This historical novel unfolds across two different time periods, 1943 Honolulu and 1965 Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, blending codebreaking secrets, murder, and romance. It follows two women: Isabel Cooper, a skilled cryptanalyst working to defeat the Japanese Army after her brother’s death during the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and Lu Freitas, a rookie journalist for Sunset magazine. Isabel’s concerns heighten when her fellow female codebreaker, Gloria, vanishes from Station Hypo. Meanwhile, in 1965, Lu is assigned to cover the highly anticipated opening of Rockefeller’s Mauna Kea Beach Hotel. When singer Joni Diaz disappears, she teams up with a veteran photograph to investigate. As a fan of books featuring strong […]
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The Metal Heart
Identical twins Dorothy and Constance are haunted by their parents’ mysterious disappearance near Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands. To start anew, they settle on the neighboring island of Selkie Holm in the autumn of 1941. Against the backdrop of World War II, a German U-boat sinks the British battleship HMS Royal Oak in Scapa Flow. Eight hundred and thirty-four men lost their lives, prompting Winston Churchill to order the construction of defensive barricades between the islands. Italian prisoners of war, captured in North Africa, are transported to Selkie Holm to quarry stone and build the barriers. Many of the islanders are hostile towards the prisoners, but the twenty-three-year-old sisters see […]
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Signal Fires
In the summer of 1985, tragedy strikes when three teenagers, under the influence of alcohol, experience a catastrophic car crash that claims the life of one of them. The collision shatters the lives of those involved, including Ben Wilf, a young doctor who arrives at the scene. Years later, the Shenkmans move into the neighborhood. During a snowstorm, Ben saves their newborn’s life when the mother goes into labor at home during a snowstorm. Waldo, the Shenkmans’ intellectually gifted yet solitary son, forms a strong connection with Dr. Wilf, who is now retired and grappling with his wife’s dementia. Opinions on this book diverge significantly among readers. While some found […]
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The Whalebone Theatre
“For a fortunate few, war allows us to rise in ways that would otherwise be impossible. We can bring the very best of us to bear.”― Joanna Quinn, The Whalebone Theatre Cristabel Seagrave loses her mother during childbirth, and her father, Jasper, who remarries when she is four, passes away shortly thereafter. This leaves Cristabel in the care of her disinterested stepmother, Rosalind, who later marries Jasper’s aviation-obsessed brother, Willoughby. One stormy night in 1928, a whale washes up on the shores of the English Channel near Devon. By law, the whale belongs to the King, but twelve-year-old orphan Cristabel, along with her half-sister Flossie, cousin Digby, kitchen maid Maudie Kitcat, and […]
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Jacqueline in Paris
Ann Mah’s novel is a portrayal of Jacqueline Bouvier’s transformative year abroad in postwar Paris. As a junior at Vassar College, Bouvier spent the year 1949/1950 studying at the University of Grenoble and the Sorbonne in Paris. The journey begins with Bouvier boarding an ocean liner, embarking on an experience that will change her life. As the only Vassar student, she finds herself with a group of lively Smith students with whom she will later study. This voyage marks the start of Jackie’s immersion into an exhilarating world brimming with champagne, châteaux, theater, art, jazz clubs, and quaint cafés. She lives with a host family, headed by Comtesse de […]
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Shogun
“Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you’re here and nothing you can do will change that. Today you’re alive and here and honored, and blessed with good fortune. Look at this sunset, it’s beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity.”—James Clavell, Shōgun. Shōgun by James Clavell is a sweeping historical saga of feudal Japan. A bold English adventurer; an invincible Japanese warlord; a beautiful woman torn between two ways of life, all brought together in an extraordinary saga of a time and a […]
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My Favorite Reads of 2022
I read 106 books in 2022, so narrowing it down to my very favorites was a challenge. The list below comprises my crème de la crème in a great year of reading. You’ll find a variety of genres set in the United States, Mexico, Ghana, Ukraine, China, England, Poland, Austria, Germany, France, Czechoslovakia, and Vietnam. Most of these were 5-star reads for me, but one was a 4.5 rounded up to 5. I hope you find something you love! Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid “We live in a world where exceptional women have to sit around waiting for mediocre men.”—Taylor Jenkins Reid, Carrie Soto is Back. […]
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Amy’s December 2022 Picks and Pans
One December not that long ago, I read some terrific books. They were different genres set in different places—Florida, England, Colorado, Maine, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Mexico, Connecticut, and Texas—but most had one thing in common: great writing. Enjoy my reviews; I hope you find something to add to your TBR list! Once Upon a Wardrobe Patti Callahan “No matter your age, may you never, ever grow too old for fairy tales.”—Pattie Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe. I couldn’t have loved this book more. It started and ended with a flourish in moving, heartwarming, and magical prose. I loved learning about Jack Lewis’s life (you probably know him as […]
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Once Upon a Wardrobe
“No matter your age, may you never, ever grow too old for fairy tales.” —Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe. I couldn’t have loved this book more. It started and ended with a flourish in moving, heartwarming, and magical prose. I loved learning about Jack Lewis’s life (you probably know him as C. S. Lewis) and the imagined inspiration for his classic book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This novel about faith and hope is utterly enchanting. 5 enthusiastic stars. Megs Devonshire is brilliant with numbers and equations, on a scholarship at Oxford, and dreams of unraveling the mysteries of physics. She prefers the dependability of facts—except […]
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The Seamstress of New Orleans Book Review
The Seamstress of New Orleans is set against the backdrop of the first all-female Mardi Gras krewe at the turn-of-the-century. For those who don’t know what a krewe is (I had no clue), it is a private organization that stages events during Mardi Gras. Here, the event is the leap year ball of Les Mysterieuses, during which women could make advances toward men that would be taboo at other times. The novel brings together two women from unique backgrounds. Upon the sudden disappearance of her husband, pregnant Alice Butterworth leaves Chicago for the more hospitable climes of Louisiana to make a living by providing sewing lessons at an orphanage. […]
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