Liane Moriarty’s Here One Moment opens with a terrific premise. After an irksome delay on a flight from Hobart to Sydney, a middle-aged woman rises from her seat, walks the aisle, and starts pointing at passengers, calmly announcing the age at which each will die—and the cause. Allegra, a 27-year-old flight attendant, is told she…
Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore is one of my favorite reads of the last few years. It is the third of three books by McConaghy; Once There Were Wolves is the second. All three books are shaped by climate change. In an interview, McConaghy said: Each of my novels takes a look at the wildness…
At the start of Lily King’s Heart the Lover, a novel of three parts, our narrator is in her final year of college. While the school she attends is never named, for those of us who went to either UNC (the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) or Duke in the early 80s, her…
(originally published on December 25, 2019) Despite being a family of non-believers, every year we pull out our holiday paraphernalia. We dress the tree, hanging with care the delicate glass ornaments gifted to us over the many years, sentimentally rub our fingers over the ones our children made, pull out the stepladder and put our…
The thing you need to know about me, to give the necessary context for this review, is that I love—LOVE—Jane Austen. I’ve reread all her novels multiple times, I’ve seen virtually every adaptation (the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice is the best Pride and Prejudice, I will die on this hill), and P&P remains my…
The Everlasting begins where it ends: beneath a yew tree. Its first chapter, The First Death of Una Everlasting, reads like a eulogy written for a nation’s best. We’re told that Una, knight of the realm, died for her queen, and that sacrifice birthed a great nation. But the story we’re given isn’t the one…
Set in the ruthless, chaotic heart of 1749 London, this historical thriller is a masterclass in deception, survival, and the art of the long con. Hannah Cole, newly widowed and barely keeping her confectionery shop afloat, knows better than to expect miracles. Her late husband, Jonas, left her with debts, dwindling options, and, worst of…
I have a soul deep love of fiction that comes from the heartland of America. Thus, I’m predisposed to enjoy a book like Before Dorothy, which tells us the story of Auntie Em and Uncle Henry before and after they let a young Dorothy Gale into their lives. Hazel Gaynor adds beautiful narrative depth to…
Emily Dickinson wrote that hope was the thing with feathers. After reading Charlotte McConaghy’s phenomenal Wild Dark Shore, it seems to me that hope is a seed. I confess that, prior to reading Wild Dark Shore, I’d not really thought much about seeds. I’m not much of a gardener and the plants I do nurture…
The Girl from Greenwich Street is a fictionalized account of an actual murder trial bursting at the seams with famous Americans. Ms. Willig does a fantastic job summarizing the event in her notes at the novel’s end, but a slightly less spectacular one of bringing it to life in her primary narrative. A few days…
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