Because both of my parents worked, I had to go somewhere after school. The public library was selected, thank the stars! A librarian watched me gobbling up all the young adult books and suggested maybe I’d like to tackle some from the grown-up room. Wow! I was only 11 years old, but that woman steered me into what has become my career, a reader and reviewer and, best of all, a writer! My first grown-up book? A Portrait of Jenny by Robert Nathan.
When Erica falls asleep watching The Picture of Dorian Gray, she wishes she could lose weight the same way Dorian stayed young. Little does she know that the author of that story, the flamboyant 19th-century wit Oscar Wilde, is watching her. Oscar, in heaven with his friend Bram Stoker, comes to earth to initiate the charming and whimsical farce that is Carolyn Banks’ The Importance of Being Erica.
I like quirky plotlines, especially when the writer is talented enough to make the most farfetched thing accepted by even a cynical reader. Let me backtrack a bit.
The kids, Bessie and Roland, live with their mom until she dies and then go to the mansion where their politician father lives with his hot new wife. This is bad news because when angry, the two children catch on fire.
Bessie and Roland are stashed in a guest house on the estate, and the wife calls a best friend from boarding school, Lillian, to nanny the kids and, especially, to keep them out of sight. It’s Lillian who tells this topsy-turvy tale and who, an oddball herself, bonds with the children to give us the happiest of endings.
A New York Times Bestseller • A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick!
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, People, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, TIME, The A.V. Club, Buzzfeed, and PopSugar
“I can’t believe how good this book is.... It’s wholly original. It’s also perfect.... Wilson writes with such a light touch.... The brilliance of the novel [is] that it distracts you with these weirdo characters and mesmerizing and funny sentences and then hits you in a way you didn’t see coming. You’re laughing so hard you…
I liked cynical Sally Milz. She's a writer for a show that sounds to us like Saturday Night Live. It’s The Night Owls, which, like SNL, has a weekly A-list guest host.
Often, the female hosts are beautiful, the sort of women who could land any male on the planet. And guess what? These women often fall for men who are subpar in the looks department. Sally is convinced an average-looking woman scoring a gorgeous guy would never happen. But when Noah Brewster comes to host and actually likes Sally and flirts with her, what is she to make of it?
Her doubts at first seemed reasonable, but then I found myself wanting to shake her and scream, “Girl, this is real!”
This is nonfiction, a memoir by the truth-telling aide who cast her Trump-appointed lawyer aside and found one who would support her account of January 6 and all that came before and after.
What hooked me was Hutchinson's honesty. She’s in her early 20s and on a first-name basis with all the movers and shakers. She knows the former President well enough for him to suggest blonde highlights for her dark hair.
If you are at all like me, you just can't help liking her more as she fends off Matt Gaetz’s advances and rolls her eyes at interactions with Mike Lindell, the pillow guy. The book is determined and real, as is Cassidy Hutchinson herself.
Cassidy Hutchinson's desk was mere steps from the most controversial president in recent American history. Now, she provides a riveting account of her extraordinary experiences as an idealistic young woman thrust into the middle of a national crisis, where she risked everything to tell the truth about some of the most powerful people in Washington.
Ever since a childhood visit to Washington, DC, Cassidy Hutchinson aspired to serve her country in government. Raised in a working-class family with a military background, she was the first in her immediate family to graduate from college. Despite having no ties to Washington, Hutchinson…
Have you ever been a teacher? If you have, you will roll on the floor with laughter reading this book.
The author, Julie Schumacher, has absolutely nailed what faculty life on campus, with all its stupidity, pettiness, and rivalries, is like. After I read it, all I wanted to do was get other people to read it. Amazingly, so many already had!
Finding other fans of the novel was a way to sort of relive the experience of reading it, with a lot of “How about the part where...” There is a wonderful curmudgeon in the book, my favorite sort of person.
Finally a novel that puts the "pissed" back into "epistolary."
Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts college in the midwest. His department is facing draconian cuts and squalid quarters, while one floor above them the Economics Department is getting lavishly remodeled offices. His once-promising writing career is in the doldrums, as is his romantic life, in part as the result of his unwise use of his private affairs for his novels. His star (he thinks) student can't catch a break with his brilliant (he…
It’s going to be hard to write about this novel without giving something away, but I’ll try.
Only a robot could read the opening of this book and stop after that. Why? Because at the start, we see the main character, Evie Porter, creating the story that she will use to depict her past life. And, of course, we want to know her reason for doing so.
The suspense only grows as we continue to read. I am in awe of this book’s plot! Evie is a wonderful character, too, as she wanders through joy and heartbreak.
REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK | INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“This fast-paced read has everything you could want in a thriller: secret identities, a mysterious boss and a cat & mouse game that kept me guessing the whole way through.”—Reese Witherspoon
“One of the best thrillers I’ve ever read... Amazing.”—Jesse Watters
Evie Porter has everything a nice, Southern girl could want: a perfect, doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence and a garden, a fancy group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.
The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location…
Susan Tate Ankeny left a career in teaching to write the story of her father’s escape from Nazi-occupied France. In 2011, after being led on his path through France by the same Resistance fighters who guided him in 1944, she felt inspired to tell the story of these brave French patriots, especially the 17-year-old- girl who risked her own life to save her father’s. Susan is a member of the 8th Air Force Historical Society, the Air Force Escape and Evasion Society, and the Association des Sauveteurs d’Aviateurs Alliés.
The first and only full-length biography of Hazel Ying Lee, an unrecognized pioneer and unsung World War II hero who fought for a country that actively discriminated against her gender, race, and ambition.
This unique hidden figure defied countless stereotypes to become the first Asian American woman in United States history to earn a pilot's license, and the first female Asian American pilot to fly for the military.
Her achievements, passionate drive, and resistance in the face of oppression as a daughter of Chinese immigrants and a female aviator changed the course of history. Now the remarkable story of a fearless underdog finally surfaces to inspire anyone to reach toward the sky.
One of WWII’s most uniquely hidden figures, Hazel Ying Lee was the first Asian American woman to earn a pilot’s license, join the WASPs, and fly for the United States military amid widespread anti-Asian sentiment and policies.
Her singular story of patriotism, barrier breaking, and fearless sacrifice is told for the first time in full for readers of The Women with Silver Wings by Katherine Sharp Landdeck, A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell, The Last Boat Out of Shanghai by Helen Zia, Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown and all Asian American, women’s and WWII history books.…
