B Reviews / Book Reviews1980s / Athletes / coming-of-age / female friendship / high-school / LGBTQIA+ / POC / POC author / self discovery / teens / YA / young adult fiction4 Comments
Acclaimed novelist Quan Barry delivers a tour de female force in this delightful novel. Set in the coastal town of Danvers, Massachusetts, where the accusations began that led to the 1692 witch trials, We Ride Upon Sticks follows the 1989 Danvers High School Falcons field hockey team, who will do ... more >
B Reviews / Recommended Reads#ownvoices / 1970s / coming-of-age / crime novel / Deception / Mexico / noir / POC / POC author / Suspense / villageComments Off on REVIEW: Untamed Shore by Silvia Moreno Garcia
PLEASE NOTE: It’s almost impossible to discuss this novel’s strengths and weaknesses without giving away spoilers, so if you prefer not to be spoiled, read no further. Dear Silvia Moreno-Garcia, I don’t generally read crime novels, but the description of Untamed Shore as a “novel of suspense with an eerie ... more >
B Reviews / C Reviewscoming-of-age / computer graphics designer / Contemporary / joint review / jury duty / North-Carolina / reunited-lovers / snowboarder3 Comments
Janine: I read my first Kathleen Gilles Seidel romance in 2005, though the book had been published in 1994. It was Again, a contemporary romance that took place on the set of daytime soap opera and dealt with the interpersonal politics between cast and crew almost as much as with ... more >
B+ Reviews / Book Reviews / Recommended ReadsAfrican American / class differences / coming-of-age / Decades: A Journey of African American Romance / historical romance / musician / POC / POC author / Washington DCComments Off on REVIEW: A Delicate Affair by Lindsay Evans
Dear Ms. Evans, There’s an interesting story behind how A Delicate Affair came to be. In the early 1990s, Harlequin published a series of twelve romances each set in a different decade, mostly in the twentieth century, but featuring white authors and characters. More recently, romance author Wayne Jordan approached ... more >
B Reviews / Book Reviews1980s / adolescence / code / coming-of-age / computer programmers / computers / First-Person / Young-Adult3 Comments
A dazzling debut novel—at once a charming romance and a moving coming-of-age story—about what happens when a fourteen-year old boy pretends to seduce a girl to steal a copy of Playboy but then discovers she is his computer-loving soulmate. Billy Marvin’s first love was a computer. Then he met Mary ... more >
B Reviews1950s / coming-of-age / immigration / New Adult / racism / reporter / Womens-Fiction2 Comments
Emmaline Nelson and her sister Birdie grow up in the hard, cold rural Lutheran world of strict parents, strict milking times, and strict morals. Marriage is preordained, the groom practically predestined. Though it’s 1958, southern Minnesota did not see changing roles for women on the horizon. Caught in a time ... more >