I love it when literary luck has me reading several genres in any given month. In February, I enjoyed historical fiction, contemporary fiction, memoir. My absolute favorite was The World Played Chess. Read on to see my reviews: The World Played Chess By Robert Dugoni In 1979, Vincent Bianco has just graduated from high school. His only desire: collect a little beer money and enjoy his last summer before college. So he lands a job as a laborer on a construction crew. Working alongside two Vietnam vets, one suffering from PTSD, Vincent gets the education of a lifetime. Now forty years later, with his own son leaving for college, the […]
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The Woman at the Front – Book Review
When Eleanor Atherton graduates from medical school at the University of Edinburgh near the top of her class in 1917, she dreams of going overseas to help the wounded, but her parents thwart her ambition at every turn. Women are supposed to find husbands and support the war effort by knitting for the troops, not sewing them back together. When an unexpected twist of fate sends Eleanor to the battlefields of France as a private doctor, she seizes the opportunity. At the casualty clearing station near the front lines, the skeptical commander forbids her from treating the wounded, but when the station is overrun, she breaks protocol and helps the […]
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Proof of Life – Book Review
The devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist. ~ Daniel Levin, Proof of Life Daniel Levin, a board member of the Liechtenstein Foundation for State Governance, was at his office one day when he got a call from an acquaintance with an urgent, cryptic request to meet in Paris. A young man who had set out for Aleppo, Syria to assist a group of volunteer doctors had gone missing and no government, embassy, or intelligence agency would help. So begins the story of one man’s search to find a missing person in Syria over eighteen tense days. Levin, a lawyer turned armed conflict negotiator, uses […]
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The World Played Chess – Book Review
In 1979, Vincent Bianco has just graduated from high school. His only desire: collect a little beer money and enjoy his last summer before college. So he lands a job as a laborer on a construction crew. Working alongside two Vietnam vets, one suffering from PTSD, Vincent gets the education of a lifetime. Now forty years later, with his own son leaving for college, the lessons of that summer—Vincent’s last taste of innocence and first taste of real life—dramatically unfold in a novel about breaking away, shaping a life, and seeking one’s own destiny. Robert Dugoni has always been a superb storyteller, but this coming-of-age story was exceptional. The World […]
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Sunflower Sisters – Book Review
“… knowledge has no enemy but the ignorant.” ― Martha Hall Kelly, Sunflower Sisters Martha Hall Kelly’s million-copy bestseller Lilac Girls introduced readers to Caroline Ferriday, an American philanthropist who helped young girls released from Ravensbrück concentration camp. Now, in Sunflower Sisters, Kelly tells the story of her ancestor Georgeanna “Georgey” Woolsey, a Union nurse who joins the war effort with her sister, Eliza, and crosses paths with Jemma, a young enslaved girl who is sold off and conscripted into the army, and Ann-May Wilson, her cruel plantation mistress. Inspired by true accounts, the novel provides a vivid, detailed look at the Civil War experience, from the inhumane plantations, to a war-torn […]
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The Guide – Book Review
Guess what I know about fly-fishing? Zip. Nada. Diddly squat. But it didn’t matter because Peter Heller told me all about it. Have I been to a fancy resort for the uber-wealthy in the Colorado wilderness? Nope, but Peter Heller told me all about it. Kingfisher Lodge, boutique fishing at its finest, is nestled in a canyon along the most pristine river water on the planet, and locked behind a heavy gate. Sandwiched between barbed wire and a meadow with a sign that reads Don’t Get Shot! Kingfisher offers a respite from Covid for wealthy clients and for newly arrived fishing guide, Jack, a return to normalcy. Jack has lost […]
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The Christie Affair – Book Review
I know a book is going to be good when it begins like this: “A long time ago, in another country, I nearly killed a woman. It’s a particular feeling, the urge to murder. It takes over your body so completely, it’s like a divine force, grabbing hold of your will, your limbs, your psyche. There’s a joy to it. In retrospect, it’s frightening, but I daresay in the moment it feels sweet. The way justice feels sweet.” Part mystery, part biographical fiction, The Christie Affair is a clever, mesmerizing read written by a talented novelist. Nina de Gramont brilliantly weaves together two storylines, that of Agatha Christie, and the […]
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My Favorite Book of January 2022
Amanda Dykes knocked it out of the park with Whose Waves These Are. The story is so beautiful it changed me. It inspired me. It made me weep. Her book made me feel warm inside and her words were medicine for my weary soul. I could feel God in them. And her writing is gorgeous; lyrical and sweeping. I like to highlight passages when I read for later reflection, but if I did that with this book, my eBook would have been more yellow than not. Don’t even get me started on her characterization. I fell in love with the people and their way of life. I envied their sense […]
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Painting the Light – Book Review
Martha’s Vineyard, 1898. In her first life, Ida Russell was a painter, who confidently walked the halls of Boston’s renowned Museum School, enrolling in art courses that were once deemed “unthinkable” for women to take, and showing a budding talent for watercolors. Now she is Ida Pease, resident of a seaside sheep farm and wife to Ezra. Cold and distant, Ezra often leaves her to run the farm while he and his business partner, Mose, operate their salvage vessel. Then Ezra and Mose’s ship goes down, with all passengers presumed dead, and Ida feels relief rather than loss. What follows is her new story, the one she was meant to […]
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December 2021 Reads
So, I only got through seven books in December, but in my defense, I have four great excuses for my lack of production: Coming in at well over nine hundred pages, Go Tell the Bees That I am Gone counts for at least two books; I had a wicked stomach bug for a week; Grammies have gifts to buy; Jesus is the reason for the season. Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon The ninth book in Gabaldon’s Outlander series finds the Fraser family reunited during the American Revolution. It’s 1779, and Claire and Jamie Fraser have found each other across time and space and […]
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