Fiction

Fiction reviews

Inside Out, Maria V. Snyder

Apr 21st

Posted by Senetra in B Reviews

7 comments

Hav­ing read and loved Poi­son Study, I was glad to try Maria Snyder’s new book, Inside Out, a YA novel.  The pro­tag­o­nist is Trella, a teenaged girl who toils as a “scrub”, a per­son des­ig­nated as a cleaner of Inside, what appears to be a square-shaped bios­phere made of sheet metal. 
Scrubs are respon­si­ble for all clean­ing, from laun­dry to the animal

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REVIEW: Rainwater by Sandra Brown

Nov 18th

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

4 comments

Rain­wa­ter (2009) by San­dra Brown is a his­tor­i­cal fic­tion novel, set in a tiny town in Texas dur­ing the Depres­sion. I real­ize what today is but this book will have to suf­fice. It’s the only book I’ve man­aged to fin­ish in the last two weeks. Mov­ing on.
Brown states that “Rain­wa­ter” is dif­fer­ent from any­thing she’s ever writ­ten before.

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REVIEW: ‘The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns’ by Elizabeth Leiknes

Jul 14th

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

3 comments

THE SINFUL LIFE OF LUCY BURNS by Eliz­a­beth Leik­nes is a moral­ity tale mixed with social satire that speaks of the power of words, thoughts and deeds. The hero­ine, Lucy Burns, nar­rates the story and she doesn’t waste time catch­ing read­ers up. No. You’re pretty much sucked into Lucy’s extra­or­di­nary life and what a life it is.
Lucy Burns

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REVIEW: ‘How Perfect Is That’ by Sarah Bird

Jun 10th

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

4 comments

How Per­fect Is That by Sarah Bird (June 2008), pub­lished by Knopf, is a moral­ity tale about an ex-Austin soci­ety wife try­ing to hang on des­per­ately to the life she once had of money, power, influ­ence and pam­per­ing, plenty of pam­per­ing. Her “fall” down the social lad­der isn’t pretty and my sym­pa­thy for her diminished

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REVIEW: The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

Nov 30th

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

8 comments

The Other Boleyn Girl (2003) by Philippa Gre­gory tells the tale of two sis­ters and their rivalry for the love of the King. One sis­ter uses beauty to land into the king’s bed while the other sis­ter uses her ambi­tion and virtue to become the Queen of Eng­land. Of course all of this would have

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REVIEW: ‘Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade’ by Diana Gabaldon

Sep 17th

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

3 comments

Lord John and the Broth­er­hood of the Blade by Diana Gabal­don finds British solider, Lord John Grey try­ing to restore honor to his family’s good name that stems from a sev­en­teen year old scan­dal. When a page from his father’s miss­ing jour­nal turns up, it man­ages to stir up a hornet’s nest of trou­ble.
The story opens with the impend­ing nup­tials of Lord John’s mother,

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REVIEW: Flirting in Cars by Alisa Kwitney

Aug 19th

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

3 comments

Flirt­ing in Cars by Alisa Kwit­ney is a smartly writ­ten con­tem­po­rary romance novel. Read excerpt here. Here is the plot descrip­tion:
An accom­plished jour­nal­ist, Zoë Goren can’t drive and she doesn’t cook. But that’s never been a prob­lem in Man­hat­tan, where the streets are filled with taxis and take­out restau­rants, and a busy sin­gle mother can find every­thing she

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REVIEW: Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

Jun 11th

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

12 comments

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz (2003) is the first book in the Odd Series.  Koontz is a writer whose work is often hard to clas­sify some­times. Some of the work he writes are straight up hor­ror sto­ries and some are not. 
Odd Thomas is a story in between where you have a blend of para­nor­mal aspects mixed with suspense. The story is nar­rated by the lead character

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Love and Basketball: One on One by Tabitha King

Apr 12th

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

4 comments

From my keeper shelf we have One on One by Tabitha King, copy­right 1993. It’s a teenage romance with plenty of bas­ket­ball. The story is set in a fic­tional town in Maine called Nodd’s Ridge.  The two pro­tag­o­nists are Sam Styles and Deanie Gau­thier. Both are Super­star captain’s of their respec­tive girl and boy bas­ket­ball teams.
Sam comes from a good family,

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REVIEW: Such a Pretty Girl by Laura Wiess

Mar 1st

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

16 comments

Such a Pretty Girl deals with an unpleas­ant sub­ject mat­ter: rape. Let me explain some­thing or give you a lit­tle his­tory about me. I’m a fan of crime shows like Cold Case Files ‚The First 48 Hours and Amer­i­can Jus­tice on A&E. I picked up Such a Pretty Girl off of an rec­om­men­da­tion by a book­seller. She had already warned me

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REVIEW: The Complaint of the Dove by Hannah March

Feb 4th

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

No comments

Are you in the mood for a good Geor­gian mys­tery? I plucked this title off the shelf with no prior knowl­edge of this author’s work. This pur­chase was strictly for the cover.  Besides, it looked like a good read, too and lucky me, it was a good read indeed. The Com­plaint of the Dove by Han­nah March is a won­der­ful buried trea­sure read.
The

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REVIEW: The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

Dec 11th

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

11 comments

The Bronze Horse­man (2002) by Paul­lina Simons is one of those rare nov­els that leaves it’s mark on you. A novel fea­tur­ing a pow­er­ful lovestory set within a WWII back­drop. Cap­ti­vat­ing. Engross­ing. Touch­ing. Mov­ing. Mem­o­rable. All adjec­tives that accu­rately describe one of the best fic­tion nov­els I’ve had the plea­sure to read and rec­om­mend.
The story is thus:

Leningrad, 1941: The Euro­pean war seems far away

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Airs Above The Ground by Mary Stewart

Oct 18th

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

4 comments

Airs Above the Ground by Mary Stew­art is one of my favorites com­fort reads. What I love about Mary Stew­art besides the great char­ac­ter­i­za­tions and the “mag­i­cal” romance is that her set­ting plays an impor­tant role as the plot or the char­ac­ters in the story. In typ­i­cal gothic fash­ion the heroine’s hus­band is sort of missing.

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REVIEW: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Apr 27th

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

10 comments

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown seems to evoke much dis­cus­sion on the explo­sive infor­ma­tion that Dan Brown explores that involves reli­gion and what we believe fun­da­men­tally as Chris­tians. After read­ing this book, I was left with a neu­tral feel­ing. While the con­spir­acy the­ory is def­i­nitely fod­der for dis­cus­sion, I found it enter­tain­ing stuff that shouldn’t be

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REVIEW: The Boyfriend School by Sarah Bird

Apr 26th

Posted by Avid Reader in Book Reviews

3 comments

The Boyfriend School by Sarah Bird is a buried trea­sure read. I read this book about maybe three or four years ago and at that time the book was sadly out of print. Now it’s avail­able again and if you haven’t read it, you should because it is a satire of the romance indus­try that is both

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