B Reviews Category / Book Reviews1960s / Auschwitz / Australia / bookseller / family relationships / Historical / Holocaust / Hungary / Jewish characters / older woman/younger man3 Comments
Can one unlikely bookshop heal two broken souls? It is 1968 in rural Australia and lonely Tom Hope can’t make heads or tails of Hannah Babel. Newly arrived from Hungary, Hannah is unlike anyone he’s ever met–she’s passionate, brilliant, and fiercely determined to open sleepy Hometown’s first bookshop. Despite the ... more >
DNF Reviews#ownvoices / Dancer / diversity / heist / hotelier / Jewish characters / LGBTQIA characters / Magic / magical powers / Paris / POC / theft / turn of the century / YA fantasy9 Comments
Dear Ms. Chokshi, A YA fantasy about a heist set in Belle Epoque Paris sounded like exactly my cup of tea, so I happily requested an ARC of The Gilded Wolves after hearing about it. The novel, set in an alternate universe in 1889, begins with a theft. In this ... more >
B Reviews / Book ReviewsAmerican historical / immigrants / Jewish characters / Jewish-faith / New York City / older heroine and hero / turn of the 20th century4 Comments
In her warmly comical and deliciously entertaining debut novel, master storyteller Rochelle Distelheim sweeps us back to 1913 and the world of struggling Jewish immigrants in New York City’s Lower East Side. Sadie Schuster—fortyish, plumpish, a suffragette, and recently widowed—spends more time now talking to her late husband, Fivel, than ... more >
A- Reviews / B+ Reviews / Recommended Reads#ownvoices / Artist / Contemporary / f/f romance / Florida / Jewish characters / LGBTQIA+5 Comments
Dear Ms. Glassman, Not too long ago, I got into a Twitter discussion in which I mentioned my worry that reading closed bedroom door romances was a means to learning how to write courtship, and now that those romances are no longer available to readers who don’t care for inspies, ... more >
B Reviews / Book Reviewsfamily relationships / Historical / Jewish characters / Jewish-faith / Poland / war / World War IIComments Off on REVIEW: We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
An extraordinary, propulsive novel based on the true story of a family of Polish Jews who are separated at the start of the Second World War, determined to survive—and to reunite It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live ... more >
Letters of OpinionHolocaust / inspirational romance / Jewish characters / joint review / Nazis118 Comments
ALL THE TRIGGER WARNINGS Janine: I asked Sunita, who read this book in its entirety, to join me for this discussion. As one whose relatives died in Auschwitz, I could only bring myself to read 35% of Breslin’s novel, the first 145 pages. So there are questions I can’t answer, ... more >