Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare bookstore that has resisted change for a hundred years. It is run by men and guided by the general manager’s unbreakable fifty-one rules, but in post-war 1950, the world is changing, especially the world of books and publishing. At Bloomsbury Books, the women who work in the shop have plans. Vivien Lowry: Brilliant and stylist, Vivien has been single since her aristocratic fiancé died fighting during World War II. A budding writer, she works in the shop’s fiction department. Grace Perkins: Married with two young sons, she’s been working to support the family following her husband’s mental breakdown in the war’s aftermath. […]
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Amy’s May 2022 Reads
Only one 5-star review this month, but once again, Ruta Sepetys takes the top spot. I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys Please remember that when adversity is drawn out of the shadows and recognized, we ensure that human beings living under oppression—past and present—know they are not forgotten. Together, we can shine a light in dark corners of the past. Together, we can give history a voice.—Ruta Sepetys, I Must Betray You. Ruta Sepetys’s latest novel is set in Romania in 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe, but tyrannical dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, who has been in power for twenty-four years, still governs by isolation and fear. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams […]
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On the Mountain of the Lord – Book Review
“This is the land where prophecy is fulfilled,” Lev said. “Where the temporary and the eternal meet. Can’t understand the things of today without studying the words of yesterday.”—Ray Bentley and Bodie Thoene, On the Mountain of the Lord. Submerged in doubt after a brutal car accident ripped his wife, child, and faith from him, Dr. Jack Garrison travels to Israel on a fact-finding mission. When he experiences inexplicable visions within hours of landing, he knows he’s in over his head. Join Dr. Garrison as he teams up with longtime friend Lev and a dauntless female Israeli Border Police officer to battle a furtive yet deadly enemy. His journey will […]
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Until Leaves Fall in Paris – Book Review
“Not everything God created is useful, but it’s all good. He didn’t have to create beauty, but he did. He didn’t have to create color, but he did. He didn’t have to create music, but he did. None of it useful. Then he created us in his creative image with the ability to make beauty and color and music. It might not be useful, but it’s good.” ― Sarah Sundin, Until Leaves Fall in Paris. When the Nazis march toward Paris, American ballerina Lucie Girard buys her favorite English-language bookstore to allow the Jewish owners to escape. The Germans make it difficult for her to keep Green Leaf Books afloat. And […]
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On A Night of a Thousand Stars
“One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.” — Golda Meir New York, 1998. Wealthy Argentinian diplomat, Santiago Larrea, is hosting a soiree with this wife and 21-year-one daughter, Paloma, to celebrate his appointment as Argentina’s ambassador to the United Nations. When a party guest makes an intriguing off-handed remark about her father’s university days, Paloma is determined to learn more about his life in the years leading up to the military dictatorship of 1976. When the family travels to Buenos Aires for Santiago’s UN ambassadorial appointment, Paloma is determined to learn more about his life in the years leading […]
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I Must Betray You – Book Review
“Please remember that when adversity is drawn out of the shadows and recognized, we ensure that human beings living under oppression—past and present—know they are not forgotten. Together, we can shine a light in dark corners of the past. Together, we can give history a voice.”—Ruta Sepetys, I Must Betray You. Ruta Sepetys’s latest novel is set in Romania in 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe, but tyrannical dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, who has been in power for twenty-four years, still governs by isolation and fear. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams of becoming a writer, but Romanians aren’t free to dream; they are bound by rules and force. When Cristian is blackmailed […]
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The Night She Disappeared – Book Review
Tallulah and her boyfriend, Zach, both nineteen, are going out on a date, leaving their infant son with her mother, Kim. Kim watches her daughter leave and, as late evening turns into night, which turns into early morning, she waits for her return. And waits. The next morning, Kim phones Tallulah’s friends, who tell her she was last seen heading to a house party in Surrey, England called “Dark Place.” She never returns. A year later, Sophie Beck, a mystery writer, is walking in the woods near the boarding school where her boyfriend works as a head-teacher when she sees a hand-lettered cardboard affixed to a tree that reads: “DIG […]
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Rock Paper Scissors – Book Review
“Sometimes I feel like I need to check out of life the way other people check out of hotels. Sign whatever I need to sign, hand back the keys to the life I am living, and find somewhere new.” ~ Alice Feeney, Rock Paper Scissors. Things have been wrong between Mr. and Mrs. Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away in the Scottish Highlands, it might be just what their marriage needs. Neither was picturing spooky Blackwater Chapel, a dilapidated, freezing cold, converted stone chapel, complete with hidden passages, a crypt, a bell tower, and mysterious locked doors. Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional […]
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The Light We Left Behind
Beginning in 1940, the Trent Park estate outside London housed captured German Luftwaffe pilots to extract military information. The rooms of the house were equipped with hidden microphones to MI19 operatives could listen in on their conversations. In 1942, it became a prisoner-of-war camp (the Cockfosters Cage) for German generals and staff officers. They were pampered with delectable meals, fine wine and whisky, and luxury accommodations in hopes they would lower their guard and converse openly about military intelligence. The British Germany’s military capabilities, weaponry, war crimes, and the resistance movement. Among the 109 German top brass held at Trent Park were generals Otto Elfeldt, Ferdinand Heim, Gerhard Bassenge, Friedrich […]
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Steel Fear – Book Review
In Steel Fear, combat-decorated Navy SEAL Brandon Web and award-winning author John David Mann come together to share a high-octane thriller about murder on an aircraft carrier. The moment Navy SEAL sniper Finn sets foot on the USS Abraham Lincoln to hitch a ride back to the States from the Persian Gulf, it’s clear something is amiss. When crew members disappear one by one, what at first seems like a random string of suicides soon reveals something sinister: there’s a serial killer onboard. Suspicion falls on Finn, the newcomer to the ship who is being sent home in disgrace, after a failed mission in Yemen—the details of which he doesn’t remember. He […]
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