Author: Kate Morton Published: 2018, Atria Books Genre: Historical Fiction Setting: Split Timeline, Present Day England/19th C England Elodie Winslow is an archivist with a tragic past. During the course of her work, she finds a photograph of an enigmatic woman that sends her on a mission of discovery. What she uncovers is the source… Read More The Clockmaker’s Daughter
Author: Markus Zusak Published: 2018, Knopf Books for Young Readers Genre: Contemporary Setting: Australia This is the story of the Dunbar boys, five brothers coping with their mother’s death and father’s abandonment. Told from the viewpoint of the oldest brother and through a series of flashbacks, we see how their parents met and the impetus… Read More Bridge of Clay
Author: Delia Owens Published: 2018, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Genre: Commercial Setting: 1950’s-1970’s North Carolina Part murder mystery, part ode to the lush beauty of the tidal marshes of North Carolina, Where the Crawdads Sing tells the story of Kya, a young girl abandoned by her family in a southern backwater. Alone in the wilderness, with… Read More Where the Crawdads Sing
I admit it. I’m a book snob. Well, I should say a recovering book snob. There was a time in my youth when I turned my nose up at anything written less than fifty years ago. I would speed through the book store to ‘Classic Literature’ as if the new releases and genre fiction were contagious. … Read More Confessions of a Book Snob
Wherein I gripe about the books that failed me. We’re only a bit more than halfway through 2018, yet it’s as if I’ve read at least two years worth of books that could use several more passes through the edit machine. Or perhaps fed to another. I’ve been disappointed, frustrated, and just plain annoyed… Read More Don’t Feed the Antagonist
Author: Jessie Burton Published: 2016, Ecco Genre: Historical Fiction Setting: Dual Timeline, 1967 London/1936 Spain Synopsis Odelle Bastien, a native Trinidadian, has toiled in London for five years, her dream of a better life slowly slipping away. When she takes a job as typist at an art gallery, her enigmatic boss, Marjorie Quick, and the… Read More The Muse
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah Published 2018 Genre: General Fiction Setting: 1970’s Alaska Thirteen-year-old Leni Allbright’s father, a former Vietnam War POW, moves his family to Alaska in a bid to rid himself of his war-stained memories. Leni and her mother do their best to please volatile Ernt, and for a time it works.… Read More The Great Alone
Serafina and the Splintered Heart by Robert Beatty Published 2017 Genre: Middle Grade Historical Fantasy Setting: Early 20th Century Asheville, North Carolina. The Biltmore Estate. For the third and final book in this captivating series, Serafina and her friends are back to defeat the evil sorcerer, Uriah, before he destroys the Biltmore Estate and all… Read More Serafina and the Splintered Heart
Just One Damned Thing After Another: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s by Jodi Taylor Published 2013 Genre: Historical Fantasy Setting: England, the near-future St. Mary’s is a listed estate in the rural countryside of Rushford, England. It functions as the headquarters for a select group of historians, scientists, technicians, and security personnel whose job is to… Read More Just One Damned Thing After Another: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s
The Taster by V.S. Alexander Published 2018 Genre: Historical Fiction Setting: World War II Germany ‘I shuddered. My life might end here. Not even the bombings in Berlin had forced me to face my mortality in such a brutal way. The thought that I might die for Hitler stunned me.’ Magda Ritter is a young… Read More The Taster