Novels Now

You are browsing the archives of 2009 February.

Bloodprint by Kitty Sewell
Pages: 351
First Published: Feb. 3, 2009
Genre: psychological suspense
Rating: 4.5/5
First sentence:
Angelina was her name.
Comments: An American now living in Bath, England, Madeleine Frank works as a psychotherapist and paints ants part-time. Madeline has a shaky background including a mother who practises santeria and will do anything to protect her daughter. One day a [...]

Mike Dellosso
301 pages
Scream begins with Mark Stone talking on his cell phone with a friend, Jeff. The call is interrupted by what sounds like screaming and wailing on the line. It is heard by both parties but they just assume that it’s some type of interference. Then Mark hears the obvious sounds of a car [...]

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Pages: 541
First Published: Feb. 3, 2009
Genre: fiction
Rating: 5/5
First sentence:
After eight months spent in the obscurity of our mother’s womb, my brother, Shiva, and I came into the world in the late afternoon of the twentieth of September in the year of grace 1954.
Comments: This epic family saga spans through the [...]

It was like the painting they’d first looked at together in London, the small mirror at the back revealing more than the room at first appeared to contain. - from Only Goodness, page 157 -
Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories - Unaccustomed Earth - reveals more about the relationships between its multi-faceted characters than  [...]

Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon & Dean Hale
Illustrated by Nathan Hale (no relation)
Pages: 144
First Published: Aug. 5, 2008
Genre: graphic novel, fairy tale, children
Rating: 5/5
Reason for Reading: A few reasons actually. I’ve never read any of Shannon Hale’s books but want to someday and this looked like a good way to get introduced to her storytelling. I [...]

Pieces of My Heart: A Life by Robert J. Wagner, with Scott Eyman
Pages: 324
First Published: Sept. 2008
Genre: memoir
Rating: 4.5/5
First sentence:

I was twelve years old when my future passed in front of me.

Comments: This is Robert J. Wagner’s personal memoir from his birth to 2008, when he was 78. Wagner briefly tells of his parents and [...]

Susan Meissner
305 pages
You are the girl in between. You are young like Mercy, a writer like Mercy and the sole daughter like Mercy. And you’ve lived a life of privilege like me. You’ve seen its every side, just like I have, and you are the heir to an accomplished man’s legacy, as I was. You, [...]

Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs
Temperance Brennan series #11
Pages: 310
First Published: Aug. 2008
Genre: crime, forensic thriller
Rating: 5/5
First sentence:

My name is Temperance Deassee Brennan.

Comments: Tempe has quite the case on her hands this time. A human skull has been found in an underground room in a basement and the room also contains a beheaded chicken, a goat [...]

Fool by Christopher Moore
Pages: 311
First Published: Feb. 9, 2009
Genre: fiction, humour
Rating: 4/5
First sentence:
“Tosser!” cried the raven.
Comments: Christopher Moore’s latest book is a spoof on Shakespeare’s King Lear, as well as Shakespeare’s writing itself, a few elements from other plays are imported into the story as well, Macbeth’s witches, for example. This is quite different from [...]

“Mile Stones Five Year Diary” was written in gold letters across the book’s worn cover. Holding my breath, I released the brass latch. Despite the rusted keyhole, the diary was unlocked. Little pieces of red leather sprinkled onto my white comforter. “This book belongs to…Florence Wolfson.” - from The Red Leather Diary, page 13 [...]

Land of Marvels by Barry Unsworth, Jan. 6, 2009
I couldn’t finish this book. I made it to page 69 but found the book just wasn’t to my tastes. The word thriller is used in the description and I guess I just expected some thrills. I really couldn’t concentrate on the book at all. I love [...]

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
A companion to the Harry Potter series
Pages: 109
First Published: Dec. 2008
Genre: YA, fantasy
Rating: 3.5/5
First sentence:
The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a collection of stories written for young wizards and witches.
Comments: A very short collection of five short fairy tales that are a part of the Harry [...]

Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner
Pages: 247
First Published: Jan. 27, 2009
Genre: YA, fantasy
Rating: 5/5
First sentence:
I had a sister once.

Comments: Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Liza’s town is very secluded and doesn’t welcome strangers. References are made about Before when there were such things as TV and airplanes but there has been a war; a [...]

Captivating!
Stealing Athena is about two influential and custom defying women in history. Both caught between the conventions of their time and trying to help the men they loved.
At 21, newlywed, Mary, the countess of Elgin used her charm and influence with the Ottoman Empire to gain permission for her husband Elgin to deconstruct what was [...]

The youngest of the McCourt brothers.
First there was Angela’s Ashes and other books by Frank McCourt. Then his brother Malachy with the book A Monk Swimming. Now the youngest of the McCourt brothers, Alphie has written a book.
Not many years after his brothers move to New York City from Ireland, Alphie and his mother followed. [...]

When I was contacted by author Diana Spechler to review her book Who By Fire (368 pgs, Harper Perennial, 2008), I was flattered. I was also a little hesitant. I always feel a certain amount of pressure to like a book, knowing it was sent by the author, herself. But there was no need to [...]

Eclipse by Richard North Patterson (384 pgs, Henry Holt & Co, 2009) is a book I selected through the Amazon Vine program. I choose this book because I’ve read a lot of Patterson’s thrillers and have always liked them. This one is no exception. I am using this as a selection for the 2009 ARC [...]

The years of Scarlet’s migration, through the decade of the 1990s up to this cool and puzzling spring of 2002, were relatively quiet ones for Addie. Had her mother somehow been holding her breath, reining herself in, waiting to see how far south, and now how near to this overdeveloped coastline, Scarlet would fly? [...]

Otherwise by Farley Mowat
Pages: 309
First Published: Oct. 28, 2008
Genre: non-fiction, memoir, autobiography
Rating: 3.5/5
First sentence:
Born in Mid-May 1921 — lilac time in the small town of Trenton on the northern shore of Lake Ontario’s Bay of Quinte — I spent my early years messing about in swamps, woods, and farmyards; falling in and out of boats; [...]

A Dangerous Affair by Caro Peacock
Liberty Lane, Book 2
Pages: 303
First Published: Jan. 19, 2009
Genre: historical fiction, cosy mystery
Rating: 3.5/5
First sentence:
Neither of us knew the rate for bribing a gaoler at the Old Bailey.
Comments: The book starts with Liberty and a friend visiting someone in prison who is to be hanged shortly. Then the plot moves [...]