I first read this book back in my teens, and I was in Hawaii recently and decided it was time to reread it. It has held up really well in the interim. Okay, Michener not the greatest master of the craft of writing, agreed, but he knows how to tell a story. Here he tells…
Read more Pake Kokua (Hawaiian for, roughly, Chinese Helper, which really ought to read Saint).
Here’s an even sneakier way of doing it. I need to go back to Trinity College, because they’ve got a lot more than the Book of Kells. And of course there’s a DIY. I am a sucker for fore-edge paintings, and I’m happy to report that publishers haven’t forgotten how. The most recent example I’ve…
An oldie but a very goodie. The author of the beloved Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle children’s books (amazingly still in print, hallelujah) marries and follows her husband to a chicken ranch on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state in the 1930s. She is not a happy farmer, and she writes of everything and everyone from Stove (number one on…
KT, a tech journalist in Seattle receives a death threat against herself and her 13-year old daughter and calls her friend and fellow journalist June Cassidy, who immediately dispatches main squeeze ex-super soldier Peter Ash to KT’s assistance, and just in the nick of time, too. He turned in a crouch and scrambled toward Ellie…
I’m just gonna quote. Children who are read to regularly from early ages develop lifelong skills that can’t be acquired from a VCR or the Disney Channel. They become better listeners and find it easier to pay attention in school. Their vocabularies grow rapidly, and grammar seems less mysterious to them. They don’t immediately lose…
Read more Children who grow up immersed in books develop the ability to answer their own questions
Here endeth Tanya Huff’s Torin Kerr series (5 books beginning with Valor’s Choice and continuing with her Peacekeeper trilogy, this one are being the last one (if you’ve read the books you’ll see what I did there). I envy you if you haven’t yet read them because you’re in for a real treat—these books are…
Read more Sector Center News ace reporter Presit a Tur de Valentrisy
Ruth, Dora, Alyce and Hank, four teens in Fairbanks and Southeast Alaska in 1965, are each stumbling through the aftermath of the loss of a parent or parents through death or divorce or negligence. The story is told in their alternating viewpoints, and the thing I liked most was the wealth of detail that comes…
Two thousand year-old druid Atticus O’Sullivan has relocated to present day Tempe, Arizona, in an attempt to avoid a centuries-in-the-making throw-down with his ancient enemy, Aenghus Óg, who wants Atticus’ sword and Atticus’ head, pretty much in that order. Smart dialogue, good action scenes, a series made for Jim Butcher fans. Of which I am…
Dana sez–I bought this when it was on special back in 2016, but you’ll do much better nowadays to forgo the collection in favor of downloading the individual titles. I still love Welcome to Temptation best, with Davy’s story, Faking It, a close second, but I want to single out two other novels in this…
Read more Min and Cal and their bumpy journey to love and happy ever after.
There’s a thing editors hammer home to the authors of a new book in a series–Don’t forget the backstory! You never know when someone new to a series will pick up a copy of, oh, say the sixteenth book in a series about a two-person PI agency in New York City, one a Chinese American…
Read more “When I go,” Juarez said, “I want to leave a crater.”