This is a pure literary look at small town America and unashamedly so. Alice Hoffman’s writing style is pure and beautiful and it’s hard not to be blow away by the display of talent found in her novel The Red Garden. It is set in the world of the people of Blackwell in Massachusetts. And it’s a novel about people. It is the characters you will fall in love with and remember when all else fades. At the heart of the town is the mysterious garden where only plants that are red in color can grow …
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Maid of Baikal: A Novel Of The Russian Civil War
This must be the most interesting alternative history that I’ve ever read. It asks the utterly bizarre question; “What if a Siberian Joan of Arc had rescued the White Armies at a critical point of the Russian Civil War in 1919?” And it turns out that the answer is a lot more entertaining than you could have reasonably expected. Zhanna Dorokhina is 18 as the civil war rages around her. She’s smart, capable and virtuous. There are voices in her head, and they are starting to indicate that …
The Strivers’ Row Spy (The Renaissance Series)
We don’t cover a lot of spy stories on Mom Reads and this is definitely the first set in The Roaring Twenties. It’s an unusual enough setting that Jason Overstreet really brings to life in the first book of The Renaissance Series – The Strivers’ Row Spy. It’s worth noting that this isn’t a mystery novel, so if that’s a deal breaker – look elsewhere. Sidney Temple finds his wonder years interrupted as he’s tapped up to join the FBI as one of the service’s first African-American agents. He …
Drifters Alliance
Elle Casey is our freebie of the day big-hitter this week. She’s a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author and the first book in the Drifter’s Alliance Series, Drifter’s Alliance is up for grabs for a short period of time. This is a fine space opera, though a lot shorter than that genre normally allows for at 250 pages of text. Cass Kennedy is the heroine of the piece and she’s just got her own ship. She’s invested heavily in training and feels ready to take on the universe. Then she …
Aunt Dimity’s Death (Aunt Dimity Mystery)
This is the first book of a 22 book series with a 23rd in the pipeline, so don’t expect to have an easy time of things if you fall in love with Aunt Dimity’s way of dealing with mysteries. Many nights of rollicking tales await the lucky reader. We start with Lori Shepherd who thought that Aunt Dimity was nothing but a myth. Then she learns in a reading of the lady’s will that she was very real, indeed. However, if Lori wants the cash that she’s been left – she needs to solve the last mystery …
Dead Weight
The intro to the Amazon page says $5.99 for a limited time! But for the moment, that’s wrong and the book is available free of charge for a promotional period. Dead Weight is an unusual novel for a freebie. Why? Well, because it’s not the first, the second or third part of a series but rather a stand-alone book. It’s also a very good one. Zephyr Rockwell has gone camping. When he awakes after a night under the stars – the world has changed forever. Almost everyone has disappeared, and modern …
Our House
Our House made so many “best books of the year” lists last year that it’s hard to believe that there are still people out there who haven’t head of Louise Candlish. It begins with a peculiar moment; “There's nothing unusual about a new family moving in at 91 Trinity Avenue. Except it's her house. And she didn't sell it.” Fiona Lawson comes home to find that her home is gone and that her arrangement with her ex-husband has put her and her children in terrible peril. She will come to discover …
Mr. Hoopeyloops Meets Rex, A Very Clumsy Boy
One for the littles ones today! Rex is the star of Mr. Hoopeyloops Meets Rex, A Very Clumsy Boy by Andi Cann and it’s aimed at kids on the first step of the reading ladder. It’s also a text that’s aimed at the kind of child that I once was – a clumsy one. You see, kids aren’t clumsy on purpose – it’s a lack of coordination as they get used to their bodies. Mr. Hoopeyloops Meets Rex, A Very Clumsy Boy is a manual for how to overcome life’s adversities and have fun while you do. It highlights …
What Came Before He Shot Her
Elizabeth George is a big star of the writing world and even bigger in England than here in America. Yet, she’s got a long list of New York Times Bestsellers to show off and this is one of them. It’s the 15th novel in the Inspector Lynley series and it follows a fairly dramatic moment in the Inspector’s life – the death of his wife in a brutal murder. Yet, we begin on the other side of London where a gang of feral children, the Campbells, are coming to terms with all the worst that life can …