THE WINTER SEA tells the story of the Aquino family
beginning in the early twentieth century on a very small
and
poor island off the coast of Italy. Giuseppe Aquino
realizes that, although generations of his family have
made
a living as fishermen, he will not prosper if he stays Read more...
FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE is set in the American west just
after the Civil
War and it's main character is a veteran named Bobby Hale.
Bobby actually joins the union, collects his bonus, drops
out and rejoins under a new name 9 different times. When
the war Read more...
Retellings of classics are a very popular genre among
historical fiction novels. I was so thrilled to find a
book that narrates the Romeo and Juliet story from the
nurse's point of view. This story begins with Angelica
her husband Pietro who are peasants living in fourteenth
century and Read more...
I think THE STORY OF LAND AND SEA is one of the saddest
books I have ever
read. John is a widower and is trying to raise his ten
year old daughter, Tabitha, in the shoreline town of
Beaufort in North Carolina. When his daughter, Tabitha,
becomes gravely ill with Read more...
Before I read NEVERHOME, I did not realize that there were
actually women who disguised themselves as men and fought
in the Civil War. NEVERHOME is a fictional account of one
such woman named Constance. When the story opens,
Constance
is living a quiet life on a farm in Indiana Read more...
This book is centered around the character of Ibby Bell
who
is grieving from the recent loss of her father in a tragic
bicycling accident. Ibby's mother decides that she can
no
longer handle raising Ibby on her own, so she drops Ibby
off at her paternal grandmother's Read more...
In Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes says that humans were
originally two bodies melded together, two parts of a
whole. When the gods split humans in two, they were left
longing for their other halves. Since we are half of what
once was a whole person, we spend the rest of Read more...
Harry Patz's new book THE NAIVE GUYS is set in the early
1990's when email, cell phones and laptops are
nonexistent. The main character, Mark Amici, has just
graduated from Boston College and is excited about the job
offers that he thinks will be pouring in. When his Read more...
Lady Adel is completely alone in the world except for her
stepbrother who is trying to marry her off to a womanizing
baron who is rumored to have syphilis. But one night
during a winter storm, Adel's brother has an unexpected
guest show up at his house.
Liam is Read more...
This is the story of Nanette, who was a female spy for the
allies during World War II. When the story begins she is
in her eighties and lives in a nursing home in Canada. A
young man named Joseph, who is the grandson of another spy
during the war Read more...
The literary talent of Ben Lerner is apparent from the
first page of his new novel, 10:04. This novel is so much
more than literary fiction. 10:04 is short story, poetry,
children's fiction, philosophy and, one wonders, if it is
even autobiography, at certain points.
At the Read more...
FEAST FOR THIEVES is exciting from beginning to end and
includes
bank robberies, high speed car chases, shoot outs and lots
of fist fights. But FEAST FOR THIEVES also has a tender
and moral side to it. Rowdy Slater is a veteran of World
War II and is living in Read more...
In this series of short stories entitled FUNNY ONCE,
Antonya Nelson has provided us with interesting characters,
great settings and engaging plots. Three of the stories
were my favorite, although the entire collection is worth a
read.
In "Literally" a widowed father of two is trying to raise
his two Read more...
In ALL THE RAGE, a collection of short stories by A.L.
Kennedy, she explores aspects of love and sex that are a bit
unusual. In one story a man has an affair with his maid,
although the maid seems to be completely disinterested in
him other than the sex Read more...
Theodora Fairchild is tired of teaching Latin to middle
school students who are forced to take "dead language."
When she decides to go back to graduate school and work on
her Ph.D. in Latin Literature, she is elated to be
surrounded by faculty members who love studying the ancient Read more...
Olivia Marsten's life is pretty simple and happy. She is
living in a small town in the Midwest when World War II
breaks out. In order to help with the war effort, she
takes a job at the local hardware store, maintains a
victory garden, and heads up the Read more...
BITTERSWEET is the story of four interesting sisters, two
sets of
identical twins, living in Australia in the 1920's and
1930's. The Latimer sisters are the daughters of a rector
and a selfish, nasty mother from whom they cannot wait
to get away. The rector recognizes the destructive Read more...
Alain Bonnard grew up watching vintage films in his uncle's
art cinema in Paris, the Cinema Paradis. When his uncle
retires and gives Alain the opportunity to own the Paradis,
Alain gives up his lucrative, yet boring business career
and becomes the new proprietor of this small art cinema Read more...
Most people have heard of the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts
and the Carnegies. But William Andrews Clark, who amassed
a fortune even greater than these wealthy families, seems
to be little mentioned among these Gilded Age elite. That
is, until his daughter, Hugette Clark, died in the spring
of 2011 at Read more...
Bud DeYoung grew up in Highland Indiana where he was
constantly bringing home various animals to live in his
parent's suburban home. At a very young age he had a
desire to learn about animals, rescue them and share his
knowledge of animals with others.
The first part of Read more...
Melissa Beck
I am a high school Latin teacher and an
avid reader. My favorite genre is
historical fiction but I also love
travel writing, history (non-
fiction) and nutrition (especially
Paleo/Primal).
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