The Taker, by Alma Katsu – Book Review

The Taker, by Alma Katsu

This post first appeared on Reader Unboxed on 10/27/11, which you can read here. In Alma Katsu’s The Taker, Luke Findley is a doctor working the emergency room in a hospital at the northernmost tip of Maine. More than anything he is hiding out from the world, trying to negotiate life in a small town, [...]

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Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles – Book Review

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Rules of Civility begins as Kate, a wealthy middle-aged woman, and her husband attend a photo exhibit of famed photographer Walker Evans at the Museum of Modern Art in 1966. The pictures are all candids, from the late 1930′s, and taken of unsuspecting people riding the subway. The artist deemed them so personal that he [...]

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22 Britannia Road, by Amanda Hodgkinson – Book Review

22 Britannia Road, by Amanda Hodgkinson

Even though I have heard many stories by now about writers, début novels, and how the first published novel is not necessarily the first finished novel, I am still impressed when début authors manage to publish wonderful novels the first time out. Amanda Hodgkinson’s 22 Britannia Road is one such début, exploring what happens to [...]

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Impatient With Desire: A Novel, by Gabrielle Burton – Book Review

Imaptient WIth Desire, Gabrielle Burton

Impatient With Desire: A Novel (subtitled The Lost Journal of Tamsen Donner) by Gabrielle Burton is a historical fiction novel that recreates the story of the final days of the infamous Donner party (known chiefly for cannibalism after a failed attempt in 1847 to go west to California by wagon train) through the diary entries, [...]

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The Last Brother, by Nathacha Appanah (Translated by Geoffrey Strachan) – Book Review

The Last Brother, by Nathacha Appanah

At seventy, Raj is still haunted by the ghosts and sadness that have shaped his life, but there has been one ghost in particular that has made it difficult for him to find peace.  After a dream Raj is prompted to visit the grave of a boy he once knew, a boy who defined much [...]

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Mermaid: A Twist On A Classic Tale, by Carolyn Turgeon – Book Review

Mermaid, by Carolyn Turgeon

Lenia is a mermaid princess blessed with family, a beautiful voice, and a glorious home in the sea. On her eighteenth birthday she is allowed one overnight visit to the world above before she returns home to live out the rest of her 300 years. By chance on her day out, she comes across a [...]

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Dark Mirror: A Novel, by M.J. Putney – Book Review

Dark Mirror, by M.J. Putney

Lady Victoria Mansfield, or Tory, as she prefers to be called, has been raised with the knowledge that magic and the mages who practice it are dangerous and beneath the nobility of which she is apart. When she wakes up one morning evidence of her magical abilities she is horrified and vows to keep it [...]

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The House on The Strand, by Daphne Du Maurier – Book Review

The House on the Strand, by Rebecca Du Maurier

Dick Young has always had an uneven relationship with scientist friend, Magnus Lane – he basically does what Magnus says, no matter how much he might grumble. So when when Magnus offers him the use of his house in the English countryside and wants him to take a strange potion, Dick is quick to try [...]

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A Discovery of Witches: A Novel, by Deborah Harkness – Book Review

A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness

Diana Bishop is a witch, though after frightening experiences with magic and the premature death of her parents, she has sworn off the use of her power, determining to live completely as a human being. Picking the most innocuous course of study available to her, Diana becomes a respected historian whose specialty is the study [...]

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The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson – Book Review

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

I haven’t read much Robert Louis Stevenson. I had the illustrated version of either Treasure Island or Kidnapped when I was growing up, but I’m not quite sure which one it was and I just couldn’t get into whatever it was. Something about it put me off, and I had carried that around with me, so [...]

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