Category: Book Reviews

Book Reviews

A review of 20/20 Meals by Julie Goodwin

Goodwin fans will particularly enjoy the non-pretentious and warm presentation of good home cooking. Goodwin makes it clear that you don’t need to study for years to be able to cook high quality food for your family. Anyone can, and should do it, and the recipes and tips in this book will certain encourage that.

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A review of A World Elsewhere by Sigrid MacRae

At six, newly arrived in the United States from Germany, young Sigrid von Hoynigen-Huene was called a “Nazi” by a schoolmate. As a child and teenager, she blamed the father she had never known for her feelings of not belonging. Although Heinrich von Hoynigen-Huene, who died in July 1941, was an “iconic presence” when she was growing up, the “family lore” about him troubled her.

Jeri Kroll on Workshopping the Heart

The author of Vanishing Point, and Workshopping the Heart reads from and talks about her latest books of poetry, about the transition from poetry to drama, the relationship between poetry and theatre, about her protagonist Diana, on writing about anorexia, about family…

A review of Vanishing Point by Jeri Kroll

Kroll_VanishingPointFront COVER copy At no point does the book lose its dramatic momentum. In fact, so compelling is the plot at times that it takes some effort to slow down and read the poems fully as poetry should be read, rather than racing on to see what happens. Vanishing Point is quick and easy to read, but the poems repay second and third readings where the complexity of the work begin to unfold. Diana’s self-awareness grows viscerally and sensually as she comes to accept the sensations of her adult body through the final section.

A review of Perla by Carolina De Robertis

Breadth of vision and the ability to construct tension from the first page maintains the drama as the events wind and twist through each step taken toward the inexorable truth about Perla, her parents, her lineage and her country. It is a journey well worth taking.

A review of The Killer Next Door by Alex Marwood

Marwood makes clever use of cliffhanger endings and shifts from one point of view character to another to build suspense. The Epilogue begins grimly, showing Cher back in the social welfare system, but surprises us with a gratifying conclusion. Readers who enjoyed Marwood’s earlier mystery/suspense novel, The Wicked Girls, will like this one for its many surprises.

A review of No One is here Except All of Us by Ramona Ausubel

No One is here Except All of Us is an exquisite, circular tale that takes us back to where we started – where we all start – at birth, where we create the world afresh. It’s full of wonder even in the midst of the most dire tragedies. Beautifully written, full of pain and poetry, this is a book that opens histories most intense and painful moments and shows what survives: love and DNA.