Summers at the Saint is the latest novel by veteran author Mary Kay Andrews. I am not usually a fan of what I think of as light and fluffy books, but over the last couple of years, I’ve developed an appreciation for this author’s work. This story centers on a fashionable beach resort hotel and those that run it, with the focus primarily on the women. It’s a good summer read—not a bad choice to take to the beach, actually. My thanks go to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and St. Martin’s Press for the invitation to read and review. This book will be available to the public May 7, 2024. Our protagon ..read more

In 2019, Tea Obreht blew me away with Inland, a work of historical fiction—alternative history actually—so creative that I haven’t stopped thinking about it to this day. Her new book The Morningside is a dystopian novel that, while not as remarkable as the previous effort, is both intriguing and memorable. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now. Our protagonist is Silvia, and she and her mother are refugees from a homeland made dangerous by violent political turmoil. They were invited to live in The Morningside, a once grand ..read more

Sara Paretsky is a badass author with a badass protagonist. Her hero, Vic Warshawski, is a rough and ready private eye, and though based in Chicago, she sometimes—as now—finds herself elsewhere when duty beckons. Author Paretsky is one of the three that pioneered the hardboiled female private eye subgenre; the first in this series, Indemnity Only, came out in 1982, over 40 years ago, and that is how long I have been reading them. And though I was lucky to receive a review copy, thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow, this is one of those rare books that I would have paid full price to read if ..read more

Chris Harding Thornton debuted in 2021 with Pickard County Atlas, a book I loved so much that I’ve had a finger in the wind ever since, hoping to score a galley of her next book. This is it. Sadly, I don’t love it the way that I did her first endeavor; perhaps I just loved the first one too much. My thanks go to Net Galley and Farrar, Strauss and Girard for the review copy. This book is for sale now. Our protagonist is Big Jim, a former cop now working as a P.I. He and his friend Frank, who is still a cop, take a man named Vern out to the river to beat the crap out of him for molesting Jim’s ..read more

Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South is a biography that focuses on Longstreet’s military service in the American Civil War, and his political life thereafter. It’s meticulously researched, and the documentation is among the best I’ve seen anywhere. Students, Civil War buffs, and other interested readers won’t want to miss it. My thanks go to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now. James Longstreet was one of the most able and respected generals for the Confederacy, serving as General Robert E. Lee’s right hand off ..read more

My thanks go to Net Galley and Alfred A. Knopf for the review copy. This book will be available to the public April 23, 2024. I probably should have read the promotional blurb more carefully, because here’s a fact: I have very little interest in birds. But I saw the name Amy Tan, and her work is always wonderful; I figured that the birds would sometimes be metaphors for other things, and that there would be a significant nonbird component to her essays. However, this little book is exactly what the description indicates: a book about the birds she’s seen in her backyard, along with her very o ..read more

Sally Hepworth writes creepy, spooky stories involving families, and I have friends that swear by her, but this is the first of her books that I’ve read. My thanks go to Macmillan Audio, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for the invitation to read and review. This book will be available to the public April 23, 2024. Jessica, Norah and Alicia are closer than most sisters, even though they are not biologically related. All three spent most of their formative years at an Australian foster home called Wild Meadows, under the gimlet eye of Miss Fairchild, an abusive foster parent. Miss Fairchild w ..read more

Before reading this book, I had always enjoyed Harry Turtledove’s alternative history novels, which have a sci fi vibe and usually a good dose of humor, sometimes of the laugh out loud variety. When I saw that this one was available, I leapt on it. What a freaking disappointment! Nevertheless, my thanks go to NetGalley and ARC Manor Publishing for the review copy. This book is for sale now. The premise is that HIV—renamed The Wasting– erupts in the early 1500s, but instead of dismissing it as a disease spread by gay men, English society sequesters its women in the home, never to be permitted ..read more

Ian Fritz was an Airborne Cryptologic Linguist who served with the U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan for five years. Trained in both Dari and Pashto, he became one of only two people that could understand what was being said by all of the people on the ground before and during battle. Following his service, he became a physician and writer. This is his memoir. My thanks go to Simon and Schuster Publishing and NetGalley for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now. Fritz was in many ways the perfect recruit; his family didn’t have any money, and he was brilliant, which meant th ..read more

Charlie Chaplin rose to fame over 100 years ago, but his fame hasn’t faded over the years. One of the most visionary movie makers in modern history, he rose from desperate poverty and homelessness during his childhood to become one of the wealthiest and most respected men in his chosen profession. And yet, for some odd reason, the U.S. government relentlessly pursued him as if he were an enemy agent, eventually forcing him to retire abroad. It’s a bizarre episode in U.S. history, and a fascinating one. When I saw that Scott Eyman, an author whose biographies of actors I have previously enjoye ..read more