Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5) Finding My Second Wind by Erin Leopold is a compelling memoir that delves into the author’s arduous journey of overcoming pain and discovering unwavering faith. As I immersed myself in Leopold’s captivating narrative, I found myself both inspired and deeply moved by her remarkable resilience. In this […]
Books
PASSING MYSELF DOWN TO THE GRAVE Book Launch and Interview
A lifelong dream was realized when author Sheryl Aronson celebrated the launch of her book Passing Myself Down to the Grave at El Cid’s in Silver Lake, California. The book was years in the making, but not in the usual sense of writing a traditional novel. Taken from two short films, memoirs, and Aronson’s journaled […]
WAKING UP JOY by Tina Ann Forkner
Joy, the main character and first person narrator of this comedic romance mystery, set in the fictional town of Spavinaw Junction, Oklahoma, is accused of trying to hang herself when she falls from the roof of the old Talley house where she has lived all of her life. Joy is […]
The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom
Four and one-half stars for this reflective and spiritually didactic fable. This book is a lesson in valuing time. Through the lessons each of the main characters—Sarah Lemon, a lovelorn teenager; Victor Delamonte, a wealthy and fatally ill man in his eighties; and their instructor Dor (Father Time)—learns, the reader […]
THE EAGLE TREE by Ned Hayes
This is literary fiction complete with conflict, plot, rising action, crisis, climax, falling action, etc. Set in Olympia, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest, the main character and first person narrator is fourteen-year-old March Peter Wong, a brilliant, teenager whose favorite activity is climbing trees. March, the name by which he […]
ABOUT THE NIGHT by Anat Talshir
Five stars for this well written premier novel of forbidden love between an Arab and a Jew. Lila was a Jew born and raised in Istanbul. Later an adult, she moved to Jerusalem. Elias Riani was an Arab, whose family has lived in Jerusalem for over a hundred years. In 1947 Elias […]
A BLOODSMOOR ROMANCE by Joyce Carol Oates
Published in 1982, A Bloodsmoor Romance by Joyce Carol Oates is a gothic romance novel set in Bloodsmoor, Pennsylvania, in the years 1879-1899. It is the story of five Pennsylvania sisters, told by an omniscient narrator identified only as “a maiden lady of advanced years.” The novel opens with considerable […]
GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee: Book Review
Five stars for this novel that in spite of its being written before To Kill a Mockingbird, is its sequel. My research tells me that when Harper Lee submitted this her first book for publication, she was turned down and told to write a novel about a younger protagonist, thus […]