Literary Criticism
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Review: Crescendo: The True Story of a Musical Genius Who Forever Changed a Southern Town by Allen Cheney and Julie Cantrell
This was a book that I debated and debated and debated about. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to read it since it’s a non-fiction book. But then I also kept seeing so many great reviews about it that I felt like I was missing out on something wonderful. I kept putting it off and ultimately decided to wait and see how my July reading shaped up and promised myself that if I had some time, I would try and squeeze this one in. My mom is a pianist and its always such treat to hear her play so I felt like in a way, I owed it to her…
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Re-Post Review: Vox by Christina Dalcher
Last summer I had the pleasure of reading Vox and I can’t tell you how disturbing it was. I loved the book, but even now I remember with such clarity how uncomfortable it was to read because of the current political climate. Dalcher is a powerful writer and with Vox she has captured a new and more modern look at society but with the same unease and terror as the classic dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. I thought about this book long after I was done with it, and still think about it even a year later after reading it! Now it is out in paperback and I am re-sharing…
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Review: Milady by Laura L. Sullivan
When I was barely coming into my adolescents, I discovered the swashbuckling adventures of The Three Musketeers. Albeit on the big screen and not the Dumas novel, but swashbuckling adventure all the same! I loved the 1993 film version, even if I did hate Charlie Sheen and Chris O’Donnell in it, it was still exciting and as a young girl who longed for grace adventures, it had everything I could hope for. Sword fights, friendship, and of course a bad ass femme fatale! Oh how I loved Milady de Winter! She was one of the first female characters that stands out in my mind. She wasn’t a maid in need…
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Review: A Family of Strangers by Emilie Richards
This is a book that I was looking forward to for quite some time. I was really interested in the family dynamics in this summary, especially since I am the oldest sister and my younger sister and I are in constant completion with each other. I thought this one would yield interesting family relationships and dynamics as well as present a fascinating mystery with lots of things to question and debate. Plus this author has written a number of books, most of which are women fiction or romance, sprinkled with a few mysteries. This one sounded like it was going to be a little darker and more complex than her…
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Review: Meet Me in Monaco by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb
As a little girl, I was obsessed with Grace Kelly. I was fascinated by her love story and in the end, her tragic death, and longed for the day that I too could become a real American princess. But as I got older I moved on from princess dreams to horses and didn’t look back. That is until the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markel. It was another famous American, marrying royalty and becoming a princess that reignited my interest in Grace Kelly. When I saw that this book was coming out, I squealed in excitement. Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb have written some of my favorite novels both…
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Review: Death in a Desert Land (Agatha Christie #3) by Andrew Wilson
I would venture to say that most people have heard of the great mystery writer Agatha Christie. She’s written so many classic mysteries and I would be hard pressed to meet someone who hasn’t heard of at least one of her books in one way or another. Because she is so recognizable and such a classic mystery writer, I was thrilled to see that someone had turned her into her own fictional sleuth. My first thought when I saw that someone had done this, was that it sounded hokey. Agatha Christie is such an icon and to mess with that and turn her into a fictionalized detective sounded trite…..but at…
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Review: Murder in the City of Liberty (Van Buren and DeLuca Mystery #2) by Rachel McMillan
When this book popped up for review, I was thrilled! I haven’t read the first book in the series, but it has been on my radar. Then this one came up and I was eager to dive in. I am absolutely in love with the cover and can’t get enough of the colors and the gorgeous art deco details in the background. I felt like the cover absolutely captures the time period and would make readers excited to pick this one up……I know I was excited! With this being the second book, I was hopeful that I hadn’t missed too much of the character back stories and that I wouldn’t…
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Review: Crashing the A-List by Summer Heacock
Last spring, I was completely obsessed with the royal wedding and as a result looked for a number of books on the royals and a-listers. Sadly I didn’t get to read as many as I wanted but I adore modern fairy tale type books with a basically unknown female meeting a huge star or royal, and having it turn into a romance. So when this book came across my desk many months later, I was so excited to read something kind of in that same vein. I thought this one sounded like a feel good, romance which was just what I needed to read! Though it doesn’t feature the royals,…
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Review: Last Summer by Kerry Lonsdale
This was a book that I completely forgot about. I honesty couldn’t remember how it ended up on my review calendar but some how it did. But as I went combing back through my emails to find out how this book ended up on my calendar, it started coming back to me. My March self said yes to this one and now here I was, my July self, and I wasn’t even sure I was in the mood to read this book. Not to mention that I’ve been reading a TON of women’s fiction lately, I almost felt like I needed a break from women’s fiction but as I said,…
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Review: Rouge: A Novel of Beauty and Rivalry by Richard Kirshenbaum
As a young girl growing up in the late 80’s, early 90’s at the height of the ‘glamour’ industry (well at least for me!), there was no way I could pass on this book. I was exceptionally interested in cosmetics and the ‘glamor’ industry starting in my early teens, a passion the carried on into my early 20’s. In my youth, there was nothing like seeing who the new ‘Cover Girl’ was going to be, or what new makeup promised to revolutionize my beauty routine. I was the girl who wore every single cosmetic from age 13. I had horrible acne as a elementary child and because I went to…