December 2015

    Noonday by Pat Barker

    Years ago, I read Regeneration, the first in Barker’s trilogy about World War I — and it totally blew me away. At that time, I knew nothing about Pat Barker. In fact, I was stunned when I learned that the author was female, as I assumed only a man who had experienced battle could write …

    And Then All Hell Broke Loose by Richard Engel

    Even though I find the subject of the Middle East depressing these days, I LOVE Richard Engel’s reporting, so I was excited to get an advance copy of his book And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East from NetGalley in return for my honest review. Overall, I will just say …

    Before the Fall by Noah Hawley

    Whenever I see a blurb that says something like “…THE thriller to read in 2016!!” my reaction is something along the lines of “hmmm, I’ll be the judge of that.” So I was a bit of a skeptic going in to this one. Also, a bit of curiosity about whether this might come across as …

    Angels Burning by Tawni O’Dell

    I admit it. I apparently am a name bigot. Otherwise, why was I so hesitant to dive in to Tawni O’Dell’s new book Angels Burning? I am pretty sure I read her Back Roads (2001), but I had no strong feeling about her other than that her named evoked a memory of a real-life woman …