It’s difficult to begin about City of Ghosts. It is really an amazing book- it reminds me of one of my all-time favorite books, The Graveyard Book. Cassidy drowns in a lake but she is saved by a ghost, Jacob, who becomes her best friend. Since coming back to life she has been able to cross the Veil into the place where ghosts stay when they can’t move on. Her parents, writers of paranormal books, start filming a new tv…
Victoria Schwab is a unique writer for me; I love about half of her books and strongly dislike the other half. I can’t think of another author I feel that way about. Anyway, I think that’s why I had Vicious for so long before reading it. Which is too bad because it is a great book! Two college students, Victor and Eli, discover that there is a pattern for those who have developed supernatural abilities: they had a near death…
Goodbye, Paris is… dare I say it? A perfectly written book*. The story dips between past and present like the natural tides of a book should. During moments of profound loss the author uses beautiful and raw words to slide a knife into the reader and turn, just so. She takes us from utter happiness to complete loss, and there and back again, as the book goes on. It felt like everything that happened to Grace was happening to me…
Ageless Beauty the French Way is not just another French lifestyle book. While I thoroughly enjoy most of those books out there, this one gives me what I actually want: How to care for myself the way the French do in an accessible way to me. After introducing all of these wonderful skin, hair, and body care tips, von Mueffling shares with you places she recommends (mostly in NYC) and in most cases gives suggestions on how to care for…
A Tale of Two Murders is a historical fiction mystery that follows a fictional Charles Dickens as a journalist in his early twenties. After being present when a young girl falls ill and ultimately dies, he starts investigating and discovers that another girl died the same way exactly one year before. He is determined to solve these murders and he has the help of his crush, Miss Hogarth, his brother, and a several others he meets along the way. As…
This book is about a really dumb girl who makes terrible choices that cause really bad things to happen. It’s a shame because aside from the main character, this is a fantastic story. Well, mostly. The world and other characters are interesting but Heloise… Heloise! There is nothing good about you. The choices she makes are so bad that if this were not a book there isn’t a chance that she would have lived to age 16. All throughout the…
I read The Paris Wife earlier this year for a book club and really enjoyed it, so when I found out the same author was writing another book about another one of Hemingway’s four wives I knew I had to read it. In addition to learning about Martha Gelhorn’s life and her relationship with Ernest Hemingway in Love and Ruin, I love that the reader also learns so much about history and the way of life at that time. Marty…
I almost didn’t get through this one. I received Unbury Carol from a giveaway at ECCC and it was one of several that I really looked forward to reading. I’m conflicted because there were several good qualities to this book but overall it really didn’t do it for me. As you can tell from the description, Carol has these spells in which she appears to be dead but she isn’t. Her husband decides to bury her alive because she makes…
Strange Practice is about Greta Helsing, descendent of the Van Helsings and doctor to the undead, and three of her friends trying to find the person (or persons) terrorizing London. Overall, I really liked this book. It has unique characters and I’ve discovered recently that I really enjoy a book with a medical or scientific theme that is written so that the non-scientifically inclined can understand and enjoy it. However, I did have several issues with the book. Until the…
When Clotilde Dusoulier announced that she was coming out with her fifth book I may have lost it a little. In a good way. I have all of her books, love her blog (Chocolate and Zucchini, which is one of the first blogs I ever read), and even hired her for a food tour of Montmartre when we were in Paris in January 2017. She has such a healthful and unique approach to food, using and combining ingredients I never…