When everything in your life is falling part, there is nothing more healing than working in an old bookstore with a handsome but cantankerous man. Or, at least, that’s what makes this specific kind of romance/chick lit novel so much fun. When Thea loses her job and finds out her husband is having an affair with her close friend, she is crushed, but she soon receives notice from a lawyer that a distance uncle has … Read More “The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser” »
Publisher: Ballantine Books
I’ve read a number of Alison Weir’s books (nonfiction and historical fiction,) and while I didn’t like this one as much as her previous ones in this series, it was still an enjoyable read. Katheryn Howard is just 19 when she becomes Henry VIII’s fifth wife, fated to be beheaded by the age of 21. A decent portion of this book, though, is focused on her life before she became queen, when she was a … Read More “Katheryn Howard, the Scandalous Queen by Allison Weir” »
Another great book by Lisa Wingate. Mostly set in Louisiana (with a bit of Texas thrown in,) the chapters alternate between Benny Silva’s story in 1987, and Hannie Gossett in 1885. Hannie is a young woman who is a freed slave but still working for her former master and his wife in basically the same capacity. When her former master’s 16-year-old white daughter and 14-year-old daughter with his New Orleans mistress are kidnapped while trying … Read More “The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate” »
Hill Women is a memoir about life in and around Appalachia, especially focused on the author, Cassie Chambers, and her mother and grandmother. Her memoir compares the lives of her grandmother (with very little education, who met her 30-something-year-old husband when she was a young teenager,) to her mother (who fought for a local college education while married and raising a baby,) to Cassie herself (an Ivy League graduate and Harvard lawyer.) The author emphasizes … Read More “Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains by Cassie Chambers” »