MAGPIE MURDERS The Magpie Murders is Deliciously British! Anthony Horowitz’s mystery is set in a circumscribed Somerset village populated by a quarrelsome set of eccentric
CROSSINGS The best way to read Alix Landragin‘s novel, Crossings, is with a healthy dose of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief.” As a
THE LAST TRAIN TO LONDON The Last Train to London, Meg Waite Clayton’s well-researched and engaging historical fiction can introduce a reader to unsung heroes of
BEAUTIFUL BAD Beautiful Bad, the oxymoronic title of Annie Ward’s savagely violent novel, sums up the action precisely. Beautiful people doing bad things, beautiful prose
A BABY’S BONES The plot of Rebecca Alexander’s novel, A Baby’s Bones, may sound familiar. An archaeological excavation on the Isle of Wight has uncovered
BEL CANTO Ann Patchett’s highly-regarded 2001 novel, Bel Canto, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, won the Orange Prize, and won
MISS GARNET’S ANGEL and THE CITY OF FALLEN ANGELS Since the coronavirus has curtailed travel this year, books must take us to new and different
WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND Ellen Marie Wiseman cites the Willard Suitcase Exhibit and a nonfiction book by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny, The Lives They
AMERICAN ZION, CLIVE BUNDY, GOD & PUBLIC LANDS IN THE WEST American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God & Public Lands in the West unearths historic myths
THE BOOK OF LOST FRIENDS Lisa Wingate’s The Book of Lost Friends is a historical novel firmly grounded in historic poignancy and pain. For many
REDHEAD BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD Reading Anne Tyler’s novel, Redhead by the Side of the Road, is rather like paging through an album
ALL THE OLD KNIVES Not long ago I posted a “Bookin’ with Sunny” review of Olen Steinhauer’s newest spy thriller and remarked on the extraordinary
SAINT X Alexis Schaitkin’s debut novel, Saint X, opens with the languid ennui of a mid-winter Caribbean vacation. An omniscient narrator sets scenes filled with
HOW MUCH OF THESE HILLS IS GOLD C Pam Zhang juxtaposes nightmare with dream in her novel, How Much of These Hills Is Gold. Her
AN ARTLESS DEMISE I initially encountered Anna Lee Huber’s mysteries in 2012 when her first novel featuring Lady Kiera Darcy, The Anatomist’s Wife, was published.
A SECRET SISTERHOOD Almost every page of Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney’s book, A Secret Sisterhood, inversely took me back to my college studies.
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