Posts

Heartwarming and bittersweet, The Guncle (2019) by Steven Rowley will grab you from the start. Patrick, or “Gay Uncle Patrick” as his 9-year-old niece and 6-year-old nephew call him, is out of his element as their temporary caregiver.

Night Film (2013), the latest novel by Marisha Pessl, author of Special Topics in Calamity Physics, recently caught my attention as I browsed audio books. Post-holidays, I wanted something entertaining and gripping, a mystery or thriller to spice things up a bit.

Whisper of the Woods by Ennun Ana Iurov is the author's first professionally published graphic novel. It's about a young foreigner, Adam, who travels to a supposedly haunted forest in Romania to search for his friend who had gone there solo and vanished. Ignoring the advice of the locals, Adam arrogantly assumes he is above the supernatural forces obviously at play.

If you want a quick, light, heartwarming read, then you can’t go wrong with Michiko Aoyama’s charming book What You Are Looking for Is in the Library (2023).  It consists of five interconnected stories about five different people who all find their way to a small community house library in their time of need.

Glory Broussard, a Black woman with vivid memories of segregation in her hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana, likes her routine. After church on Sundays, she settles in at her table in the local coffee shop to run her bookie business. She volunteers with the Red Hat Society, and the rest of the time, seems to be going through the motions after her divorce and the death of her mother.

I have been a fan of Jennifer McMahon’s books ever since I read The Invited several years ago, and her latest novel, My Darling Girl (2023), might be her best one yet!

A wonderful mix of folktale, mystery, romance and historical fiction, The Fox Wife (2024) checks all the boxes for a fascinating read. Set in China and Japan in the early 1900s, author Yangsze Choo brings to life the folklore of the fox spirits; beautiful young men and women who can transform into foxes, bewilder and trick people and feed off the life force of humans.

Over the holidays I listened to the audiobook of Pineapple Street (2023), Jenny Jackson's debut novel. Jackson happens to be a Vice-President and Executive Editor at Knopf Doubleday and has edited the likes of Emily St.

Set in the cozy English countryside, The Wake-Up Call (2023) is a charming story about love, found family, and misunderstandings. The staff of the Forest Manor hotel are desperate to save their beloved workplace from closure or bankruptcy. Rivals Izzy and Lucas have barely spoken for over a year, but now are forced into an uneasy partnership to quickly raise funds.

Strange Sally Diamond (2023) by Liz Nugent begins like a darker Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, but soon takes a turn into a much more sinister, disturbing story.

With her most recent novel, The Book of Goose (2022), author Yiyun Li gives us a coming of age story that explores the fraught friendship of two girls growing up in an impoverished village in rural France during the aftermath of World War II.

American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI (2020) by Kate Winkler Dawson recounts the life and career of Edward Oscar Heinrich (1881-1953), one of the founding fathers of forensic science in the United States.