The Great Alone

Title: The Great Alone Writer: Kristin Hannah Publishing House: St. Martin’s Press Date of Publication: February 6th 2018 Rating: 3 stars ‘’Outside, night had fallen. A full moon cast blue-white light on everything. Stars filled the sky with pinpricks and elliptical smears of light. Up here, at night, the sky was impossibly huge and never quite turned black, but stayed…

House of Glass

Title: House of Glass Writer: Susan Fletcher Publishing House: Virago Date of Publication: November 1st 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’This was the time of day my mother had warned me against, years before. The half-light, she explained, can change how things appear so that distances may seem less. Our eyes might detect movement when in fact there is none; a…

The Blue Girl

Title: The Blue Girl Writer: Laurie Foos Publishing House: Coffee House Press Date of Publication: June 22nd 2015 Rating: 5 stars ‘’And so, on Tuesday nights, I wrap the moon pies in aluminum foil and I tell myself that I will be able to save my daughter – that I will be able to save all of us – once…

Aller Tage Abend (The End of Days)

Title: Aller Tage Abend (The End of Days) Writer: Jenny Erpenbeck (translated by Susan Bernofsky) Publishing House: Knaus / New Directions Date of Publication: November 11th 2014 (first published August 20th 2012) Rating: 5 stars ‘’The Lord gave and the Lord took away, her grandmother said to her at the edge of the grave. But that wasn’t right, because the…

How To Be Human

Title: How To Be Human Writer: Paula Cocozza Publishing House: Metropolitan Books Date of Publication: May 9th 2017 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Focus, Mary. Don’t let him go now. So what if you’re tired and hungry. So what if you’ve crawled to the end of another miserable day in a job you hate, and tomorrow will bring only more of the…

The Brides of Rollrock Island

Title: The Brides of Rollrock Island Writer: Margo Lanagan Publishing House: Knopf Books Date of Publication: January 1st 2009 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Rollrock is a lonely island of cliffs and storms, blunt fishermen and their fierce wives. Life is hard for the families who must wring a poor living from the stormy seas. But Rollrock is also a place of…

A Promise Stitched In Time

Title: A Promise Stitched In Time Writer: Colleen Rowan Kosinski Publishing House: Schiffer Publishing Date of Publication: September 28th 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’It was a promise. Promises have to be kept.’’ What can one find in an antique shop…Objects graced with the beauty of a bygone era. Trinkets that once held sentimental value. Expensive creations of the past….

All We Have Left Is All That Matters

Title: All That Is Left Is All That Matters Writer: Mark Slouka Publishing House: W. W. Norton Company Date of Publication: June 26th 2018\ Rating: 2 stars ‘’The world doesn’t care for us – we pass through its rooms like ghosts. You can hear it, sometimes, laughing, celebrating, and when we take our leave it’s no more than the shift…

Girl, Balancing and Other Stories

Title: Girl, Balancing & Other Stories Writer: Helen Dunmore Publishing House: Hutchinson Books Date of Publication: June 28th 2018 Rating: 5 stars ”Outside, the fog that had hung over the city for days had blown away, and there was a cold, wild look to the sky.” I found out about Helen Dunmore’s passing not long after I read her final…

Autumn

Title: Autumn Writer: Edited by Melissa Harrison Publishing House: Elliott & Thompson Date of Publication: August 25th 2016 Rating: 5 stars ‘’After all, autumn is the natural world’s gentle memento mori; it’s when the year’s cycle begins to slow as spring’s generative energy and summer’s riotous fruition at last start to fail, prompted by shorter days, falling temperatures and the…

Melmoth

Title: Melmoth Writer: Sarah Perry Publishing House: Serpent’s Tail Date of Publication: October 2nd 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Look! It is winter in Prague: night is rising in the mother of cities and over her thousand spires. Look down at the darkness around your feet, in all the lanes and alleys, as if it were a soft black dust; look…