When Stars Rain Down is a lyrical tale of family, friendship and romance. Taking place during the Jim Crow Era South, it celebrates how love can bloom even under the most difficult of circumstances. Due to the setting, there are depictions of violence – both verbal and physical – perpetrated against Blacks by racists. Opal…
I absolutely didn’t expect Nghi Vo’s next book to take up the case of the much sidelined Jordan Baker from The Great Gatsby and retell her story – but she has, and she’s done it so beautifully and so spellbindingly that it will captivate readers worldwide. It’s 1922, and when we first encounter talented golfer…
In The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba, author Chanel Cleeton shines light on a period in Cuban history many Americans know little to nothing about. Through the eyes of three very different heroines, Cleeton allows us a glimpse into a war-torn Cuba and a New York City poised to take the world by storm. It’s…
So far I’ve read novels from the perspectives of Georgiana Darcy and Caroline Bingley, and when I saw there was one about Charlotte Lucas, I had to check it out. I always thought of Charlotte as someone who evaluated her situation in life and then did the most reasonable thing she could do to secure…
The Paris Apartment is a compelling story told in dual timelines. The first is 1938 – 1942 during the Nazi occupation of Paris, and the second is 2017 in Paris and England after an apartment, unseen since World War II, is opened and its contents create more questions than answers. It’s 2017 and Aurelia (Lia)…
The Last Night in London is an enthralling story about the bonds of friendship, the wonder of falling in love and the often painful experience of holding on to hope in the midst of unexpected hardship. It begins with an exhibit. Ninety-nine-year-old Precious Dubose had been a model for decades and kept many of the…
The Social Graces is a mischievous and delightful little social comedy that brings its characters to life. Though I’ve read deeper histories of the Vanderbilt and Astor mini-feud, this one definitely entertained me the most, a true generational saga that’s warm, sweet, funny and tender. Mrs. Caroline Astor – THE Mrs. Astor, queen of the…
Fans of historical fiction are in for a treat with Wild Women and the Blues, a dual timeline novel about Jazz Age Chicago with its beautiful, fun but dark and dangerous world of juice joints, dance girls and racketeering, and a young man searching for redemption in twenty-first century America. Sawyer Hayes’ life changed in…
Friends. Lovers. Rivals. Enemies. The ties that bind all four are strong but malleable, especially in wartime. This fact is at the heart of Eternal, a story of three young people who find themselves in three very different positions as the Nazis and Fascism storm across Europe. Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro are known as the…
Stephanie Dray’s talent for historical fiction is well spent on this handsome tale featuring three women who occupy the Chateau Lafayette, the ancestral home which once belong to the famed Marquis and his wife, Adrienne, which goes through many changes over the centuries. Marthe Simone is an aspiring artist living in the early 1940s. Having…