About the Book: What if your first love was your one and only chance of happiness? In our lives, some promises are easily forgotten, while others come to haunt us with tragic results. From the bestselling author of The Girl on the Page comes The Lessons, a compelling novel about love and betrayal. 1961: When teens Daisy and Harry … Continue reading Book Review: The Lessons by John Purcell
Literary Fiction
Book Review: Blue Hour by Sarah Schmidt
About the Book: 1936: At nineteen, Kitty was ready to leave behind the stifling control of her parents and all those constantly telling her how to live her life. Work at the Wintonvale Repatriation Hospital was her escape and a chance to be someone else.Then she met soldier George Turner - and she heard her mother's … Continue reading Book Review: Blue Hour by Sarah Schmidt
Book Review: Here Be Leviathans by Chris Flynn
About the Book: A collection of funny, brilliant, boundary-pushing stories from the bestselling author of Mammoth. A grizzly bear goes on the run after eating a teenager. A hotel room participates in an unlikely conception. A genetically altered platypus colony puts on an art show. A sabretooth tiger falls for the new addition to his theme … Continue reading Book Review: Here Be Leviathans by Chris Flynn
Book Review: Horse by Geraldine Brooks
About the Book: A discarded painting in a roadside clean-up, forgotten bones in a research archive, and Lexington, the greatest racehorse in US history. From these strands of fact, Geraldine Brooks weaves a sweeping story of spirit, obsession and injustice across American history. Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a … Continue reading Book Review: Horse by Geraldine Brooks
Book Review: These Days by Lucy Caldwell
About the Book: April, 1941. Belfast has escaped the worst of the war - so far. Over the next two months, it's going to be destroyed from above, so that people will say, in horror, My God, Belfast is finished. Many won't make it through, and no one who does will remain unchanged. Following the … Continue reading Book Review: These Days by Lucy Caldwell
Book Review: The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante
Translated by Ann Goldstein About the Book: The Story of the Lost Child is the concluding volume in the dazzling saga of two women — the brilliant, bookish Elena, and the fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both are now adults, with husbands, lovers, aging parents, and children. Their friendship has been the gravitational center of their lives. Both … Continue reading Book Review: The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante
Book Review: The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
About the Book: Florence, the 1560s. Lucrezia, third daughter of Cosimo de' Medici, is free to wander the palazzo at will, wondering at its treasures and observing its clandestine workings. But when her older sister dies on the eve of marriage to Alfonso d'Este, ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into … Continue reading Book Review: The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
Book Review: Haven by Emma Donoghue
About the Book: Three men vow to leave the world behind them. They set out in a small boat for an island their leader has seen in a dream, with only faith to guide them. What they find is the extraordinary island now known as Skellig Michael. Haven, Emma Donoghue's gripping and moving novel, has her … Continue reading Book Review: Haven by Emma Donoghue
Book Review: The Pachinko Parlour by Elisa Shua Dusapin (trans. Aneesa Abbas Higgins)
About the Book: It is summer in Tokyo. Claire finds herself dividing her time between tutoring twelve-year-old Mieko in an apartment in an abandoned hotel and lying on the floor at her grandparents: daydreaming, playing Tetris, and listening to the sounds from the street above. The heat rises; the days slip by. The plan is … Continue reading Book Review: The Pachinko Parlour by Elisa Shua Dusapin (trans. Aneesa Abbas Higgins)
Book Review: Faithless by Alice Nelson
About the Book: Set between India and England, Faithless is the story of Cressida, a writer and translator, and her consuming love for Max, an enigmatic older writer – and married man. Cressida’s passion for Max engulfs her from the first giddy rush of sensation when she meets him in the mountains of southern India. It is … Continue reading Book Review: Faithless by Alice Nelson
Theresa Smith Writes 