Delores's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 06 Feb 2025 01:58:16 -0800 60 Delores's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Dominicana 43263696
As the Dominican Republic slides into political turmoil, Juan returns to protect his family’s assets, leaving Cesar to take care of Ana. Suddenly, Ana is free to take English lessons at a local church, lie on the beach at Coney Island, see a movie at Radio City Music Hall, go dancing with Cesar, and imagine the possibility of a different kind of life in America. When Juan returns, Ana must decide once again between her heart and her duty to her family.]]>
323 Angie Cruz 125020593X Delores 5 4.09 2019 Dominicana
author: Angie Cruz
name: Delores
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: immigration-family, affairs, domestic-violence, lies
review:

]]>
Queen Bee 51082394 Welcome to The Close - a beautiful street of mansions, where gorgeous Stella is the indisputable Queen Bee . . .

It is here that Laura, seeking peace and privacy after her marriage falls apart, rents a tiny studio. Unfortunately, her arrival upsets suspicious Stella - who fears Laura has designs on her fiancé, Al.

When Laura stumbles on the big secret Al is hiding, suddenly Stella's perfectly controlled world, not to mention Laura's future, are threatened.

Taking a chance on beating Al at his own twisted game, these two former strangers are fast becoming best friends.

But has Laura forgotten that revenge never comes without a sting in the tail?]]>
399 Jane Fallon 1405943343 Delores 5 drama 3.74 2020 Queen Bee
author: Jane Fallon
name: Delores
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: drama
review:

]]>
Mr Loverman 17879710 Barry to his friends.
Trouble to his wife.

Seventy-four years old, Antiguan born and bred, flamboyant Hackney personality Barry is known for his dapper taste and fondness for retro suits.

He is a husband, father and grandfather.

And for the past sixty years, he has been in a relationship with his childhood friend and soulmate, Morris.

Wife Carmel knows Barry has been cheating on her, but little does she know what is really going on. When their marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington has big choices to make.

Mr Loverman is a groundbreaking exploration of Britain's older Caribbean community, which explodes cultural myths and fallacies, and shows how deep and far-reaching the consequences of prejudice and fear can be. It is also a warm-hearted, funny and life-affirming story about a character as mischievous, cheeky and downright lovable as any you'll ever meet.]]>
307 Bernardine Evaristo Delores 5 4.19 2013 Mr Loverman
author: Bernardine Evaristo
name: Delores
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Foundling 45308037
Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London's Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. Dreading the worst - that Clara has died in care - the last thing she expects to hear is that her daughter has already been reclaimed - by her. Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl - and why. Less than a mile from Bess' lodgings in the city, in a quiet, gloomy townhouse on the edge of London, a young widow has not left the house in a decade. When her close friend - an ambitious young doctor at the Foundling Hospital - persuades her to hire a nursemaid for her daughter, she is hesitant to welcome someone new into her home and her life. But her past is threatening to catch up with her and tear her carefully constructed world apart.

From the bestselling author of The Familiars, and set against the vibrant backdrop of Georgian London, The Foundling explores families, secrets, class, equality, power and the meaning of motherhood.]]>
288 Stacey Halls 1488055327 Delores 0 to-read 3.97 2020 The Foundling
author: Stacey Halls
name: Delores
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Mrs England 56089437
When newly graduated nurse Ruby May takes a position looking after the children of Charles and Lilian England, a wealthy couple from a powerful dynasty of mill owners, she hopes it will be the fresh start she needs. But as she adapts to life at the isolated Hardcastle House, it becomes clear there's something not quite right about the beautiful, mysterious Mrs England. Ostracised by the servants and feeling increasingly uneasy, Ruby is forced to confront her own demons in order to prevent history from repeating itself. After all, there's no such thing as the perfect family - and she should know.

Simmering with slow-burning menace, Mrs England is a portrait of an Edwardian marriage, weaving an enthralling story of men and women, power and control, courage, truth and the very darkest deception. Set against the atmospheric landscape of West Yorkshire, Stacey Halls' third novel proves her one of the most exciting and compelling new storytellers of our times.]]>
424 Stacey Halls 1838772863 Delores 5 3.86 2021 Mrs England
author: Stacey Halls
name: Delores
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Reading List 55276648 An unforgettable and heartwarming debut about how a chance encounter with a list of library books helps forge an unlikely friendship between two very different people in a London suburb.

Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in the London Borough of Ealing after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries.

Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home.

When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading listâ€� hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again.Ěý]]>
368 Sara Nisha Adams 0063025280 Delores 5 4.02 2021 The Reading List
author: Sara Nisha Adams
name: Delores
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves:
review:

]]>
Conversations with an Octopus 201306707
Meanwhile, at Ottersea Oceanworld, Jane the Octopus hears people’s secrets and understands everything during a sweltering summer of strange deaths, new friendships, and a whole lot of ice cream.]]>
0 Rebecca Smith 1915643759 Delores 4 4.09 Conversations with an Octopus
author: Rebecca Smith
name: Delores
average rating: 4.09
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves:
review:

]]>
Wish You Were Here 57701764 New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things and The Book of Two Ways comes comes a deeply moving novel about the resilience of the human spirit in a moment of crisis.

Jodi Picoult once again proves she is the master of wading through the darkness to find the light. Wish You Were Here is a powerfully evocative story of resilience and the triumph of the human spirit.
--Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Malibu Rising

Synopsis
Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s an associate specialist at Sotheby’s now, but her boss has hinted at a promotion if she can close a deal with a high-profile client. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galapagos—days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time.

But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes.

Almost immediately, Diana’s dream vacation goes awry. Her luggage is lost, the Wi-Fi is nearly nonexistent, and the hotel they’d booked is shut down due to the pandemic. In fact, the whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders reopen. Completely isolated, she must venture beyond her comfort zone. Slowly, she carves out a connection with a local family when a teenager with a secret opens up to Diana, despite her father’s suspicion of outsiders.

In the Galapagos Islands, where Darwin’s theory of natural selection was formed, Diana finds herself examining her relationships, her choices, and herself—and wondering if when she goes home, she too will have evolved into someone completely different.]]>
310 Jodi Picoult 1984818414 Delores 4 3.86 2021 Wish You Were Here
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Delores
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/19
date added: 2024/11/19
shelves:
review:

]]>
A Book of American Martyrs 30226771 New York Times bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates. In this striking, enormously affecting novel, Joyce Carol Oates tells the story of two very different and yet intimately linked American families.

Luther Dunphy is an ardent Evangelical who envisions himself as acting out God's will when he assassinates an abortion provider in his small Ohio town while Augustus Voorhees, the idealistic doctor who is killed, leaves behind a wife and children scarred and embittered by grief.

In her moving, insightful portrait, Joyce Carol Oates fully inhabits the perspectives of two interwoven families whose destinies are defined by their warring convictions and squarely-but with great empathy-confronts an intractable, abiding rift in American society.

A Book of American Martyrs is a stunning, timely depiction of an issue hotly debated on a national stage but which makes itself felt most lastingly in communities torn apart by violence and hatred.]]>
752 Joyce Carol Oates 0062643061 Delores 0 currently-reading 3.85 2017 A Book of American Martyrs
author: Joyce Carol Oates
name: Delores
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
Lucy by the Sea (Amgash #4) 60657583
Rich with empathy and emotion, Lucy by the Sea vividly captures the fear and struggles that come with isolation, as well as the hope, peace, and possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire. At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we're apart--the pain of a beloved daughter's suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love.]]>
291 Elizabeth Strout 0593446062 Delores 4 3.80 2022 Lucy by the Sea  (Amgash #4)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Delores
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/24
date added: 2023/07/24
shelves:
review:

]]>
Hamnet 43890641 Hamnet is a luminous portrait of a marriage, at its heart the loss of a beloved child.

Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet.

Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell's new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes, a woman intriguingly absent from history.

A New York Times Notable Book (2020), Best Book of 2020: Guardian, Financial Times, Literary Hub, and NPR.]]>
372 Maggie O'Farrell 1472223799 Delores 5 4.16 2020 Hamnet
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Delores
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/17
date added: 2023/07/17
shelves:
review:

]]>
The God of Arepo 63202691 Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.

A friendship soon blossoms between the farmer Arepo and the god of transient nothingness, ever-lasting across famine and war, grief and heartbreak, - even as the god believes itself undeserving.

A short comic adaptation of the popular collaborative storytelling hit from Tumblr. In honour of God of Arepo’s birth as a creative open source, proceeds earned during its debut run at ShortBox Comics Fair 2022 were split between the Ministry of Stories (UK) and Mighty Writers (US), both organisations dedicated to fostering the love of literature in children from marginalised backgrounds.]]>
50 Reimena Yee Delores 0 to-read 4.75 The God of Arepo
author: Reimena Yee
name: Delores
average rating: 4.75
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
How to Love a Jamaican 35395301 An The Oprah Magazine "Top 15 Best of the Year" - A Well-Read Black Girl's Pick

Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret--Alexia Arthurs navigates these tensions to extraordinary effect in her debut collection about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City and midwestern university towns, these eleven stories form a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life.

In "Light-Skinned Girls and Kelly Rowlands," an NYU student befriends a fellow Jamaican whose privileged West Coast upbringing has blinded her to the hard realities of race. In "Mash Up Love," a twin's chance sighting of his estranged brother--the prodigal son of the family--stirs up unresolved feelings of resentment. In "Bad Behavior," a couple leave their wild teenage daughter with her grandmother in Jamaica, hoping the old ways will straighten her out. In "Mermaid River," a Jamaican teenage boy is reunited with his mother in New York after eight years apart. In "The Ghost of Jia Yi," a recently murdered student haunts a despairing Jamaican athlete recruited to an Iowa college. And in "Shirley from a Small Place," a world-famous pop star retreats to her mother's big new house in Jamaica, which still holds the power to restore something vital.

Alexia Arthurs emerges in this vibrant, lyrical, intimate collection as one of fiction's most dynamic and essential authors.]]>
256 Alexia Arthurs 1524799211 Delores 5 3.86 2018 How to Love a Jamaican
author: Alexia Arthurs
name: Delores
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/08
date added: 2023/07/08
shelves:
review:
I don't normally like short stories but this book was lovely. The stories sort of blended together beautifully. I liked every single story. Caribbean, Canada and Iowa USA all the places that Jamaicans go to live and study yet always remembering the ways of Jamaican family ways and culture
]]>
<![CDATA[Savvy Sheldon Feels Good as Hell]]> 57873333 A delicious debut rom-com about a plus-size sweetheart who gets a full-life makeover after a brutal breakup.

Savvy Sheldon spends a lot of time tiptoeing around the cracks in her life: her high-stress and low-thanks job, her clueless boyfriend and the falling-apart kitchen she inherited from her beloved grandma—who taught her how to cook and how to love people by feeding them. But when Savvy’s world starts to crash down around her, she knows it’s time for some renovations.

Starting from the outside in, Savvy tackles her crumbling kitchen, her relationship with her body, her work–life balance (or lack thereof) and, last but not least, her love life. The only thing that doesn’t seem to require effort is her ride-or-die squad of friends. But as any home-reno-show junkie can tell you, something always falls apart during renovations. First, Savvy passes out during hot yoga. Then it turns out that the contractor she hires is the same sexy stranger she unintentionally offended by judging based on appearances. Worst of all, Savvy can’t seem to go anywhere without tripping over her ex and his latest "upgrade." Savvy begins to realize that maybe she should’ve started her renovations the other way around: beginning with how she sees herself before building a love that lasts.]]>
320 Taj McCoy 0778311848 Delores 1 3.43 2022 Savvy Sheldon Feels Good as Hell
author: Taj McCoy
name: Delores
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2022
rating: 1
read at: 2023/07/08
date added: 2023/07/08
shelves:
review:
I hated this book didn't even finish it. It had all the ingredients to be a good book but I was just exasperated by it.
]]>
<![CDATA[How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House]]> 53369488 A debut novel in the tradition of Zadie Smith and Marlon James, from a brilliant Caribbean writer, set in Barbados, about four people each desperate to escape their legacy of violence in a so-called "paradise."

In Baxter Beach, Barbados, moneyed ex-pats clash with the locals who often end up serving them: braiding their hair, minding their children, and selling them drugs. Lala lives on the beach with her husband, Adan, a petty criminal with endless charisma whose thwarted burglary of one of the Baxter Beach mansions sets off a chain of events with terrible consequences. A gunshot no one was meant to witness. A new mother whose baby is found lifeless on the beach. A woman torn between two worlds and incapacitated by grief. And two men driven by desperation and greed who attempt a crime that will risk their freedom -- and their lives.]]>
278 Cherie Jones 0316536989 Delores 4 3.65 2021 How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House
author: Cherie Jones
name: Delores
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/06
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves: west-indies, drama, lies, murder, race
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Boat Kid: How I Survived Swimming with Sharks, Being Homeschooled, and Growing Up on a Sailboat]]> 17321947 240 Melanie Neale 0983825262 Delores 0 to-read 4.16 2013 Boat Kid: How I Survived Swimming with Sharks, Being Homeschooled, and Growing Up on a Sailboat
author: Melanie Neale
name: Delores
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Women in the Dunes 18739810 239 KĹŤbĹŤ Abe Delores 5 3.72 1962 The Women in the Dunes
author: KĹŤbĹŤ Abe
name: Delores
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/02
date added: 2023/07/02
shelves:
review:
amazing book. the whole of life in one book. Very bleak, yet so interesting.
]]>
<![CDATA[Winter in Paradise (Paradise, #1)]]> 31933069
Join New York Times Bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand on the stunning beaches of St. John for the beginning of her thrilling new winter series-The Paradise. Welcome to Paradise, the first book in the Paradise series, has everything that readers have come to know and love about an Elin Hilderbrand novel, plus a healthy dose of intrigue. Irene Steele’s idyllic life-house, husband, family-is shattered when she is woken up by a late-night phone call. Her beloved husband has been found dead, but before Irene can process this tragic news, she must confront the perplexing details of her husband’s death. He was found on St. John island, a tropical paradise far removed from their suburban life. Leaving the cold winter behind, Irene flies down to the beautiful Caribbean beaches of St. John only to make another shocking discovery: her husband had a secret second family. As Irene investigates the mysterious circumstances of her husband’s death, she is plunged into a web of intrigue and deceit belied by the pristine white sand beaches of St. John’s. This exciting first book in the Paradise series will transport readers to a new beach locale-another world that Elin knows as well as her beloved Nantucket-and have them longing for winter]]>
310 Elin Hilderbrand Delores 3 4.03 2018 Winter in Paradise (Paradise, #1)
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Delores
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/29
date added: 2023/06/29
shelves: drama, west-indies, nuclear-family, affairs, lies, murder
review:
Bubble gum for the brain. Just a beach book read BUT I have to read the next boor in the series because she's hooked me in. It's left on a proper cliffhanger.
]]>
<![CDATA[Sixteen Horses (Dr. Cooper Allen, #1)]]> 54860580 A literary thriller from stunning new talent Greg Buchanan, Sixteen Horses is a story of enduring guilt, trauma, and punishment, set in a small seaside community the rest of the world has left behind.

In Ilmarsh, England, local police detective Alec Nichols discovers sixteen horses' heads on a farm, each buried with a single eye facing the low winter sun. After Veterinary Forensics expert Cooper Allen travels to the scene, a pathogen is discovered lurking within the soil, and many of those who have come into contact with the corpses grow critically ill.

A series of crimes comes to light--disappearances, arson, and mutilations--and in the dark days that follow, the town slips into panic and paranoia. Everything is not as it seems. Anyone could be a suspect. And as Cooper finds herself unable to leave town, Alec is stalked by an unseen threat. The two investigators race to uncover the truth behind these frightened and insidious mysteries--no matter the cost.]]>
464 Greg Buchanan 1250246660 Delores 2 2.93 2021 Sixteen Horses (Dr. Cooper Allen, #1)
author: Greg Buchanan
name: Delores
average rating: 2.93
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2023/06/25
date added: 2023/06/25
shelves:
review:
This book could have been so much more. I had to really think about this review I came back to it. I like the way he writes but must do better. I am still confused what Frank has to do with anything? And why was everyone being blackmailed? And how did they get the horses to the farm? Who killed the horses and how? finally what did the Croyden cat killer have to do with this? So many questions. But after that little rant I still liked the book, or maybe the style. He has promise
]]>
Elevation 39931828
In the small town of Castle Rock, the setting of many of King’s most iconic stories, Scott is engaged in a low grade—but escalating—battle with the lesbians next door whose dog regularly drops his business on Scott’s lawn. One of the women is friendly; the other, cold as ice. Both are trying to launch a new restaurant, but the people of Castle Rock want no part of a gay married couple, and the place is in trouble. When Scott finally understands the prejudices they face—including his own—he tries to help. Unlikely alliances, the annual foot race, and the mystery of Scott’s affliction bring out the best in people who have indulged the worst in themselves and others.

Set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. The latest from legendary master storyteller Stephen King, a riveting, extraordinarily eerie, and moving story about a man whose mysterious affliction brings a small town together—a timely, upbeat tale about finding common ground despite deep-rooted differences. ]]>
160 Stephen King Delores 0 to-read 4.01 2018 Elevation
author: Stephen King
name: Delores
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Love Orange 54421570
While Hank struggles with his lack of professional success, his wife Jenny, feeling stuck and beset by an urge to do good, becomes ensnared in a dangerous correspondence with a prison inmate called John. Letter by letter, John pinches Jenny awake from the "marshmallow numbness" of her life. The children, meanwhile, unwittingly disturb the foundations of their home life with forays into the dark net and strange geological experiments.

Jenny's bid for freedom takes a sour turn when she becomes the go-between for John and his wife, and develops an unnatural obsession for the orange glue that seals his letters...

Love Orange throws open the blinds of American life, showing a family facing up to the modern age, from the ascendancy of technology, the predicaments of masculinity, the pathologising of children, the epidemic of opioid addiction and the tyranny of the WhatsApp Gods. The first novel by the acclaimed translator is a comic cocktail, an exuberant skewering of contemporary anxieties and prejudices.]]>
368 Natasha Randall 1529404576 Delores 3 3.43 2020 Love Orange
author: Natasha Randall
name: Delores
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/18
date added: 2023/06/18
shelves: nuclear-family, prison, american-dream, drama
review:
Well it kept my interest for most of the book but I must admit I didn't like the end. I mean there was no end and could there be another chapter? Obnoxious ruling father ,very intelligent sons and an aware mother who becomes hooked on drugs. It just felt like there was something missing in this story
]]>
The Bread the Devil Knead 57809811
Bringing us her truth in an arresting, unsparing Trinidadian voice, Alethea unravels memories repressed since childhood and begins to understand the person she has become.

Her next step is to decide the woman she wants to be.

This is an engrossing and atmospheric novel with a strong feminist message at the heart of its page-turning plot. It explores an abusive love-affair with searing honesty, and skilfully tackles the issue of gender violence and racism against the lush and heady backdrop of the national festival, and the music that feeds it. It’s impossible not to root for Alethea � she is an unforgettable heroine, trapped in ways she is only just beginning to understand but shining with strength, resolve and, ultimately, self-determination.]]>
277 Lisa Allen-Agostini 1912408988 Delores 4 3.99 2021 The Bread the Devil Knead
author: Lisa Allen-Agostini
name: Delores
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/08
date added: 2023/06/08
shelves: domestic-violence, west-indies
review:

]]>
Wounded 355817 242 Percival Everett 1555974279 Delores 4 4.02 2005 Wounded
author: Percival Everett
name: Delores
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/05
date added: 2023/06/05
shelves: drama, race, cowboys, animal-lovers
review:
I loved this book. A black cowboy living in the midwest. He is accepted in the local area but as a black person in a white world you never know what people are saying when your not around. The characters are really likeable and I like that you don't know if some of the characters are black or white. Loved it the end was a bit messy but it was a great read. Especially like that they are animal lovers and pest the mule was a star in his own right. .
]]>
What Lies Between Us 53142315
Every other night, Maggie and Nina have dinner together. When they are finished, Nina helps Maggie back to her room in the attic, and into the heavy chain that keeps her there. Because Maggie has done things to Nina that can’t ever be forgiven, and now she is paying the price.

But there are many things about the past that Nina doesn’t know, and Maggie is going to keep it that way—even if it kills her.

Because in this house, the truth is more dangerous than lies.]]>
363 John Marrs 1542017025 Delores 0 to-read 3.97 2020 What Lies Between Us
author: John Marrs
name: Delores
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Life in the Garden 37543204 208 Penelope Lively 0241982189 Delores 0 to-read 3.65 2017 Life in the Garden
author: Penelope Lively
name: Delores
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Homecoming 61683285
Sixty years later, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for almost twenty years, she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet. A phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother, Nora, who raised Jess when her mother could not, has suffered a fall and been raced to the hospital.

Nora has always been a vibrant and strong presence: decisive, encouraging, young despite her years. When Jess visits her in the hospital, she is alarmed to find her grandmother frail and confused. It’s even more alarming to hear from Nora's housekeeper that Nora had been distracted in the weeks before her accident and had fallen on the steps to the attic—the one place Jess was forbidden from playing in when she was small.

At loose ends in Nora's house, Jess does some digging of her own. In Nora's bedroom, she discovers a true crime book, chronicling the police investigation into a long-buried tragedy: the Turner Family Tragedy of Christmas Eve, 1959. It is only when Jess skims through the book that she finds a shocking connection between her own family and this once-infamous crime—a crime that has never been resolved satisfactorily. And for a journalist without a story, a cold case might be the best distraction she can find�

An epic novel that spans generations, Homecoming asks what we would do for those we love, and how we protect the lies we tell. It explores the power of motherhood, the corrosive effects of tightly held secrets, and the healing nature of truth. Above all, it is a beguiling and immensely satisfying novel from one of the finest writers working today.]]>
547 Kate Morton 0063020890 Delores 4 4.00 2023 Homecoming
author: Kate Morton
name: Delores
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/05/22
date added: 2023/05/22
shelves:
review:

]]>
Educated 35133922
Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.]]>
352 Tara Westover 0399590501 Delores 0 to-read 4.46 2018 Educated
author: Tara Westover
name: Delores
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail]]> 12262741 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State � and she would do it alone.

Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.]]>
336 Cheryl Strayed 0307592731 Delores 0 to-read 4.06 2012 Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
author: Cheryl Strayed
name: Delores
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Woman in Cabin 10 (Lo Blacklock, #1)]]> 28187230 341 Ruth Ware 1501132938 Delores 0 to-read 3.73 2016 The Woman in Cabin 10 (Lo Blacklock, #1)
author: Ruth Ware
name: Delores
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The White Tiger 1768603
Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life—having nothing but his own wits to help him along.

Born in the dark heart of India, Balram gets a break when he is hired as a driver for his village's wealthiest man, two house Pomeranians (Puddles and Cuddles), and the rich man's (very unlucky) son. From behind the wheel of their Honda City car, Balram's new world is a revelation. While his peers flip through the pages of Murder Weekly ("Love -- Rape -- Revenge!"), barter for girls, drink liquor (Thunderbolt), and perpetuate the Great Rooster Coop of Indian society, Balram watches his employers bribe foreign ministers for tax breaks, barter for girls, drink liquor (single-malt whiskey), and play their own role in the Rooster Coop. Balram learns how to siphon gas, deal with corrupt mechanics, and refill and resell Johnnie Walker Black Label bottles (all but one). He also finds a way out of the Coop that no one else inside it can perceive.

Balram's eyes penetrate India as few outsiders can: the cockroaches and the call centers; the prostitutes and the worshippers; the ancient and Internet cultures; the water buffalo and, trapped in so many kinds of cages that escape is (almost) impossible, the white tiger. And with a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create virtue, and money doesn't solve every problem -- but decency can still be found in a corrupt world, and you can get what you want out of life if you eavesdrop on the right conversations.

The White Tiger recalls The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, and narrative genius, with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation —and a startling, provocative debut.]]>
276 Aravind Adiga 1416562591 Delores 5 3.76 2008 The White Tiger
author: Aravind Adiga
name: Delores
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/05/13
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Trees 56269278 309 Percival Everett 164445064X Delores 0 4.06 2021 The Trees
author: Percival Everett
name: Delores
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/04/27
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Black Sheep: A Story of Rural Racism, Identity and Hope]]> 110398358 'Truly inspirational' The SunSabrina Pace-Humphreys is a 44-year-old mother of four and grandmother of three, an award-winning businesswoman, an ultrarunner, a social justice activist and a recovering alcoholic. She is a mixed-raced woman, the daughter of a white Scottish Roman Catholic woman and a Black man. When she was two, her parents separated and Sabrina, her mother and her white-presenting younger sister moved to a small market town where no-one looked like her. From as young as she can remember, she was the subject of verbal and physical racist abuse.In Black Sheep, Sabrina reveals how she got from there to about growing up in a home, a school and a town where no-one looked like her and her subsequent struggle to understand and find her identity; about her lived experience of rural racism; about becoming a teenage mother and her determination to break that stereotype; about her battle with alcoholism and her mental health; about how running saved her life; and ultimately about how someone can not only survive but thrive in spite of their past. Sabrina's experience will chime with anyone who has felt like an outsider. Poignant and eye-opening, and exploring themes of trauma, identity, mental health and addiction, Black Sheep is a tale of of grit and determination, of hope over despair.'Honest and authentic - I could not put it down' Michelle Griffith Robinson OLY'Black Sheep is powerful testimony for anyone seeking to deepen their own anti-racist journey. This is passionate, raw writing, with moments of reflection that we can all learn from. It's a story that had to be told, and must be heard' Jeffrey Boakye]]> 211 Sabrina Pace-Humphreys 1529418577 Delores 5 4.18 Black Sheep: A Story of Rural Racism, Identity and Hope
author: Sabrina Pace-Humphreys
name: Delores
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/04/27
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)]]> 44421460 What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?]]>
213 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529029589 Delores 0 3.66 2015 Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: Delores
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/04/27
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Keeper of Lost Things 30363088 A charming, clever, and quietly moving debut novel of of endless possibilities and joyful discoveries that explores the promises we make and break, losing and finding ourselves, the objects that hold magic and meaning for our lives, and the surprising connections that bind us.

Lime green plastic flower-shaped hair bobbles�Found, on the playing field, Derrywood Park, 2nd September.

Bone china cup and saucer�Found, on a bench in Riveria Public Gardens, 31st October.

Anthony Peardew is the keeper of lost things. Forty years ago, he carelessly lost a keepsake from his beloved fiancée, Therese. That very same day, she died unexpectedly. Brokenhearted, Anthony sought consolation in rescuing lost objects—the things others have dropped, misplaced, or accidentally left behind—and writing stories about them. Now, in the twilight of his life, Anthony worries that he has not fully discharged his duty to reconcile all the lost things with their owners. As the end nears, he bequeaths his secret life’s mission to his unsuspecting assistant, Laura, leaving her his house and all its lost treasures, including an irritable ghost.

Recovering from a bad divorce, Laura, in some ways, is one of Anthony’s lost things. But when the lonely woman moves into his mansion, her life begins to change. She finds a new friend in the neighbor’s quirky daughter, Sunshine, and a welcome distraction in Freddy, the rugged gardener. As the dark cloud engulfing her lifts, Laura, accompanied by her new companions, sets out to realize Anthony’s last wish: reuniting his cherished lost objects with their owners.

Long ago, Eunice found a trinket on the London pavement and kept it through the years. Now, with her own end drawing near, she has lost something precious—a tragic twist of fate that forces her to break a promise she once made.

As the Keeper of Lost Objects, Laura holds the key to Anthony and Eunice’s redemption. But can she unlock the past and make the connections that will lay their spirits to rest?

Full of character, wit, and wisdom, The Keeper of Lost Things is heartwarming tale that will enchant fans of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Garden Spells, Mrs Queen Takes the Train, and The Silver Linings Playbook.]]>
288 Ruth Hogan Delores 0 3.70 2017 The Keeper of Lost Things
author: Ruth Hogan
name: Delores
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/04/27
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow]]> 58784475 In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]>
401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Delores 0 to-read 4.12 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Delores
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
American Dirt 45046527
Lydia lives in Acapulco. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while cracks are beginning to show in Acapulco because of the cartels, Lydia’s life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. But after her husband’s tell-all profile of the newest drug lord is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.

Forced to flee, Lydia and Luca find themselves joining the countless people trying to reach the United States. Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?]]>
459 Jeanine Cummins Delores 5 4.32 2020 American Dirt
author: Jeanine Cummins
name: Delores
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/06/15
date added: 2022/06/15
shelves:
review:
I loved this book. I love how a tiny family emerged from the horror that all of the refugees have suffered. I didn't know this book was controversial and I don't really care. I just loved the story. I will think of these caravans of people as individuals from now on.
]]>
<![CDATA[End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #3)]]> 25526965
In Room 217 of the Lakes Region Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic, something has awakened. Something evil. Brady Hartsfield, perpetrator of the Mercedes Massacre, where eight people were killed and many more were badly injured, has been in the clinic for five years, in a vegetative state. According to his doctors, anything approaching a complete recovery is unlikely. But behind the drool and stare, Brady is awake, and in possession of deadly new powers that allow him to wreak unimaginable havoc without ever leaving his hospital room.

Retired police detective Bill Hodges, the unlikely hero of Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers, now runs an investigation agency with his partner, Holly Gibney—the woman who delivered the blow to Hartsfield’s head that put him on the brain injury ward. When Bill and Holly are called to a suicide scene with ties to the Mercedes Massacre, they find themselves pulled into their most dangerous case yet, one that will put their lives at risk, as well as those of Bill’s heroic young friend Jerome Robinson and his teenage sister, Barbara. Brady Hartsfield is back, and planning revenge not just on Hodges and his friends, but on an entire city.

In End of Watch, Stephen King brings the Hodges trilogy to a sublimely terrifying conclusion, combining the detective fiction of Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers with the heart-pounding, supernatural suspense that has been his bestselling trademark. The result is an unnerving look at human vulnerability and chilling suspense. No one does it better than King.]]>
432 Stephen King 1501129740 Delores 0 to-read 4.07 2016 End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #3)
author: Stephen King
name: Delores
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Black Cake 57926137 We can’t choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become?

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.

Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor’s true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right�? Will their mother’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?

Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.]]>
385 Charmaine Wilkerson Delores 0 to-read 4.06 2022 Black Cake
author: Charmaine Wilkerson
name: Delores
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Little Friend 775346
The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents� yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet - unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town’s rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family’s history of loss.]]>
624 Donna Tartt 1400031699 Delores 0 currently-reading 3.47 2002 The Little Friend
author: Donna Tartt
name: Delores
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/26
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
Poppadum Preach 43094708 432 Almas Khan 0750536004 Delores 3 3.00 Poppadum Preach
author: Almas Khan
name: Delores
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2022/03/26
date added: 2022/03/26
shelves:
review:
I found this hard to read. Maybe because I didn't like any of the characters. But its not a bad book, the unrelenting violence from the mother towards her children and the violence from the father to everyone else was appalling. I didn't check to see if this is a true story. I know it's a fact of life for billions of people.
]]>
Golden Hill 13732457
One rainy evening in November, a handsome young stranger fresh off the boat pitches up at a counting-house door in Golden Hill Street: this is Mr. Smith, amiable, charming, yet strangely determined to keep suspicion simmering. For in his pocket, he has what seems to be an order for a thousand pounds, a huge amount, and he won't explain why, or where he comes from, or what he can be planning to do in the colonies that requires so much money.

Should the New York merchants trust him? Should they risk their credit and refuse to pay? Should they befriend him, seduce him, arrest him; maybe even kill him?

As fast as a heist movie, as stuffed with incident as a whole shelf of conventional fiction, Golden Hill is both a novel about the 18th century, and itself a book cranked back to the novel's 18th century beginnings, when anything could happen on the page, and usually did, and a hero was not a hero unless he ran the frequent risk of being hanged.

This is Fielding's Tom Jones recast on Broadway - when Broadway was a tree-lined avenue two hundred yards long, with a fort at one end flying the Union Jack and a common at the other, grazed by cows.

Rich in language and historical perception, yet compulsively readable, Golden Hill has a plot that twists every chapter, and a puzzle at its heart that won't let go till the last paragraph of the last page.

Set a generation before the American Revolution, it paints an irresistible picture of a New York provokingly different from its later self: but subtly shadowed by the great city to come, and already entirely a place where a young man with a fast tongue can invent himself afresh, fall in love - and find a world of trouble.]]>
344 Francis Spufford 0571225195 Delores 0 3.72 2016 Golden Hill
author: Francis Spufford
name: Delores
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/17
date added: 2022/03/17
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Cazalet Chronicles: Five Novels in One Collection (Cazalet Chronicles, #1-5)]]> 32611786 Ěý
As war clouds gather on England’s horizon, the Cazalet siblings, along with their wives, children, and servants, prepare to leave London and join their parents at their Sussex estate, Home Place. Thus begins the decades-spanning family saga that has engrossed millions of readers.
Ěý
The Light Years : Hugh, the eldest of the Cazalet siblings, was wounded in France and is haunted by recurring nightmares and the prospect of another war. Edward adores his wife, a former dancer, yet he’s incapable of remaining faithful. Rupert desires only to fulfill his potential as a painter, but finds that love and art cannot coexist. And devoted daughter Rachel discovers the joys—and limitations—of intimacy with another woman.
Ěý
Marking Time : Narrated primarily through the voices of teenagers Louise, Polly, and Clary, the second novel details the continuing story of their fathers. With the outbreak of war, Edward is determined to do his bit for England. But Hugh, injured in World War I, must sit back and watch other men fight for their country, including his brother Rupert, who enlists and goes missing in action.
Ěý
Confusion : As the world reels in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the Cazalets are dealt a tragic blow, and a new generation struggles to find peace with each other, a peace that seems to prove as elusive as it is in the larger world.
Ěý
Casting Off : The war is over, but for the Cazalets—and England—the challenges continue. Against the backdrop of a crumbling empire, the family soldiers on in the wake of disappointment, heartbreak, and tragedy. But the family comes together again as three generations of Cazalets struggle to hold onto Home Place, the beloved Sussex estate that has been their refuge and their heart.
Ěý
All Change : In 1956, the death of eighty-nine-year-old matriarch Kitty “the Duchy� Cazalet marks the end of an era—and the commencement of great change for the family. And Home Place, the beloved Sussex estate where the Cazalets have gathered for years, is now a beloved relic that, with its faded wallpaper and leaky roof, has aged along with its occupants.
Ěý
A rich historical read for those who love E. M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh, or Downton Abbey , this is the story of a family “[rendered] thrillingly three-dimensional by a master craftsman� ( The Sunday Telegraph ).
Ěý]]>
2250 Elizabeth Jane Howard 150404150X Delores 5 Bloody, loved it. 4.43 2014 The Cazalet Chronicles: Five Novels in One Collection (Cazalet Chronicles, #1-5)
author: Elizabeth Jane Howard
name: Delores
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/13
date added: 2022/03/13
shelves:
review:
Bloody, loved it.
]]>
All Summer in a Day 45306054 4 Ray Bradbury Delores 0 to-read 3.99 1954 All Summer in a Day
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Delores
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1954
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Silver Sparrow 9749711
Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s families� the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered. As Jones explores the backstories of her rich and flawed characters, she also reveals the joy, and the destruction, they brought to each other’s lives.

At the heart of it all are the two girls whose lives are at stake, and like the best writers, Jones portrays the fragility of her characers with raw authenticity as they seek love, demand attention, and try to imagine themselves as women.]]>
340 Tayari Jones 1565129903 Delores 5 3.87 2011 Silver Sparrow
author: Tayari Jones
name: Delores
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/19
date added: 2022/02/19
shelves:
review:
Such an excellent book. Everything that is wrong with some relationships and how they can mess up your own lives and that of your children, it sort of makes sense of the term 'inherited trauma'. This is such a lovely read. Yes this is a book about black families. I love the way Tayari Jones writes she shows that regardless of colour or race everyone is an idiot in love. We are nerds, sweet, sentimental, compassionate and flawed like every human culture on earth. I read every word. No there is no happy ending and I like that it's real. This is not a spoiler. By the way as a mixed race lady brought up in London, my mother loved reading but at the time I was born there were no black authors writing about the normal life of black people. I love this time of BLM it means I get to read about every one on earth. I'm nosy I want to know.
]]>
The Paper Palace 58698241 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

"This house, this place, knows all my secrets."

It is a perfect July morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at "The Paper Palace"--the family summer place which she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: last night Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next twenty-four hours, Elle will have to decide between the life she has made with her genuinely beloved husband, Peter, and the life she always imagined she would have had with her childhood love, Jonas, if a tragic event hadn't forever changed the course of their lives. As Heller colors in the experiences that have led Elle to this day, we arrive at her ultimate decision with all its complexity. Tender yet devastating, The Paper Palace considers the tensions between desire and dignity, the legacies of abuse, and the crimes and misdemeanors of families.]]>
400 Miranda Cowley Heller 0593329821 Delores 0 to-read 3.74 2021 The Paper Palace
author: Miranda Cowley Heller
name: Delores
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Homegoing 27071490 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

A novel of breathtaking sweep and emotional power that traces three hundred years in Ghana and along the way also becomes a truly great American novel. Extraordinary for its exquisite language, its implacable sorrow, its soaring beauty, and for its monumental portrait of the forces that shape families and nations, Homegoing heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.

Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi's magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time, delivering unforgettable characters whose lives were shaped by historical forces beyond their control. Homegoing is a tremendous reading experience, not to be missed, by an astonishingly gifted young writer.]]>
305 Yaa Gyasi Delores 5 4.48 2016 Homegoing
author: Yaa Gyasi
name: Delores
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/15
date added: 2022/02/15
shelves:
review:
I think this is one of my all time favourite books. I mostly read this with a lump in my throat, it was painful, no doubt about that. I think it's wonderful how Yaa Gyasi has incapsulated slavery and all the effects on both sides of the divide Africa and America in short chapters. I fell in love with the characters but the one who stays with me the most is H. A man robbed of a decent loving life. It hurt to know that there are millions of H's out there but we don't know their names. The lump dissolved in the last chapter but I cried. GREAT BOOK.
]]>
<![CDATA[Harlem Shuffle (Ray Carney, #1)]]> 54626223 From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.

“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked…� To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver’s Row don’t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home.

Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time.

Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn’t ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn’t ask questions, either.

Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa—the “Waldorf of Harlem”—and volunteers Ray’s services as the fence. The heist doesn’t go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes.

Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs?

Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.

But mostly, it’s a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.]]>
318 Colson Whitehead 0385545134 Delores 0 to-read 3.67 2021 Harlem Shuffle (Ray Carney, #1)
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Delores
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Transcendent Kingdom 48570454 Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.

Gifty is a fifth-year candidate in neuroscience at Stanford School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after a knee injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her.

But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief--a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.]]>
264 Yaa Gyasi Delores 0 to-read 4.10 2020 Transcendent Kingdom
author: Yaa Gyasi
name: Delores
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
We Are Called to Rise 20385637 Redbook) when, far from the neon lights of the Vegas strip, three lives collide in a split-second mistake and a child’s fate hangs in the balance.

Avis thought her marriage had hit a temporary rut. But with a single confession in the middle of the night, her carefully constructed life comes undone. After escaping a tumultuous childhood and raising a son, she now faces a future without the security of the home and family she has spent decades building.

Luis only wants to make the grandmother who raised him proud. As a soldier, he was on his way to being the man she taught him to be until he woke up in Walter Reed Hospital with vague and troubling memories of how he got there. Now he must find a new way to live a life of honor.

Every day, young Bashkim looks forward to the quiet order of school and the kind instruction of his third grade teacher. His family relocated to Las Vegas after fleeing political persecution in their homeland. Now their ice cream truck provides just enough extra income to keep them afloat. With his family under constant stress, Bashkim opens his heart to his pen pal, a US soldier.

When these lives come together in a single, shocking moment, each character is called upon to rise. “You’ll be thinking about these characters long after you finish this haunting, heart-wrenching, and hopeful book� (Houston Chronicle).]]>
320 Laura McBride 1476738971 Delores 5 Brilliant, touching book 3.92 2014 We Are Called to Rise
author: Laura McBride
name: Delores
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2018/08/20
date added: 2022/01/25
shelves:
review:
Brilliant, touching book
]]>
Blockade Billy 7940591
Every effort was made to erase any evidence that William Blakely played professional baseball, and with good reason. Blockade Billy had a secret darker than any pill or injection that might cause a scandal in sports today. His secret was much, much worse... and only Stephen King, the most gifted storyteller of our age, can reveal the truth to the world, once and for all.]]>
112 Stephen King 1587672286 Delores 0 to-read 3.46 2010 Blockade Billy
author: Stephen King
name: Delores
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[A Guide to the Birds of East Africa (Mr Malik #1)]]> 3476509 Khan has also become enraptured with Rose and announces his intent to invite her to the Ball. Rather than force Rose to choose between the two men, a clever solution is proposed. Whoever can identify the most species of birds in one week’s time gets the privilege of asking Ms. Mbikwa to the ball.]]> 202 Nicholas Drayson 0547152582 Delores 0 to-read 3.80 2008 A Guide to the Birds of East Africa (Mr Malik #1)
author: Nicholas Drayson
name: Delores
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Three Women 42201100 A riveting true story about the sex lives of three real American women, based on nearly a decade of reporting.

Hailed as “a dazzling achievement� (Los Angeles Times) and “riveting page-turner that explores desire, heartbreak, and infatuation in all its messy, complicated nuance� (The Washington Post), Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women has captivated readers, booksellers, and critics—and topped bestseller lists—worldwide.

In suburban Indiana we meet Lina, a homemaker and mother of two whose marriage, after a decade, has lost its passion. Starved for affection, Lina battles daily panic attacks and, after reconnecting with an old flame through social media, embarks on an affair that quickly becomes all-consuming. In North Dakota we meet Maggie, a seventeen-year-old high school student who allegedly has a clandestine physical relationship with her handsome, married English teacher; the ensuing criminal trial will turn their quiet community upside down. Finally, in an exclusive enclave of the Northeast, we meet Sloane—a gorgeous, successful, and refined restaurant owner—who is happily married to a man who likes to watch her have sex with other men and women.

Based on years of immersive reporting and told with astonishing frankness and immediacy, Three Women is both a feat of journalism and a triumph of storytelling, brimming with nuance and empathy. “A work of deep observation, long conversations, and a kind of journalistic alchemy� (Kate Tuttle, NPR), Three Women introduces us to three unforgettable women—and one remarkable writer—whose experiences remind us that we are not alone.]]>
306 Lisa Taddeo 1451642296 Delores 0 3.72 2019 Three Women
author: Lisa Taddeo
name: Delores
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2021/04/19
date added: 2021/04/19
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Windsingers (Windsingers, #1-3)]]> 2429746
Vandien's unrepentant recklessness led Ki into situations her sensible nature would have avoided. Yet it was Ki who, despite wizard-troubles of her own, risked the wrath of the Windsingers and saved Vandien from his treasure hunt in the submerged temple of the storm-sung sea.

And it was Vandien's stubborn daring which allowed him to attempt to reclaim Ki from beyond the Limbreth Gate - in another world entirely!

An enthralling fantasy saga, THE WINDSINGERS combines first-rate storytelling with two unforgettable characters.]]>
637 Megan Lindholm 0552991821 Delores 5 4.18 1983 The Windsingers (Windsingers, #1-3)
author: Megan Lindholm
name: Delores
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/02/11
shelves:
review:

]]>
Hurricane Child 32056397 Caroline Murphy is a Hurricane Child.

Being born during a hurricane is unlucky, and 12-year-old Caroline has had her share of bad luck lately. She's hated and bullied by everyone in her small school on St. Thomas of the US Virgin Islands, a spirit only she can see won't stop following her, and—worst of all—Caroline's mother left home one day and never came back.

But when a new student named Kalinda arrives, Caroline's luck begins to turn around. Kalinda, a solemn girl from Barbados with a special smile for everyone, becomes Caroline's first and only friend—and the person for whom Caroline has begun to develop a crush.

Now, Caroline must find the strength to confront her feelings for Kalinda, brave the spirit stalking her through the islands, and face the reason her mother abandoned her. Together, Caroline and Kalinda must set out in a hurricane to find Caroline's missing mother—before Caroline loses her forever.]]>
214 Kacen Callender 1338129309 Delores 0 to-read 3.80 2018 Hurricane Child
author: Kacen Callender
name: Delores
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Stoner 166997
John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.]]>
292 John Williams 1590171993 Delores 5 4.35 1965 Stoner
author: John Williams
name: Delores
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1965
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/06/19
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Shade of My Own Tree: A Novel]]> 1131090
The courage to change doesn’t come easy. When Opal Sullivan walks out on an abusive husband after fifteen years, she has only her dreams in her pocket. Her new beginning starts in Appalachian River country, where she sees a bit of herself in a graceful but dilapidated house. Like Opal, the house is worn-out and somewhat beaten up, but it still stands proudly and deserves a second chance.

So Opal opens her doors—and her heart—to a parade of unforgettable characters. There’s sassy Bette Smith with her cantaloupe-colored hair and four-inch heels; short-tempered Gloria and her devilish son, Troy; the mysterious Dana, who dresses in black and keeps exclusively nocturnal hours; a dog named “Bear� who is afraid of his own shadow; and Jack, who doesn’t mind hanging out with an OBBWA (old black broad with an attitude). It is Jack who helps Opal understand a funny thing about You can’t move forward if you keep looking back. . . .]]>
244 Sheila Williams 0345465172 Delores 0 to-read 4.12 The Shade of My Own Tree: A Novel
author: Sheila Williams
name: Delores
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Where the Crawdads Sing 36809135
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]>
384 Delia Owens 0735219117 Delores 5 4.35 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing
author: Delia Owens
name: Delores
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2020/05/17
date added: 2020/05/17
shelves:
review:
I loved this book, rich in details, loneliness, rejection, love, and success. Beautiful
]]>
The Art of Fielding 10996342
Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate and teammate, becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the Harpooners' team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter, returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life.

As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process they forge new bonds, and help one another find their true paths. Written with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth, The Art of Fielding is an expansive, warmhearted novel about ambition and its limits, about family and friendship and love, and about commitment - to oneself and to others.]]>
512 Chad Harbach 0316126691 Delores 3 3.98 2011 The Art of Fielding
author: Chad Harbach
name: Delores
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2020/05/11
date added: 2020/05/12
shelves:
review:
This is was an easy read but I wouldn't say it was a life-changing book. I started reading it in February I had long periods of putting it down but it was easy to jump into once I picked it up again. I don't know if any of the characters touched me.
]]>
City of Girls 42135029
Now ninety-five years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it.

Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love. Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.]]>
470 Elizabeth Gilbert 1594634734 Delores 0 to-read 4.00 2019 City of Girls
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Delores
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/05/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The God of Small Things 9777
Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, they fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family—their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts).

When their English cousin, Sophie Mol, and her mother, Margaret Kochamma, arrive on a Christmas visit, Esthappen and Rahel learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river "graygreen." With fish in it. With the sky and trees in it. And at night, the broken yellow moon in it.

The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it.

The God of Small Things takes on the Big Themes—Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite Joy. Here is a writer who dares to break the rules. To dislocate received rhythms and create the language she requires, a language that is at once classical and unprecedented. Arundhati Roy has given us a book that is anchored to anguish, but fueled by wit and magic.]]>
321 Arundhati Roy 0679457313 Delores 0 currently-reading 3.97 1997 The God of Small Things
author: Arundhati Roy
name: Delores
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/05/11
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
The Giver of Stars 43925876 From the author of Me Before You, set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond.

Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically.

The leader, and soon Alice’s greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who’s never asked a man’s permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky.

What happens to them–and to the men they love–becomes an unforgettable drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion. These heroic women refuse to be cowed by men or by convention. And though they face all kinds of dangers in a landscape that is at times breathtakingly beautiful, at others brutal, they’re committed to their job: bringing books to people who have never had any, arming them with facts that will change their lives.

Based on a true story rooted in America’s past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope and epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, enthralling, it is destined to become a modern classic–a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.]]>
390 Jojo Moyes 0399562486 Delores 5 excellent book 4.27 2019 The Giver of Stars
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Delores
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2020/03/10
date added: 2020/04/21
shelves:
review:
excellent book
]]>
The Night Watchman 51058205 Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’sĚý grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.

Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new “emancipation� bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress. It is 1953 and he and the other council members know the bill isn’t about freedom; Congress is fed up with Indians. The bill is a “termination� that threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. How can the government abandon treaties made in good faith with Native Americans “for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers run�?

Since graduating high school, Pixie Paranteau has insisted that everyone call her Patrice. Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Patrice, the class valedictorian, has no desire to wear herself down with a husband and kids. She makes jewel bearings at the plant, a job that barely pays her enough to support her mother and brother. Patrice’s shameful alcoholic father returns home sporadically to terrorize his wife and children and bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to follow her beloved older sister, Vera, who moved to the big city of Minneapolis. Vera may have disappeared; she hasn’t been in touch in months, and is rumored to have had a baby. Determined to find Vera and her child, Patrice makes a fateful trip to Minnesota that introduces her to unexpected forms of exploitation and violence, and endangers her life.

Thomas and Patrice live in this impoverished reservation community along with young Chippewa boxer Wood Mountain and his mother Juggie Blue, her niece and Patrice’s best friend Valentine, and Stack Barnes, the white high school math teacher and boxing coach who is hopelessly in love with Patrice.

In the Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich creates a fictional world populated with memorable characters who are forced to grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature. Illuminating the loves and lives, the desires and ambitions of these characters with compassion, wit, and intelligence, The Night Watchman is a majestic work of fiction from this revered cultural treasure.

]]>
464 Louise Erdrich Delores 0 to-read 4.27 2020 The Night Watchman
author: Louise Erdrich
name: Delores
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Brother 23492624 Brother follows a teenager determined to break from his family’s unconventional—and deeply disturbing—traditions.

Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked farmhouse miles from any road. The Morrows keep to themselves, and it’s served them well so far. When girls go missing off the side of the highway, the cops don’t knock on their door. Which is a good thing, seeing as to what’s buried in the Morrows� backyard.

But nineteen-year-old Michael Morrow isn’t like the rest of his family. He doesn’t take pleasure in the screams that echo through the trees. Michael pines for normalcy, and he’s sure that someday he’ll see the world beyond West Virginia. When he meets Alice, a pretty girl working at a record shop in the small nearby town of Dahlia, he’s immediately smitten. For a moment, he nearly forgets about the monster he’s become. But his brother, Rebel, is all too eager to remind Michael of his place…]]>
319 Ania Ahlborn 147678373X Delores 5 3.89 2015 Brother
author: Ania Ahlborn
name: Delores
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2020/03/19
date added: 2020/03/19
shelves:
review:
I couldn't put it down I read it in one sitting.
]]>
Americana 39321561
„Nemilos de tranČ™ant Č™i incredibil de empaticâ€� un roman care expune intrepid realitÄČ›ile inconfortabile ale vremurilor noastreâ€� O disecČ›ie precisÄ a experienČ›ei umane universale.â€�

The New York Times, 10 Best Books of 2013

„Atât de inteligent despre atât de multe subiecte, Ă®ncât eticheta de roman despre ce Ă®nseamnÄ sÄ fii negru Ă®n secolul XXI nu cuprinde nici pe departe profunzimea Č™i anvergura textuluiâ€� Vast, captivant Č™i autentic.â€�

NPR

„Adichie descoperÄ perspectiva unicÄ din care comparÄ ierarhiile rasiale din Statele Unite ale Americii Č™i Marea Britanie cu lupta pentru statut social din Nigeria. Či o face cu o onestitate nemiloasÄ, descriind frumuseČ›ea Č™i urâțenia acestor spaČ›ii.â€�

The Washington Post]]>
568 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 6069450744 Delores 0 to-read 4.41 2013 Americana
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Delores
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Lacuna 6433752 The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their modern identities.

Born in the United States, reared in a series of provisional households in Mexico—from a coastal island jungle to 1930s Mexico City—Harrison Shepherd finds precarious shelter but no sense of home on his thrilling odyssey. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers who put him to work in the kitchen, errands he runs in the streets, and one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. He discovers a passion for Aztec history and meets the exotic, imperious artist Frida Kahlo, who will become his lifelong friend. When he goes to work for Lev Trotsky, an exiled political leader fighting for his life, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution, newspaper headlines and howling gossip, and a risk of terrible violence.

Meanwhile, to the north, the United States will soon be caught up in the internationalist goodwill of World War II. There in the land of his birth, Shepherd believes he might remake himself in America's hopeful image and claim a voice of his own. He finds support from an unlikely kindred soul, his stenographer, Mrs. Brown, who will be far more valuable to her employer than he could ever know. Through darkening years, political winds continue to toss him between north and south in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach—the lacuna—between truth and public presumption.

With deeply compelling characters, a vivid sense of place, and a clear grasp of how history and public opinion can shape a life, Barbara Kingsolver has created an unforgettable portrait of the artist—and of art itself. The Lacuna is a rich and daring work of literature, establishing its author as one of the most provocative and important of her time.]]>
508 Barbara Kingsolver 0060852577 Delores 0 currently-reading 3.80 2009 The Lacuna
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Delores
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/01/02
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
The Underground Railroad 30555488
In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor--engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey--hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.]]>
320 Colson Whitehead 0385542364 Delores 5 4.04 2016 The Underground Railroad
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Delores
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2019/12/31
date added: 2019/12/31
shelves:
review:
didn't really think that I would like it as I always say "read one slave book, read them all" I was wrong, this is a heartbreaking book yet gives a glimpse of the future for Africans who were stolen away from their land.
]]>
Me 49013140
In his only official autobiography, music icon Elton John writes about his extraordinary life, which is also the subject of the film Rocketman.

Christened Reginald Dwight, he was a shy boy with Buddy Holly glasses who grew up in the London suburb of Pinner and dreamed of becoming a pop star. By the age of twenty-three, he was on his first tour of America, facing an astonished audience in his tight silver hotpants, bare legs and a T-shirt with ROCK AND ROLL emblazoned across it in sequins. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again.

His life has been full of drama, from the early rejection of his work with song-writing partner Bernie Taupin to spinning out of control as a chart-topping superstar; from half-heartedly trying to drown himself in his LA swimming pool to disco-dancing with the Queen; from friendships with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and George Michael to setting up his AIDS Foundation. All the while, Elton was hiding a drug addiction that would grip him for over a decade.

In Me Elton also writes about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father.]]>
0 Elton John 1529035732 Delores 5 4.32 2019 Me
author: Elton John
name: Delores
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2019/12/17
date added: 2019/12/18
shelves:
review:
Well if you have always loved Elton John and had a shrine to him in your cupboard at home when you were a kid then you will love this book. He tells it all, the drugs, the booze, his temper tantrums, and the delicious gossip. The queen mother coming for dinner and the queen hitting her nephew. LOVED IT.
]]>
The Last Black Unicorn 34974310 288 Tiffany Haddish 1501181823 Delores 0 currently-reading 3.81 2017 The Last Black Unicorn
author: Tiffany Haddish
name: Delores
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/12/17
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Mueller Report: Report on the Investigtation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Election]]> 45275549 897 Robert Muller Delores 0 currently-reading 3.72 The Mueller Report: Report on the Investigtation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Election
author: Robert Muller
name: Delores
average rating: 3.72
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/12/02
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home]]> 42202117 Now a limited Netflix series starring Zoe Saldana!

This Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller is “a captivating story of love lost and found� (Kirkus Reviews) set in the lush Sicilian countryside, where one woman discovers the healing powers of food, family, and unexpected grace in her darkest hours.

It was love at first sight when actress Tembi met professional chef, Saro, on a street in Florence. There was just one problem: Saro’s traditional Sicilian family did not approve of his marrying a black American woman. However, the couple, heartbroken but undeterred, forged on. They built a happy life in Los Angeles, with fulfilling careers, deep friendships, and the love of their lives: a baby girl they adopted at birth. Eventually, they reconciled with Saro’s family just as he faced a formidable cancer that would consume all their dreams.

From Scratch chronicles three summers Tembi spends in Sicily with her daughter, Zoela, as she begins to piece together a life without her husband in his tiny hometown hamlet of farmers. Where once Tembi was estranged from Saro’s family, now she finds solace and nourishment—literally and spiritually—at her mother-in-law’s table. In the Sicilian countryside, she discovers the healing gifts of simple fresh food, the embrace of a close knit community, and timeless traditions and wisdom that light a path forward. All along the way she reflects on her and Saro’s romance—an incredible love story that leaps off the pages.

In Sicily, it is said that every story begins with a marriage or a death—in Tembi Locke’s case, it is both. “Locke’s raw and heartfelt memoir will uplift readers suffering from the loss of their own loved ones� (Publishers Weekly), but her story is also about love, finding a home, and chasing flavor as an act of remembrance. From Scratch is for anyone who has dared to reach for big love, fought for what mattered most, and those who needed a powerful reminder that life is...delicious.]]>
339 Tembi Locke 1501187651 Delores 0 currently-reading 3.94 2019 From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home
author: Tembi Locke
name: Delores
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/11/23
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber]]> 44573628
A New York Times technology correspondent presents the dramatic story of Uber, the Silicon Valley startup at the center of one of the great venture capital power struggles of our time. In June 2017, Travis Kalanick, the hard-charging CEO of Uber, was ousted in a boardroom coup that capped a brutal year for the transportation giant. Uber had catapulted to the top of the tech world, yet for many came to symbolize everything wrong with Silicon Valley. Award-winning New York Times technology correspondent Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped presents the dramatic rise and fall of Uber, set against an era of rapid upheaval in Silicon Valley. Backed by billions in venture capital dollars and led by a brash and ambitious founder, Uber promised to revolutionize the way we move people and goods through the world. A near instant “unicorn,� Uber seemed poised to take its place next to Amazon, Apple, and Google as a technology giant. What followed would become a corporate cautionary tale about the perils of startup culture and a vivid example of how blind worship of startup founders can go wildly wrong. Isaac recounts Uber’s pitched battles with taxi unions and drivers, the company’s toxic internal culture, and the bare-knuckle tactics it devised to overcome obstacles in its quest for dominance. With billions of dollars at stake, Isaac shows how venture capitalists asserted their power and seized control of the startup as it fought its way toward its fateful IPO. Based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Uber employees, along with previously unpublished documents, Super Pumped is a page-turning story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth, and bad behavior that explores how blistering technological and financial innovation culminated in one of the most catastrophic twelve-month periods in American corporate history.]]>
408 Mike Isaac 0393652246 Delores 0 to-read 4.11 2019 Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber
author: Mike Isaac
name: Delores
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/11/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Firestarter 233667 This a previously-published edition of ISBN 0451167805.

The Department of Scientific Intelligence (aka "The Shop") never anticipated that two participants in their research program would marry and have a child. Charlie McGee inherited pyrokinetic powers from her parents, who had been given a low-grade hallucinogen called "Lot Six" while at college. Now the government is trying to capture young Charlie and harness her powerful firestarting skills as a weapon.
--stephenking.com]]>
564 Stephen King Delores 5 3.92 1980 Firestarter
author: Stephen King
name: Delores
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at: 2019/11/23
date added: 2019/11/23
shelves:
review:
I read this years ago and fancied reading it again. Still fantastic.
]]>
Small Great Things 41021501
Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy's counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other's trust, and come to see that what they've been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn't offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.]]>
510 Jodi Picoult 034554496X Delores 5 4.38 2016 Small Great Things
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Delores
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2019/11/23
date added: 2019/11/23
shelves:
review:
Magnificent. And such a great twist at the end. love.
]]>
Washington Black 38140077
When his master's eccentric brother chooses him to be his manservant, Wash is terrified of the cruelties he is certain await him. But Christopher Wilde, or "Titch," is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor, and abolitionist.

He initiates Wash into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky; where two people, separated by an impossible divide, might begin to see each other as human; and where a boy born in chains can embrace a life of dignity and meaning. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Titch abandons everything to save him.

What follows is their flight along the eastern coast of America, and, finally, to a remote outpost in the Arctic, where Wash, left on his own, must invent another new life, one which will propel him further across the globe.

From the sultry cane fields of the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, Washington Black tells a story of friendship and betrayal, love and redemption, of a world destroyed and made whole again--and asks the question, what is true freedom?]]>
334 Esi Edugyan 0525521429 Delores 4 3.93 2018 Washington Black
author: Esi Edugyan
name: Delores
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2019/11/21
date added: 2019/11/21
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises]]> 24407979 A charming, warmhearted novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller A Man Called Ove.

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is told with the same comic accuracy and beating heart as Fredrik Backman’s bestselling debut novel, A Man Called Ove. It is a story about life and death and one of the most important human rights: the right to be different.]]>
340 Fredrik Backman 1444775839 Delores 0 currently-reading 4.02 2013 My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Delores
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/10/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
The Snow Child 33597976 423 Eowyn Ivey Delores 5 4.10 2012 The Snow Child
author: Eowyn Ivey
name: Delores
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2019/10/29
date added: 2019/10/29
shelves:
review:
I loved this book. When I was a little girl I loved Hans Christian Anderson tales. This book is a fairy tale for grownups. I couldn't put it down. I love the outdoors myself and felt invested. xx Love
]]>
Nine Perfect Strangers 39280445 Could ten days at a health resort really change you forever?

These nine perfect strangers are about to find out...

Nine people gather at a remote health resort. Some are here to lose weight, some are here to get a reboot on life, some are here for reasons they can’t even admit to themselves. Amidst all of the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten days might involve some real work. But none of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be.

Frances Welty, the formerly best-selling romantic novelist, arrives at Tranquillum House nursing a bad back, a broken heart, and an exquisitely painful paper cut. She’s immediately intrigued by her fellow guests. Most of them don’t look to be in need of a health resort at all. But the person that intrigues her most is the strange and charismatic owner/director of Tranquillum House. Could this person really have the answers Frances didn’t even know she was seeking? Should Frances put aside her doubts and immerse herself in everything Tranquillum House has to offer—or should she run while she still can?

It’s not long before every guest at Tranquillum House is asking exactly the same question.

Combining all of the hallmarks that have made Liane Moriarty's writing a go-to for anyone looking for wickedly smart, page-turning fiction that will make you laugh and gasp, Nine Perfect Strangers once again shows why she is a master of her craft.]]>
453 Liane Moriarty 1250069823 Delores 3 3.53 2018 Nine Perfect Strangers
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Delores
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2019/10/27
date added: 2019/10/27
shelves:
review:
It was ok, it wont change your life but I read it all the way.
]]>
Absalom, Absalom! 373755 316 William Faulkner 0679732187 Delores 0 currently-reading 3.98 1936 Absalom, Absalom!
author: William Faulkner
name: Delores
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1936
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/10/13
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Tyrannicide Brief: The Story of the Man Who Sent Charles I to the Scaffold]]> 129520
Geoffrey Robertson, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer, provides a vivid new reading of the tumultuous Civil War years, exposing long-hidden truths: that the King was guilty as charged, that his execution was necessary to establish the sovereignty of Parliament, that the regicide trials were rigged and their victims should be seen as national heroes.

John Cooke sacrificed his own life to make tyranny a crime. His trial of Charles I, the first trial of a head of state for waging war on his own people, became a forerunner of the trials of Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milosevic, and Saddam Hussein. This is a superb work of history that casts a revelatory light on some of the most important issues of our time.]]>
429 Geoffrey Robertson 1400044510 Delores 0 to-read 4.22 2005 The Tyrannicide Brief: The Story of the Man Who Sent Charles I to the Scaffold
author: Geoffrey Robertson
name: Delores
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/10/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation]]> 1200411 407 Susan Williams 0141026138 Delores 0 currently-reading 4.04 2007 Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation
author: Susan Williams
name: Delores
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/10/11
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
I'll Give You the Sun 20820994
Years later, they are barely speaking. Something has happened to change the twins in different yet equally devastating ways... but then Jude meets an intriguing, irresistible boy and a mysterious new mentor. The early years are Noah's to tell; the later years are Jude's. But they each have only half the story, and if they can only find their way back to one another, they'll have a chance to remake their world.

This radiant, award-winning novel from the acclaimed author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.

Printz Award Winner Stonewall Honor Book.]]>
371 Jandy Nelson 0803734964 Delores 0 to-read 4.14 2014 I'll Give You the Sun
author: Jandy Nelson
name: Delores
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/10/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Ask Again, Yes 42201996
Ask Again, Yes is a moving novel about two families, the bond between their children, a tragedy that reverberates over four decades, the daily intimacies of marriage, and the power of forgiveness.]]>
388 Mary Beth Keane 1982106980 Delores 4 3.92 2019 Ask Again, Yes
author: Mary Beth Keane
name: Delores
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/10/11
date added: 2019/10/11
shelves:
review:

]]>
'Round Midnight 30753569
In a choreographic tour de force, Laura McBride twirls four women through a Las Vegas nightclub, turning their separate lives into a suspenseful, intricate dance of mothers, daughters, wives, and lovers.

The One Who Falls in June hires a charismatic black man to sing at her club, but her fast-paced lifestyle runs aground as racial tensions mount.

The One Who Gets Honorata leaves the Philippines as a mail-order bride, then strikes it rich in the Midnight Room.

The One Whose Heart Is Engracia finds bad luck in the Midnight Room and becomes enmeshed in Honorata’s secrets when she confronts a man with a gun.

The One Who Always Coral struggles with her mysterious past until a desire to help Engracia steers her to the Midnight Room.

Wise and heartbreaking, jubilant and loving, ’Round Midnight is about the intensity and intimacy of four women’s lives, lives that are connected by secrets, courage, tragedies, and small acts of kindness. This brilliantly conceived, passionately written novel will resonate long after you turn the final page.]]>
384 Laura McBride 1501157787 Delores 4 A great book 3.85 2017 'Round Midnight
author: Laura McBride
name: Delores
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2019/10/08
date added: 2019/10/08
shelves:
review:
A great book
]]>
The Salt Path 38085814
They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.]]>
288 Raynor Winn 0241349648 Delores 5 3.97 2018 The Salt Path
author: Raynor Winn
name: Delores
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2019/10/08
date added: 2019/10/08
shelves:
review:
I loved this book so much. The true story of how people who have everything can lose it all become homeless and then find themselves on an epic wild camping trek across the Coast Path of England. Beautiful, touching and inspiring.
]]>
The Beekeeper of Aleppo 43124137 The unforgettable love story of a mother blinded by loss and her husband who insists on their survival as they undertake the Syrian refugee trail to Europe.

Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo--until the unthinkable happens. When all they care for is destroyed by war, they are forced to escape. But what Afra has seen is so terrible she has gone blind, and so they must embark on a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece towards an uncertain future in Britain. On the way, Nuri is sustained by the knowledge that waiting for them is Mustafa, his cousin and business partner, who has started an apiary and is teaching fellow refugees in Yorkshire to keep bees.

As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss, but dangers that would overwhelm the bravest of souls. Above all, they must journey to find each other again.

Moving, powerful, compassionate, and beautifully written, The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a testament to the triumph of the human spirit. It is the kind of book that reminds us of the power of storytelling.]]>
317 Christy Lefteri 1984821210 Delores 5 A wonderful book. 4.14 2019 The Beekeeper of Aleppo
author: Christy Lefteri
name: Delores
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2019/09/20
date added: 2019/09/20
shelves:
review:
A wonderful book.
]]>
11/22/63 10644930
In 2011, Jake Epping, an English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, sets out on an insane � and insanely possible � mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones, he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of Lindy Hopping, the sound of Elvis, and the taste of root beer.

In this haunting world, Jake falls in love with Sadie, a beautiful high school librarian. And, as the ominous date of 11/22/63 approaches, he encounters a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald...]]>
849 Stephen King 1451627289 Delores 5 4.33 2011 11/22/63
author: Stephen King
name: Delores
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2019/09/13
date added: 2019/09/13
shelves:
review:

]]>
Milkman 36047860
Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences.]]>
352 Anna Burns 0571338763 Delores 0 currently-reading 3.51 2018 Milkman
author: Anna Burns
name: Delores
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/08/25
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
Elizabeth Is Missing 18635113
Maud, an aging grandmother, is slowly losing her memory—and her grip on everyday life. Yet she refuses to forget her best friend Elizabeth, who she is convinced is missing and in terrible danger.

But no one will listen to Maud—not her frustrated daughter, Helen, not her caretakers, not the police, and especially not Elizabeth's mercurial son, Peter. Armed with handwritten notes she leaves for herself and an overwhelming feeling that Elizabeth needs her help, Maud resolves to discover the truth and save her beloved friend.

This singular obsession forms a cornerstone of Maud's rapidly dissolving present. But the clues she discovers seem only to lead her deeper into her past, to another unsolved disappearance: her sister, Sukey, who vanished shortly after World War II.

As vivid memories of a tragedy that occurred more than fifty years ago come flooding back, Maud discovers new momentum in her search for her friend. Could the mystery of Sukey's disappearance hold the key to finding Elizabeth?]]>
320 Emma Healey 0062309668 Delores 5 3.69 2014 Elizabeth Is Missing
author: Emma Healey
name: Delores
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2019/08/25
date added: 2019/08/25
shelves:
review:
I loved it. It really gave me an insight into the mind of dementia sufferers. I'm glad she found her sister and of course Elizabeth.
]]>
<![CDATA[The Seven Sisters (The Seven Sisters, #1)]]> 22609358
Eighty years earlier in Rio’s Belle Epoque of the 1920s, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into the aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is devising plans for an enormous statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to complete his vision. Izabela—passionate and longing to see the world—convinces her father to allow her to accompany him and his family to Europe before she is married. There, at Paul Landowski’s studio and in the heady, vibrant cafes of Montparnasse, she meets ambitious young sculptor Laurent Brouilly, and knows at once that her life will never be the same again.

In this sweeping, epic tale of love and loss—the first in a unique, spellbinding series of seven novels—Lucinda Riley showcases her storytelling talent like never before.]]>
460 Lucinda Riley 1476759901 Delores 3 4.16 2014 The Seven Sisters (The Seven Sisters, #1)
author: Lucinda Riley
name: Delores
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2019/07/15
date added: 2019/07/15
shelves:
review:
It was alright. Very lazy end though.
]]>
Take This Man: A Memoir 18775417
When he was three years old, Brando Kelly Ulloa was abandoned by his Mexican father. His mother, Maria, dreaming of a more exciting life, saw no reason for her son to live his life as a Mexican just because he started out as one. The life of “Brando Skyhorse,� the American Indian son of an incarcerated political activist, was about to begin.

Through a series of letters to Paul Skyhorse Johnson, a stranger in prison for armed robbery, Maria reinvents herself and her young son as American Indians in the colorful Mexican-American neighborhood of Echo Park, California. There Brando and his mother live with his acerbic grandmother and a rotating cast of surrogate fathers. It will be over thirty years before Brando begins to untangle the truth of his own past, when a surprise discovery online leads him to his biological father at last.

From an acclaimed, prize-winning novelist celebrated for his “indelible storytelling� (O, The Oprah Magazine), this extraordinary literary memoir captures a son’s single-minded search for a father wherever he can find one, and is destined to become a classic.]]>
272 Brando Skyhorse 1439170878 Delores 0 to-read 3.74 2014 Take This Man: A Memoir
author: Brando Skyhorse
name: Delores
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Fives and Twenty-Fives 20613654
Fives and twenty-fives mark the measure of a marine's life in the road repair platoon. Dispatched to fill potholes on the highways of Iraq, the platoon works to assure safe passage for citizens and military personnel. Their mission lacks the glory of the infantry, but in a war where every pothole contains a hidden bomb, road repair brings its own danger.

Lieutenant Donavan leads the platoon, painfully aware of his shortcomings and isolated by his rank. Doc Pleasant, the medic, joined for opportunity, but finds his pride undone as he watches friends die. And there's Kateb, known to the Americans as Dodge, an Iraqi interpreter whose love of American culture-from hip-hop to the dog-eared copy of Huck Finn he carries-is matched only by his disdain for what Americans are doing to his country.

Returning home, they exchange one set of decisions and repercussions for another, struggling to find a place in a world that no longer knows them. A debut both transcendent and rooted in the flesh, Fives and Twenty-Fives is a deeply necessary novel.]]>
380 Michael Pitre 162040754X Delores 0 to-read 4.08 2014 Fives and Twenty-Fives
author: Michael Pitre
name: Delores
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Beartown (Beartown, #1) 33413128
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.]]>
432 Fredrik Backman Delores 0 to-read 4.27 2016 Beartown (Beartown, #1)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Delores
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
An American Marriage 33590210
This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.]]>
308 Tayari Jones 1616201347 Delores 5 3.90 2018 An American Marriage
author: Tayari Jones
name: Delores
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2019/07/08
date added: 2019/07/08
shelves:
review:
I loved this story. Your heart breaks for their relationship. I liked the main characters and hoped for a successful conclusion.
]]>
<![CDATA[A Lovely Way to Burn (Plague Times, #1)]]> 18743565
A Lovely Way to Burn is the first outbreak in the Plague Times trilogy. Chilling, tense and completely compelling, it's Louise Welsh writing at the height of her powers.]]>
368 Louise Welsh 1848546610 Delores 4 3.31 2014 A Lovely Way to Burn (Plague Times, #1)
author: Louise Welsh
name: Delores
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2019/07/02
date added: 2019/07/02
shelves:
review:
It was a good easy read. All about a plague decimating humanity. It's set in London so made it very close to home. Quiet tense. I read it in one day.
]]>
Last Man in Tower 12464383 421 Aravind Adiga 1848875185 Delores 0 currently-reading 3.55 2011 Last Man in Tower
author: Aravind Adiga
name: Delores
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/05/22
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
Speak To Me Of Love 2884923
There she found the sense of importance that eluded her among the haughty aristocrats who attended her glittering balls at Overton House and mocked her maliciously behind their fans. There "Queen Bea" wielded a real and heady power to build at Bonnington's an empire that was an opulent reflection in microcosm of that other monarch, Victoria's far-flung domain. For Bea, business became an opiate to dull the pain of William's failure as a husband and flight from her bed.]]>
276 Dorothy Eden 0340165650 Delores 5 3.75 1971 Speak To Me Of Love
author: Dorothy Eden
name: Delores
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1971
rating: 5
read at: 2019/05/06
date added: 2019/05/06
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians, #1)]]> 16085481
When Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home, long drives to explore the island, and quality time with the man she might one day marry. What she doesn't know is that Nick's family home happens to look like a palace, that she'll ride in more private planes than cars, and that with one of Asia's most eligible bachelors on her arm, Rachel might as well have a target on her back.

Initiated into a world of dynastic splendor beyond imagination, Rachel meets Astrid, the It Girl of Singapore society; Eddie, whose family practically lives in the pages of the Hong Kong socialite magazines; and Eleanor, Nick's formidable mother, a woman who has very strong feelings about who her son should—and should not—marry.

Uproarious, addictive, and filled with jaw-dropping opulence, Crazy Rich Asians is an insider's look at the Asian JetSet; a perfect depiction of the clash between old money and new money; between Overseas Chinese and Mainland Chinese; and a fabulous novel about what it means to be young, in love, and gloriously, crazily rich.]]>
403 Kevin Kwan 0385536976 Delores 0 currently-reading 3.91 2013 Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians, #1)
author: Kevin Kwan
name: Delores
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/27
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society]]> 39832183 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE ON NETFLIX - A remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German Occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name.

"I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers." January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she's never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb...

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society's members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.]]>
291 Mary Ann Shaffer 1984801813 Delores 0 to-read 4.27 2008 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
author: Mary Ann Shaffer
name: Delores
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Hate U Give (The Hate U Give, #1)]]> 36862147 447 Angie Thomas Delores 0 to-read 4.57 2017 The Hate U Give (The Hate U Give, #1)
author: Angie Thomas
name: Delores
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Rage of Angels 43328 512 Sidney Sheldon 0006178731 Delores 0 currently-reading 3.96 1980 Rage of Angels
author: Sidney Sheldon
name: Delores
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>