Is that not the greatest cover ever? The book doesn’t quite live up to it, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Maria finally convinces her father to let her spend a year in New York with her estranged mother — partly to get to know her mother, partly to get away from some bad kids in the rural town where she’s living with her dad. Maria’s grandmother enrolls her in a fancy prep school, Maria packs her things, and she moves to New York. Of course, things don’t […]
A book bursting with charm
I went into this book knowing very little about it except that there are four different parallel worlds that each have a London. Grey London is our London and called grey because it’s smoky, dirty, and lacks magic. Red London bursts with magic and everything is slightly rose-tinted. White London is coated in a mist of ash and the citizens are crazed by their hunger for power. Black London died long ago. Kell is from Red London and is one of two known people with […]
magnificent and sordid
On his 48th birthday, Norbert Monde meticulously shaves and dresses for work as he does every day, plants a dry kiss on his second wife’s forehead and walks down to his study to have his breakfast. He is quite detached from his upper middle class life, thinking idly about this and that. As he goes about his day at the company he owns and operates, he becomes aware of a slight shift in his mind and bearing. By the end of the day, he has […]
Just say yes!
There are things Beverly Jenkins does really, really well, and two things that I like much less about her work, that were all evident first when I read Topaz and appeared here in Indigo. So let’s get this compliment sandwich going! This book is about Hester Wyatt, a freed former slave and operator on Michigan’s Underground Railroad. She’s decidedly non-romantic after seeing how passion and love led her father to take on the shackles of slavery to be closer to her and her mother, only […]
Late to the Party; Still had…Fun?
“I tested the brackets by hitting them with rocks. This kind of sophistication is what we interplanetary scientists are known for.” So, here’s the thing. I know I’m late to the party (and I haven’t seen the movie yet, either), but sometimes I just get so damn stubborn about the things everybody wants me to check out I won’t try ’em even when I know I’ll like ’em.
Takes a while to get going, but then — wow!
I was a little nervous when I first started this one. Y’all were posting a review a day, gushing over it, but it took me a while to get into it. I think my problem was I was listening to it as audiobook while running, so I only got about an hour a day. And it starts a little slow. And whiny (Simon). But once Baz shows up — the whole thing takes off and I fell just as much in love as y’all did. […]