Category: book review
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Book Review – Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro
Signal Fires is a poignant, moving and beautifully written portrait of two families living on Division Street; a suburban American street where the families live quietly side by side and where everyone still has their secrets, crossing paths only occasionally but at the most pivotal times in their lives. Ben and Mimi Wilf, and their…
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Book Review – Jaded by Ela Lee
On paper, Jade has it all: a successful law career, the daughter who has made her parents proud, a great boyfriend from an affluent family, and a small but solid circle of girlfriends. Then one work night out throws everything into a downward spiral as she wakes up with no idea how she got home,…
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Fourteen Days – ed. by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
Fourteen days: the period over which our novel unfolds, as the tenants of one run-down New York apartment block gather (with social distancing!) each evening on the rooftop, in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, to cheer on the frontline workers and then share, and listen to, stories drawn from their own experience. We…
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Book Review – Stealing by Margaret Verble
9-year-old Kit Crockett lives in rural 1950s America with her father, with whom she is close, but both are dealing with the grief of her mother’s death and somehow unable to comfort each other. Passing her spare time fishing and reading books, Kit lives a quiet life until a mysterious and beautiful woman moves into…
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Book Review – Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Kambili and Jaja live a strict, regimented life within the walls of their affluent estate, under the iron rule of their highly religious father. A prominent and benevolent figure within the community, he is in many ways a force for good; but behind closed doors he wields a force of a different kind. When a…
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Book Review – Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Shaker Heights, Ohio, is an idyllic, affluent suburban estate, where everything is planned and everyone lives in sync. Mrs. Richardson is a force at the centre of this golden community but when bohemian artist Mia and her daughter Pearl arrive in town, and move into a house owned by the Richardsons, the two families, who…
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Book Review – My Father the Whale by Gina Perry
Families we have, families we choose and families we long for. The only family 9-year-old Ruby has ever known is her father; nomadic, free-spirited, self-absorbed Mitch. Since the death of her mother soon after her birth, Ruby and Mitch have lived an unconventional life, moving across Australia from town to town, busking, entertaining the locals…
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Book Review – The Island of Longing by Anne Griffin
One afternoon, Rosie looks out from an upstairs window as her teenage daughter Saoirse approaches home on her bike. Stepping away to finish up a few tasks before making her way down to greet her, Rosie is met only by her son when she gets downstairs. Saoirse’s bike is lying outside at the side of…
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Book Review – Kala by Colin Walsh
We’re perched on our bikes at the top of the hill. There’s a turning melt of sky above us. The town’s glittering below. We’re fifteen and it’s the summer of our lives so Kinlough is gathering itself up into the moment with us – the whole town’s pure responsive to our energies. The year is…
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Book Review – The Break
A young woman holding her baby at night looks out the window into the darkness and witnesses what she believes to be a devastating act of violence occurring on the Break — a barren field on an isolated strip of land outside her house. Moving back and forth in time, The Break by Katherena Vermette…
The Resting Willow 