reviews

Secrets in Love, Secrets in Death Author: Lisa Jewell One bright fall day she is walking to the library, the world lying shimmering in front of her. And then . . . then she simply disappears. Left in the rubble is her mother, pining for the loss of her favorite daughter, the bright child with the good future. And from here comes divorce, estrangement, and an endless loop of unanswerable questions and horrific what-ifs. A future that is stuck in the past and so much resentment. A remaining daughter who won’t speak to her. A broken son with a weird [...]

“I will recognize you. I will know you by the picture you have given me through all these months, a portrait in words.” Author: Anne Youngson To open this small, unassuming book is akin to entering a museum. There’s a hushed reverence, a sense of timelessness, and an attention to detail that is both careful and luxurious. Anne Youngson’s debut novel, which she wrote in retirement, at age 70, is the measured, heartrending story of Tina Hopgood and Anders Larsen, who meet and come to know each other through letters exchanged between her remote English farm and his austere home [...]

History or Sarcasm? Author: Sarah Vowell My first stint with Book of the Month resulted in a free copy of Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, a history tome rumored to be all snark and entertainment. Several years later, after having gathered some dust on my shelves, I decided it just looked too forlorn and it was time for this decidedly fiction loving, generally history averse (I’m sorry, facts have a certain dryness, don’t they) bookworm to get back to the languishing part of her epic collection. And so, it was with less relish and more sense of duty that I [...]