B- Reviews / Book Reviews / C Reviews / C- Reviews#ownvoices / Alternate POV / Asian Americans / Cancer / caregiver burnout / Chinese American heroine / Contemporary / dysfunctional family / family relationships / fiction with strong romantic elements / First-Person / musician / neurodiverse / neurodiversity / POC / POC author / Vietnamese Americans / Womens-Fiction13 Comments
When violinist Anna Sun accidentally achieves career success with a viral YouTube video, she finds herself incapacitated and burned out from her attempts to replicate that moment. And when her longtime boyfriend announces he wants an open relationship before making a final commitment, a hurt and angry Anna decides that ... more >
A Reviews / A- Reviews / B Reviews Category / B+ Reviews / Book Reviews / C Reviews Category#ownvoices / amateur sleuths / book clubs / Brooklyn / childhood friends / children / civil rights / families / female friendship / Historical / India / Japanese-American history / Kentucky / librarians / Los Angeles / Memoir / mystery / POC / POC author / Reading lists / South Carolina / Womens-Fiction / YA10 Comments
I run a virtual book club for seniors, volunteering for a non-profit (check it out and see if you’d like to help, or consider participating in the national village movement closer to your home), and we take turns picking out the books we read. One of the advantages this has ... more >
Book Reviews / C Reviews / C- Reviews / DNF Reviews / Reading Lists#ownvoices / contemporary fantasy / Ghost / gods / Harlequin Historical / historical romance / immigrant / long lost heiress / Malaysia / POC / POC author / Reading lists / Regency6 Comments
Black Water Sister by Zen Cho I enjoyed Zen Cho’s two books in her Sorcerer Royal series, with their lovable characters, whimsy, humor, and Heyer homages, so when I saw she had a fantasy novel set in modern-day Malaysia coming out, one that was initially billed as a third installment, ... more >
B+ Reviews / Book Reviews / Recommended Reads#ownvoices / Asian Americans / Asian characters / black comedy / family relationships / mothers and daughters / POC / POC author / second chance romance / sisters / wedding9 Comments
What happens when you mix 1 (accidental) murder with 2 thousand wedding guests and then toss in a possible curse on 3 generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family? You get 4 meddling Asian aunties coming to the rescue! When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome ... more >
B- Reviews / Book Reviews / C+ Reviews#ownvoices / deaf / deafness / diversity / father and son / Jewish characters / LGBTQIA characters / single mother / unplanned-pregnancy / workplace-romance7 Comments
Izzy Fineberg can take on any challenge—and she’s had some big ones lately. After one fateful night with the hottest Deaf man she’d ever met, Izzy found she was pregnant with his child. And she never caught his name. She’s been doing the single mom thing for nine months now, ... more >
Book Reviews / C- Reviews#ownvoices / 1920s / colorism / Dancer / dancer heroine / dual-timeline / First-Person / Historical fiction / Jazz Age / organized crime / POC / POC author / racism3 Comments
1925: Chicago is the jazz capital of the world, and the Dreamland Café is the ritziest black-and-tan club in town. Honoree Dalcour is a sharecropper’s daughter, willing to work hard and dance every night on her way to the top. Dreamland offers a path to the good life, socializing with ... more >