Book reviews of new and old, local, national and international books. Anything goes.
I opted for D’mok Revival after reading an enticing blurb on this hardcore science fiction odyssey, not realizing that it was part of a bigger package. D’mok Revival is the fourth book in the New Eden series but thankfully, it reads as a standalone. Because I was jumping into the story line several books in,…
Set in Maine and extending through New Hampshire and into Vermont, The One-in-a-Million Boy is a contemporary novel that focuses on a short but unique bond between a young boy and a feisty centenarian, parental grief, and new horizons. Thus far, it has been published in eighteen different languages. You can read about local Maine author Monica…
Amy Harmon is a New York Times bestselling author who often takes the nontraditional route of self-publication – and she’s highly successful with it. I’ve been seeing The Bird and the Sword flash on my GoodReads feed on a daily basis – read, reviewed, or added to a to-read list by many fellow readers – and…
In 1969, the UK’s Sunday Times sponsored the Golden Globe Race, a solo sailing race around the world. As long as one had a boat and the entry fee, the race was open to all. During the race, the participants would check in through radio frequencies and Morse code to illuminate their positions. One by one,…
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a story by J.K. Rowling that has been adapted by John Tiffany and Jack Thorne into a play and officially serves as book 8 in the Harry Potter series. Although the story is from the mind of J.K. Rowling, the book, which is a play script, is written by…
The Song of Achilles is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad with an emphasis on Achilles. Unlike the Brad Pitt movie Troy (with Achilles played by Pitt), The Song of Achilles stays much closer to the Iliad with its plethora of gods and goddesses, length of the war, and character placements. An issue long debated in the Iliad…
Sunsets of Tulum is a first book from travel writer Raymond Avery Bartlett and a romance novel to warm up those cold winter nights. This love story is about how we are changed by those who we love and those who love us. It speaks of love as the ultimate catalyst for personal growth. Barrel Fire Press…
Although Sarah’s Key is over a decade old, it seems fairly new – as if I first heard about it the other day. It’s been on my to-read list for years but try as I might, I can’t possibly dent that continually growing pile without major life changes, a lottery win, a nanny, and limitless…
Hag-Seed is the fourth book in the Hogarth Shakespeare series published by Hogarth Press in which popular authors pen their versions of selected Shakespearean plays. In The Gap of Time, Jeanette Winterson tackles The Winter’s Tale. In Shylock Is My Name, Howard Jacobson re-imagines The Merchant of Venice. Pulitzer Prize winning author Anne Tyler takes on…
End of Days is the final book in the Penryn & the End of Days trilogy by Susan Ee, a post-apocalyptic, supernatural set of thrillers for young adults. In this dark urban fantasy, angels of Judeo-Christian lore herald the foretold apocalypse and have wreaked havoc on the earth, killing and destroying wherever possible. Unlike your…