Book Review
The Opera Sisters
by Karen Rigby
Driven by their convictions and their passion for music, two English sisters provide aid to German Jewish families in Marianne Monson’s kaleidoscopic historical novel "The Opera Sisters". In the 1930s, Ida and Louise are typists in...
Book Review
Loving the Dead and Gone
by Karen Rigby
In "Loving the Dead and Gone", Judith Turner-Yamamoto’s multivoiced novel, the death of a young man provokes women in a rural North Carolina town to revisit their unmet longings. Clayton is puzzled by his wife Berta Mae’s contentions...
Book Review
Blurb Your Enthusiasm
by Karen Rigby
Love it or hate it, jacket copy is the first window into any book, singing its praises while also intimating at what’s really between the covers. Louise Wilder’s witty guide "Blurb Your Enthusiasm" is a treat for insiders and...
Book Review
Almost Visible
by Karen Rigby
A solitary young woman gazes into a senior’s tumultuous past in "Almost Visible", Michelle Sinclair’s immersive novel about finding connections and living through regrets. Fresh from Nova Scotia, Tess moves to Montreal and in with a...
Book Review
Come Down Somewhere
by Karen Rigby
Jennifer L. Wright’s intelligent and arresting historical novel focuses on two girls who witness the atomic bomb test in New Mexico. In 1944, the US Army claims Olive’s family ranch through eminent domain. Against her will, she’s...
Book Review
The Key to Circus-Mom Highway
by Karen Rigby
"The Key to Circus-Mom Highway" is a zany novel in which two adoptees rediscover their family roots. In Allyson Rice’s feverish, entertaining novel "The Key to Circus-Mom Highway", siblings go on a road trip in search of their...
Book Review
Long Shadows
by Karen Rigby
A Civil War soldier endures tough losses and faces a long moral reckoning as a ghost in the historical novel "Long Shadows". A Confederate ghost confronts his Civil War memories when a couple moves into his childhood home in Abigail...
Book Review
Old Love Skin
by Karen Rigby
OId Love Skin is an eye-opening poetry collection that is shaped by Africa’s inescapable past and that celebrates its rich multiplicities. "Old Love Skin", an egalitarian anthology edited by Nyashadzashe Chikumbu, introduces over fifty...