The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store Review: Where Community Becomes an Act of Resistance Some novels introduce a community. Others invite you to live inside one, listening to its arguments, absorbing its secrets and gradually learning who will show up when someone needs help. James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store belongs firmly to Read more…
Broken Country Book Review: A Beautiful Story That Needed More Emotional Depth What happens when the person you once loved returns after you have built an entirely different life? Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall begins with that familiar question, then leads it somewhere darker. The Dorset countryside of the 1950s and 1960s provides the Read more…
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats Book Review: A Story That Quietly Finds Its Way Into Your Heart I almost made the mistake of judging this book too early. The first few chapters didn’t completely pull me in, and for a while I wondered whether I’d built it up too much in my head. That can Read more…
The Eighth Life Book Review: A Story That Somehow Makes a Century Feel Personal I finished The Eighth Life (For Brilka) a few days ago, and I still haven’t entirely figured out how I feel about it. That may sound like an odd way to start a review, but it also feels like the most Read more…
The Paris Secret Book Review: A Historical Novel That Quietly Sneaks Up On You I have a soft spot for historical fiction, but I also know the genre well enough to recognize when certain ingredients are being repeated. World War II, Paris, family secrets, dual timelines… none of these things are unusual anymore. That’s partly Read more…
A Story That Didn’t Leave Me the Same I picked up the book, The Forty Rules of Love, expecting something gentle and philosophical. I wasn’t wrong — but I also wasn’t prepared for how deeply it would stay with me. It didn’t hit me all at once. Instead, it settled in slowly, like a thought Read more…
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress Book Review: What Happens When Stories Are Taken Seriously There are books you admire, and then there are books that feel dangerous in a quiet way. As a book, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress falls into the second category. It looks small. It reads quickly. And yet, it leaves Read more…
A Tall History of Sugar book — A Review At first, sugar feels like one of the least threatening things in the world. It dissolves easily. It sweetens quietly. It rarely asks to be examined. Yet, as a book, A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes insists that we look again — and then Read more…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alfred Assollant (1827-1886) was a French novelist and educator best known for his adventurous and satirical works. Born in Aubusson, France, Assollant pursued teaching before focusing on writing. His most celebrated novel, Aventures merveilleuses mais authentiques du capitaine Corcoran (1867), follows a bold adventurer and his tiger in colonial India, blending humor Read more…
Synopsis: Love scorched the heavens and when it was lost, it turned everything to ashes… He was no hero. He was not one to rescue his loved one by hauling her back from the blazing wreckage of a broken world or by fighting a war to win her hand. But he was sweet and sensitive. Read more…
