November Reads – Lots to Enjoy

Here you go fellow travelers, the books I read in November. It’s a lighter list than is typical for me, but Thanksgiving with the family is a more about food and fun than reading, right? This month I discovered many new authors—Karin Slaughter, Sunjeev Sahota, Erin Bartels, Alison Gaylin, Steve Pope, Emma Brodie, David R. Boyd, and Adele Myers—the advantage of receiving advance reader copies. Some of them I will definitely read again, but there were a couple clunkers. Read on to find out which ones.   The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to […]

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The Forest of Vanishing Stars – Book Review

After being stolen from her wealthy German parents and raised in the unforgiving wilderness of eastern Europe, Yona finds herself alone in 1941 after her kidnapper dies. Her solitary existence is interrupted; however, she encounters a group of Jewish refugees in the forest and shows them how to evade the Nazis and survive the harsh winters. But when she is betrayed and escapes into a German-occupied village, her past and present come collide, putting her and the group in danger. Author Kristin Harmel instantly captured my attention and held it until the last syllable of her latest novel. Her research is impressive: not only did she dig into how Jews […]

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