book-review
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In the fifteen hundreds, a noble girl is born in France. She is named Marguerite, after her mother, who dies in childbirth. Her father dies when she is three years old. The orphaned Marguerite, along with everything she inherits – chateau, vineyards, villages, wealth – are left in the care of her guardian, her father’s…
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Imagine Europe, the shores of Italy, the Aegean Sea. Now imagine it full of monsters – dashing vampires and tattoed Nordic werewolves. Imagine its inhabitants practicing sorceries and Black magics, calling forth the elements and summoning the dead. Imagine elves hungry for human flesh held back by holy crusades, and a Savior who is the…
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Book originally read and reviewed end of April, 2026. According to the book, “moon of the crusted snow” refers to the month in deep winter where the air is so cold, it freezes the very surface of the snow, creating a crust on top as what remains below stays powdery and light. This season –…
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One spring in the city of Golden, a man named Theo moves onto the Promenade. He is eighty-six years old, brought to town on some kind of mysterious business, and he’s not sure how long he’s going to stay. He becomes a regular at the coffee shop The Chalice, because they serve the finest espresso…
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This was a book club pick for May 2026, which is when I originally read the book and wrote this review. I loved it so much I include a little homage to it in my own novel – graffiti of cockroaches in an alley. “Art is what we leave of ourselves in other people.” This…
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We’re working backwards through reviews I’ve written over the past year and change. This review was written 29 May, 2026. I just finished reading The Bone People this evening. Since then I’ve had a shower and enjoyed an ice cream sundae, all while turning it over in my mind. The story lingers, and invites consideration.…
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I first read Braiding Sweetgrass as part of the assigned reading in my Creative Writing MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte, though I had heard about the book and been wanting to read it for some time before that. Still, I didn’t expect to encounter it in a Fiction course – the book is…
