As everyone knows, PILLARS OF THE EARTH is a huge novel that takes place in England over a 50-year period from about 1121 to 1172. The novel begins and ends in violence: […]
Mary Sharratt is such a talented author. I first “met” her between the pages of a book when I read THE VANISHING POINT, a poignant portrayal of an unwanted English girl sent […]
Like most others, I thought this volume would conclude the goings on of our party of quirky characters – ruthless Ishraq, horse whisperer & general factotum Freize, dispossessed noblewoman Isolde, Luca Vero […]
“So you do not actually have a degree.” He exhaled so that smoke curled out from his mouth and nostrils. “Not actually. No.” I gazed at him for a long moment expecting […]
Our cast of characters – Brother Peter the suspicious priest, Luca Vero the Inquirer for a shadowy order (Order of Darkness) headed by a shadowy individual (Milord), Isolde the dispossessed noblewoman, her […]
At the center of this tale, set in Italy in the mid-fifteenth century, a natural disaster sends the local people into a tizzy, and they blame the young women (whom we met […]
THE CHANGELING is the first of four novels in the ORDER OF DARKNESS series. It concerns a shadowy order of church authorities who are dedicated to finding the darkest most blasphemous things […]
Miriam exploded into a peal of laughter. “Robert!” She nudged him with her elbow, then turned to me. “We haven’t made plans yet.” “We?” My eyebrows rose. But Miriam ignored me. “I’m […]
I know Elizabeth Gilbert as the author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE. This novel is completely different. Set in New York City in the 1940s, amongst flamboyant theatrical types, I honestly didn’t expect […]
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started listening to this audiobook, but narrator Anne Marie Gideon helped to ensure a vivid experience with her command of suitably plummy accents. THE […]
Philippa Gregory has done it again, found a compelling, forgotten woman, in the shape of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, and woven a whole tale around this character. Margaret of Salisbury had an […]
“Ah! Here it is!” She picked up Walter Pater’s Renaissance. “Miriam, dear,” I interposed. “Why don’t you sit down and take off your hat? I haven’t heard anything about your journey, or […]
All I knew about Aaron Burr, before I picked up this novel, was that he was the person who shot Alexander Hamilton. Imagine my astonishment to be taken to Pondicherry, India in […]
This was such an interesting novel about a forgotten founding mother. I had no idea that Eliza Schuyler Hamilton was the daughter of a well-respected general, or that she spent her girlhood […]
I have never heard of Lauren Willig before, so when I picked up THE SUMMER COUNTRY, I honestly thought I was reading a tale about an Anglo-Saxon person’s journey to the afterlife. […]
“Edward, I want you to meet my new friend.” I looked up. A tall youth with dark auburn hair and fierce blue eyes stood beside her. “Robert Allan Nicol at your service, […]
Barbara Ehrenreich’s DANCING IN THE STREETS is both a celebration of dancing and a condemnation of the authorities who are trying to prevent large groups of people from running amok in the […]
Barbara Ehrenreich’s BLOOD RITES is an investigation into the origins of war. Drawing parallels between ancient religions with their blood-soaked rituals, and the fact that for thousands of years a small band […]
“Farewell My Life is a period drama in the form of a book, but the early 1920s form so much more than just a set piece to watch the lives of characters unfold. Every person in the book is masterfully shaped by the era, showing both prejudices, which would be overcome by living in the modern-day and inner strength and drive to claim what one wants that has existed throughout time. By not shying away from either, the author has made a masterpiece, one readers can easily lose themselves in. As the book sweeps on, Grace is brought from Georgetown to post-war Berlin, where she pursues her own passions to become a violinist, before being thrown into the middle of family strife she had no notion existed even the day before she became the center of it. It is an intimate epic, an image of the minutiae of lives spelled out against the vastness of family history.”
“This is not your typical mystery; it’s for fans of thrilling action and historically-inspired events…Contra to the status quo of the genre, the men are the romantics – though in a deranged manner – and the women showcased are the core strength of the novel.”
“A unique, deftly scripted, and extraordinary novel by an author with a distinctive narrative storytelling style that will hold the readers dedicated attention from beginning to end, “Farewell My Life: Buona Notte Vita Mia” is an impressive and unreservedly recommended addition to both community and academic library Contemporary Literary Fiction collections. One of those rare novels that will linger in the mind and memory long after the book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf, it should be noted for personal reading lists that “Farewell My Life: Buona Notte Vita Mia” is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).”
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