and Excitment (7/6/2010)
I was a bit disappointed in this author and this book since I had heard so much about this author and had never read anything by him before.
This story had so much potential to be exciting and spine tingling and fell so far from the mark. Inspector Marks who I gather is the main character throughout the series, doesn't show up until more than half-way through, he has to deal with his daughters "abduction" and a close friend and past lovers shooting, yet he doesn't even crack a sweat. I know the English are stoics but this seems a little much.There is no action, no excitement, no mystery, What there IS a lot of is unnecessary and boring dialog. Unfortunately based on this book, that I will not be reading anything else by this author
Romancing Miss Bronte: A Novel
by Juliet Gael
Captivating (2/22/2010)
Romancing Miss Bronte - Juliet Gael
Romancing Miss Bronte is a fascinating factual and fictional look into Charlotte, Anne, Emily and Branwell Bronte’s lives. The bulk of this novel deals with Charlotte; her life her loves and her tragedies. As children in Haworth England, they are remarkably intelligent and imaginative, and I think that this fact is the only thing that could possibly keep them sane with all they have gone through and will keep them sane throughout their young adult lives. Branwell suffers from a love affair gone horribly wrong and turns to alcohol and drugs to get him through his days; Charlotte has lost her heart to a married man while she and her sister Emily were in Brussels - less is spoken of about Anne and Emily in this book and of course the book does focus on Charlotte’s life.
What could have been a depressing read if handled by any other author, wasn’t, for indeed their lives were bleak, and illness and death and hopelessness fills a lot of these pages. .
Insinuating itself among the tragedies, is a relentless hope that one day their words would reach others; their biggest dreams are to be published. And published they become albeit at their own expense. Of course later on we will find that Charlotte’s book “Jane Eyre” will become on of literature’s most enduring romances along with her sister Emily’s “Wuthering Heights”. And over the course of years Charlotte even finds someone who loves her, understands her and will put up with both her writing and her crotchety bigoted father.
I admit, that until I chose this book to review, I knew nothing about the Bronte’s and I’m almost ashamed to admit that I’ve never even read one of their books. But Ms Gael’s style of writing, the way she brought their gloomy lives into crystal clarity for me, has made this a very fascinating subject and one that I will certainly read more about. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to not only those who are scholars of the Bronte’s, or who love the classic tales that they wrote, but also to those who may find romance in tragedy, to those who want to learn what it was like to be a smart, imaginative woman during that time period. I started this book with dread because I am not normally interested in the heavier aspect of literature-but I am so happy that I chose this book. I was able to read outside my norm, become a bit more educated and even enjoyed myself. This book really hits so many high notes that it’s been days since I’ve finished “Romancing Miss Bronte” and I’m still thinking about this book.
The Things That Keep Us Here: A Novel
by Carla Buckley
Wonderful, Thrilling, Chilling a Delight to Read (11/4/2009)
This is a phenomenal debut thriller about what happens to one family when a virulent bird flu pandemic hits the USA. And it has the potential to kill about 50 our of every one hundred that it infects. And then that potential turns to reality.
This is the story of one broken family coming to grips of the reality that is America during an unseen and unprepared for worldwide emergency.
So far this year I've read about 250 books; this is the one that I will remember for years to come. I’ve just finished it and I want to grab it up and start rereading it. It was an utterly amazing book especially for a debut. The characters are so well written that I came to think of them as friends of mine. The plot was very well thought out, fast paced, chilling, thrilling and yet tender. This book preys on our deepest emotions and fears, it also makes us ask the really hard moral and ethical questions of ourselves. It makes us wonder if we could cope just half as well as the Brooks family does. If we would come out of something like this with our sanity even half as intact as they did.
The Book of Illumination: A Novel from the Ghost Files
by Mary Ann Winkowski
A Wonderful Surprise of a Read! (10/1/2009)
As it says on the back of the cover “the criminal underworld collides with the spiritual otherworld” describes this book perfectly! And for once what you read on the back cover and the blurbs is exactly what you get. Anza O’Malley is a ghost whisperer who can help those who need to go over to the “other side”. Her friends all believe in what she can do and so she is called to help out when ghosts take a liking to making life miserable for Sylvia Cremaldi who is working on re-binding this important document. But soon this Illumination gets stolen and things take a turn for the worse.
This was a surprisingly enjoyable read for me. I wasn’t sure about reading yet another novel about ghosts and the people that talk to them, but this book wasn’t just another paranormal read for me. This book was many things; it was a mystery book, a wonderful story about friendship and family and a knowledgeable glimpse into the inner workings of rare book acquisitions and to those that maintain the books.
The story and characters are wonderfully written and came alive for me. I actually wished that I had family and friends like the ones here! The mystery had enough red herrings that it made it difficult to figure out who really stole the manuscript and the writing made me think that perhaps I should rethink the existence of ghosts living among us.
A very fine start to what looks to be a new series. I can’t wait for another.
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