In the 1950s, Sonia, Katie, Roberta, and CiCi are 15-years-old roommates at an all-girls boarding school, Idlewild, which has a poor reputation and it’s very own home-grown ghost, Mary Hand. After a trip to visit her elderly and distant relatives, Sonia — a Holocaust survivor — never returns, and her best friends fear the worst. In 2014, Fiona, a journalist, is writing a story about the mysterious benefactor who is planning on fixing and reopening … Read More “The Broken Girls by Simone St. James” »
Author: Erin Shanahan
Former in-house book editor turned stay-at-home mom who will hopefully return to the industry some day -- let me know if you hear of any openings -- but for now who reads as much as I can and reviews online, both here and on Instagram (@bookwormerin.) I love books. Reading them. Buying them. Recommending them. I was the kid whose mother had to limit the number of books I could check out from the library each week to the number of books I could physically carry home. Now, I have a husband who enables me, children who love books almost as much as I do, and a bit too much time on my hands, which I fill with reading.This timely thriller won’t just have you scared for the characters, but for our society, as well. Sydney Green returns to live with her mother in their historically Black neighborhood in Brooklyn. However, the neighborhood is undergoing rapid gentrification, and several of their life-long friends and neighbors have suddenly disappeared and wealthy white people are taking their places. Sydney is asking a lot of questions and draws dangerous attention to herself as she struggles to … Read More “When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole” »
Molly Clarke has not had it easy the last few years. She accidentally kills her youngest daughter, Annie, with her car, which ruins her relationship with her husband and two older children, Nicole and Evan. So when Molly disappears on a stormy night, leaving her car and phone behind on the side of the road and her wet clothes in an empty hotel room, everyone thinks she’s just walked away. But Nicole, struggling with guilt … Read More “Don’t Look for Me by Wendy Walker” »
This is one of my favorites of the year so far. It reminds me a bit of A Man Called Ove, which I also really enjoyed, but I really liked how this book included a lot more history of the main character. Eudora Honeysett is 85-years-old, lives alone with her crotchety old cat, and outside of occasionally swimming laps at the local pool, is just sitting around and waiting to die. In fact, she’s so … Read More “The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons” »
John Lennon was assassinated the year I was born and the year he turned 40. I turned 40 earlier this year, and while I’ve always been a big fan of the Beatles (my first CD ever was Abbey Road — although apparently Lennon wouldn’t have liked that!) I have never read much of their history. This book makes me want to change that now. This 40th anniversary re-release of the full Playboy transcript of the … Read More “All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono by David Sheff” »