Three American heiresses from the Gilded Age have inspired their own biographical novels that validate the old Beatles tune, “money can’t buy me love’’. Stephanie Barron, who writes the popular Jane Austen mystery series, has captured the life of Jennie Jerome in her entertaining novel, That Churchill Woman. Jennie, a beautiful, strong-willed American determined to…
Lyndsay Faye tackles both the New York City mafia and Oregon’s infamous racist laws in her outstanding new 1920s thriller. The Paragon Hotel shines a light on a horrifying part of Oregon’s history, whose original constitution outlawed blacks from living or working in the state. When the novel opens in 1921, the Ku Klux Klan…
The publishing industry traditionally releases its top books later in the year, but I usually discover a gem or two in the early months. One such treasure is The Weight of a Piano by Chris Cander. This evocative novel tells the complicated story of a seemingly ordinary, upright Blüthner piano. When an artisan picks the…
Usually, a fire is red and orange and yellow and black. The fire in the library was colorless. You could look right through it, as if it were a sheet of glass. Where the flame had any color, it was pale blue… ‘we thought we were looking at the bowels of hell.’” – From The…
Whenever someone learns that I work in a library, this question inevitably follows: what’s your favorite book? It’s like Sophie’s Choice, impossible to answer. So when it came time for me to review a recently published memoir, I couldn’t pick just one. Following are a few of my favorites from this year. Written by four…
