Nora Roberts is an amazingly prolific author, (seriously, does this woman sleep?) but I’ve only read a few of her books. I did read the trilogy, “The Cousins O’Dwyer”, of which I devoured the first book, thought the second book was okay and then slogged through the last one. I then tried to read another trilogy, “Three Sisters Island”, and it was so much the same thing that I gave up on it. So why did I pick up this one at the library? It’s […]
They were close to the end of the beginning…
I know, I should shut up already about how many times I’ve read this Stephen King book or that Stephen King book. But really, I’ve read this book a lot. I think even more than The Stand. I read it when it was a standalone book (and I had to brave crossing the floor of the Newton Highlands public library — from the children’s section to the adult section), and this was before Uncle Stevie tinkered with it to make it fit better into the world of the […]
Great characters in a middling mystery
This book was one of my lovely CBR8 book exchange gifts from Scootsa1000. It is what I asked for and I was not disappointed. I was up reading this at 2am when my husband woke up and freaked out that I was still awake, so I can thank him for the 5 hours of sleep I got, because I’m sure I would have read until the end of the book/sunrise otherwise. Deanna Randolph is an heiress and debutante in 1895. Her father is a co-owner […]
Corazon Rebelde
I picked up Dreaming in Cuban from my TBR pile after a much needed break from a ton of true crime, murder mystery and horror novels. It’s a lovely little book about 3 generations of Cubans (mostly women) and their starkly different reactions to the Cuban revolution of 1959. It’s a bit of history, magical realism and the complicated relationships between mothers and their children all rolled into one. And while it’s not a standout example of either, Cristina Garcia’s writing is lyrical and […]
Goodnight, Sweet Princess …
I happened to be at the Disney park that has franchised most of the Star Wars experience last week when I heard about Carrie Fisher’s passing. Talk about bittersweet, as we saw posters of Princess Leia, from all of her franchise appearances, around the park. I first saw Star Wars on its first release in 1977, and loved her spunky take on the princess, although I have to admit my young teen eyes and heart were mostly focused on the dreamy Luke Skywalker. But I have enjoyed Carrie Fisher […]
Trudge: The Unmooring of Exposition
Greetings CBR! I’m excited to begin my first ever half cannonball with a nod to my New Year’s resolution: to read more nonfiction in 2017. Unfortunately, I started with this disappointing book by one of my longtime favorite personalities, Rachel Maddow. In Drift, Maddow describes the USA’s descent into a near constant state of war. She laments how sharply we’ve deviated from the Jeffersonian ideal to “never keep an unnecessary soldier”, and how in our modern national security state, American civilian life continues largely unaffected […]