The Whispers of War is Julia Kelly’s second novel, a deftly plotted story of female friendship set against the backdrop of the early days of World War II. Its well-drawn characters and strong sense of place make it a book that is sure to appeal to fans of historical fiction everywhere. Nora, Hazel and Marie…
Powerhouse authors Beatriz Williams, Karen White, and Lauren Willig have teamed up for their third collaboration, a triple timeline story about three women whose lives are inexplicably bound up in the somewhat tragic history of Paris’ Ritz Hotel. The sweeping tale spans fifty years, introducing readers to Aurelie, Daisy, and Babs as they discover who…
If you read only one book this fall, make it The Last Train to London. I spent almost the entire time I spent reading it with raised blood pressure, gripping my Kindle tightly in anxious hands as I apprehensively turned each page, worried about the characters I had come to love. I sobbed noisily at…
In 1997, the Seinfeld episode called The Yada Yada aired. While this installment is best known for coining the term “anti-dentite” and the use of yada, yada to skip details in conversation, it also takes an intriguing look at religious conversion and the confused feelings such an event creates in the people around the convert. …
In The Golden Hour, author Beatriz Williams tells the interconnected stories of two women, decades apart, whose lives are irrevocably changed by their deep and abiding love for the men of the Winthrop family. For Lulu, a journalist desperate to uncover the truth about the apparent death of the man she loves, and Elfriede, a…
Dizzying time loops, fascinating human stories, and a really lovely romance captivate in Lisa Grunwald’s Time After Time. To tell the reader too much about its plot is to reveal too much about its central mystery; this is the kind of book that requires the retention of a little of the element of surprise going…
Jillian Cantor’s In Another Time takes us tastefully into the romance of Hanna and Max, two young people who meet and fall in love in Germany on the brink of the outbreak of World War II… and then introduces an awkward plot point that nearly wrecks the proceedings. In 1931, Hanna Ginsberg, a wannabe composer…
Early in 2018, I picked up a copy of Susan Meissner’s breath-taking novel As Bright As Heaven, the story of one family’s desperate struggle to survive the influenza epidemic of 1919. It was one of my favorite books of the year, and I’ve been powering through Ms. Meissner’s other novels ever since. Now though, she’s…
World War II stories are some of my favorite things to read, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that I jumped at the chance to review Within These Lines by Stephanie Morrill. It’s the story of two teenagers torn apart by the decision of the American government to force Americans of Japanese…
Lynda Cohen Loigman’s The Wartime Sisters checked a couple of my book-catnip boxes. As you’ll know if you’ve followed my reviews for any length of time, I absolutely adore books that take place during the Second World War. I also really enjoy reading about the close but messy relationships shared between sisters. I don’t have…