🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 An absolute delight, this charming fairy tale will take you on a journey to castles, and kingdoms, and witches with spells that may or may not be broken. When wealthy and evil Vespasia Marchand messes with the wrong fledgling sorcerer, magic happens. And not the good kind. Yes, Vespasia…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 A gorgeous, life-affirming picture book, targeted for three to seven year olds, about curiosity, and wonder, and keeping our head high, up in the clouds, where it belongs. The story centers on the littlest crow, who does not understand her elders fear and the smallness it makes of their…
🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 A stylish and engrossing thriller, this terrific murder mystery hits all the right notes, starting with a premise that is both tantalizing and original. We all know that murderers’ lives have been commercialized, sensationalized and documented far more thoroughly than the lives of their victims. But what of murderer’s…
🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 #15 in the Mike Bowditch series, this is a nail-biter of a novel, which follows our hero, Mike, a game warden investigator based in the Maine North Woods, on a case which will have him facing an ex-military recluse, Mark Redmond, who is living in seclusion with his twelve…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 A collection of twelve short stories, each a perfect encapsulation of literary characters stood up living and breathing, with seemingly effortless grace, and the space of a mere few pages. In each case, young and old, and brimming with dry humor, the reader is invited in to share lives…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 “It could fizzle away to nothing, or it could build itself into a monster.” Written in the first person voices of our main protagonists, this story essentially follows a place, St Medard’s bay, on Alabamas Gulf Coast, which has been shell shocked by violent hurricanes across the decades. In…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 What makes a ‘good’ day for a dysfunctional family? A family made so, in large part, due to unresolved trauma, seeping over time into life-altering mental illness. Betty and Greg Laramie made absolutely terrible parents, eventually forcing them to give up their daughter, Charlie, to foster care. With Betty…
Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick — aka “Mad Mabel” — is eighty-one years old. A tough-talking (tender-hearted?) and deeply humorous octogenarian, six-feet tall with broad shoulders, Mabel puts up with nothing from any-one, least of all the mousy neighborhood child Persephone, or her much-lamented nemesis, the ninety-three year old Ishaan and his…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 As sumptuous as the softest duvet, this is a novel to sink into, slowly, letting the six or so POV narrators take you on a journey — a winding journey, each of which will lead to something, — be it an interesting character interlude, or a major development to…
🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 Absorbing and masterful psychological suspense, this top-notch thriller is intermingled with thoughtful social commentary on aging, grief, loneliness, and mental clarity — and how hard it is really separate those concepts. Linda Davidson, our first person POV narrator, is seventy-six years old, recently widowed, and living in the retirement…