John Woman by Walter Mosley (Contemporary Novel, September 2018). Mosley is one of our most varied and interesting contemporary authors, not to mention frequently honored, prolific and best-selling. This time out he’s offered us a striking book that combines psychological character study, musings about the philosophy of and practice of history, the internal backbiting and politics […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: John Woman"Shelved Under Murder by Victoria Gilbert. Cozy Mystery Novel, July 2018. The second novel in yet another cozy mystery series, this one revolves around library director Amy Webber. She also has a background in art history, which comes in handy here, even as she narrates the tale in a capable yet vulnerable and winning manner. Adhering […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: Shelved Under Murder"The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory (Contemporary/Romantic Novel, 2018). Successful freelance writer Nikole (Nik) Paterson has been dating a self-involved and shallow LA actor for only 5 months. It’s totally casual and that’s fine with her. A bad ‘serious’ relationship a few years back has left her gun-shy about the very idea of love. Baseball isn’t her […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: The Proposal"The Johnstown Girls by Kathleen George. (History-Related Novel, 2014). On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889 two journalists with a major Pittsburgh newspaper are in search of fresh angles for a series of articles on the subject. Ben Bragdon and his younger co-worker Nina Collins plan to feature an […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: The Johnstown Girls"What We Were Promised by Lucy Tan (Contemporary Novel, 2018). This touching first novel features vivid characters interacting with the hopes and contradictions of our multicultural world, as well as universal the joys, challenges, contradictions and heartbreaks of modern family life. Wei and Lina Zhen grew up in a small town in the China of the […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: What We Were Promised"It All Falls Down by Sheena Kamal (Crime/Thriller, 2018). Canada’s disastrous 1950s-era policy of adopting out indigenous children to non-Native American (or as they say in Canada, First Nations) families provides the background for author Sheena Kamal’s novels revolving around Nora Watts. I missed the first of these, The Lost Ones, but this is the second and […]
Read more "REVIEWED: It All Falls Down"Stray City by Chelsey Johnson (Contemporary Novel, 2018). In the last months of the 20th century, Andrea Morales is a 20-something artist who has left behind her very conventional Midwestern Catholic upbringing for life as part of the thriving and politically active lesbian community of Portland, Oregon. Most of her associates, friends and lovers are (like […]
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