The Sweet Relief of Missing Children begins with the story of Leonora. She is pretty and tidy and protected. She has her vaccinations, she knows not to talk to strangers, she eats her vegetables and she never takes the shortcut through the alley. She is precious to her parents and she understands these precautions because she understands that she cannot… Read more
Winter’s Bone is not a new book — it was originally published in 2006. If not for this year’s Academy Awards, I might never have heard of it, and that would have been a loss. Daniel Woodrell’s story of courage and desperation in the Ozark mountains is beautiful and haunting and deeply moving. Mostly, I was moved to fury —… Read more
Spring is in the air and the books are starting to sprout. Two more new books appeared in my mailbox (or tucked behind the screen door by the UPS man) this week, and they both look good! Dominance by Will Lavender got me interested as soon as I read the synopsis: 1994: Jasper College is buzzing with the news that… Read more
Paula Holiday left the stress and grind of New York City for a “smaller and simpler life” in Springfield, CT. She runs a landscaping business, Dirty Business, helping realtors dress up the houses they’re selling and local businesses put in pretty patios. Her friend and client, Caroline Sturgis, has approached Paula about opening a business. The offer appears to good… Read more
I cannot believe a whole week has slipped by and I haven’t had a post! Well, I sort of can — last week I was out of town and pretty busy, and this week has started out rough. But I finished a couple of good books and I have a great teaser this week from my latest, Winter’s Bone by… Read more
Welcome to another edition of Teaser Tuesday, the weekly meme where you grab your current read and give us 2 teaser sentences. Remember, 2 sentences, no spoilers, and be sure to tell us about the book so we can rush out and add it to the TBR list. This week, I’ve just finished Dead Head by Rosemary Harris. It’s a… Read more
It’s not often that I get to indulge in pure fantasy junk food. Paranormal romance is not my usual choice, but a friend was interested in Dark Prince, so I decided to give it a try before I passed it along. I had a stressful business trip on the schedule and I thought that some chiseled, supernaturally handsome vampires would… Read more
A friend who read last week’s review of Homer and Langley suggested this week’s book, Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy Frost as a follow-up. Stuff cover the story of the Collyer brothers in great detail. In fact, that’s one of the things about the book that appealed to me — they focus on case studies,… Read more
As I mentioned, I’ve gotten some new books from the nice folks at HarperCollins, as well as some new stuff in audio from the library. I’ve been working at home a lot lately on some relatively relaxing projects, and it’s great to listen to a book while I am doing database cleanup or updating files. Plus, I have a trip… Read more
Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow is a fictionalized telling of the story of the Collyer brothers — two eccentric New York brothers from a wealthy family, living in a spacious brownstone on 5th Avenue. They became famous, not for their wealth or their looks or their philanthropy, but for their compulsive hoarding. It’s a tragic story and Doctorow’s fictionalized… Read more