The new novel from Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child is a searing tale about the way childhood trauma shapes and misshapes the life of the adult. At the center: a woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness READ MORE
Category: Book Review
BOOK REVIEW | BLOOD ON SNOW – JO NESBØ
From the internationally acclaimed author of the Harry Hole novels—a new, electrifying stand-alone thriller set in Oslo in the 1970s: the story of an unusually complicated contract killer—the perfectly sympathetic antihero—that is, as well, an edgy, almost lyrical meditation on death and love.This is the story of Olav: an extremely talented “fixer” whose unexpected READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | CRIME SEEN – KATE LINES
A criminal profiler, trained at Quantico, former Chief Superintendent of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Kate Lines recounts her remarkable story using pivotal cases she worked on in the course of her career. How does a farm girl from Ennismore enter a male-dominated field and become a top criminal profiler and groundbreaking leader? For READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD – JENNIFER EGAN
Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. With music pulsing on every page, A Visit from the Goon Squad READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | BLACK DOVE WHITE RAVEN – ELIZABETH WEIN
A new historical thriller masterpiece from New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Elizabeth Wein Emilia and Teo’s lives changed in a fiery, terrifying instant when a bird strike brought down the plane their stunt pilot mothers were flying. Teo’s mother died immediately, but Em’s survived, determined to raise Teo according to his late READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | SWAMPLANDIA! – KAREN RUSSELL
The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline — think Buddenbrooks set in the Florida Everglades — and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, is swiftly being encroached upon by a sophisticated competitor known as the World of Darkness. Ava, a resourceful but terrified twelve year old, must manage seventy gators and READ MORE
RELEASE DAY REVIEW | SOMEONE IS WATCHING – JOY FIELDING
A fast-paced, intense psychological thriller from an international bestselling author–Rear Window meets The Silent Wife. Â Â Bailey has it all. At least, she had it all–a job she loved as a high-powered investigator in a top Miami law firm, a gorgeous condo in a stylish downtown high rise, a handsome boyfriend, a sizeable inheritance. A READ MORE
![THE SUNDAY [BOOK & MOVIE] REVIEW | THE DROP - DENNIS LEHANE](https://i0.wp.com/www.raincityreads.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/3228f-21920693.jpg?resize=265%2C350&ssl=1)
THE SUNDAY [BOOK & MOVIE] REVIEW | THE DROP – DENNIS LEHANE
Dennis Lehane returns to the streets of Mystic River with this love story wrapped in a crime story wrapped in a journey of faith—the basis for the major motion picture The Drop, from Fox Searchlight Pictures directed by Michaël Roskam, screenplay by Dennis Lehane, and starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, and James Gandolfini.
RELEASE DAY REVIEW | HAUSFRAU – JILL ALEXANDER ESSBAUM
Anna Benz, an American in her late thirties, lives with her Swiss husband Bruno and their three young children in a postcard-perfect suburb of Zürich. Though she leads a comfortable, well-appointed life, Anna is falling apart inside. Adrift and increasingly unable to connect with the emotionally unavailable Bruno or even with her own thoughts and READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | THE ART OF LAINEY – PAULA STOKES
Soccer star Lainey Mitchell is gearing up to spend an epic summer with her amazing boyfriend, Jason, when he suddenly breaks up with her—no reasons, no warning, and in public no less! Lainey is more than crushed, but with help from her friend Bianca, she resolves to do whatever it takes to get Jason back. READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | THE HALF BROTHER – HOLLY LECRAW
A passionate, provocative story of complex family bonds and the search for identity set within the ivy-covered walls of a New England boarding school When Charlie Garrett arrives as a young teacher at the shabby-yet-genteel Abbott School, he finds a world steeped in privilege and tradition. Fresh out of college and barely older than READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | ONE MORE THING – B.J. NOVAK
B.J. Novak’s One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories is an endlessly entertaining, surprisingly sensitive, and startlingly original debut that signals the arrival of a brilliant new voice in American fiction. A boy wins a $100,000 prize in a box of Frosted Flakes—only to discover how claiming the winnings might unravel his family. A READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | ZEITOUN – DAVE EGGERS
The true story of one family, caught between America’s two biggest policy disasters: the war on terror and the response to Hurricane Katrina. Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun run a house-painting business in New Orleans. In August of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina approaches, Kathy evacuates with their four young children, leaving Zeitoun to watch over READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD – ANNE TYLER
From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author–now in the fiftieth year of her remarkable career–a brilliantly observed, joyful and wrenching, funny and true new novel that reveals, as only she can, the very nature of a family’s life. “It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon.” This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | JUST KIDS – PATTI SMITH
It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion, and initiation. Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer, and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography. Bound READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | MAISIE DOBBS – JACQUELINE WINSPEAR
Maisie Dobbs isn’t just any young housemaid. Through her own natural intelligence—and the patronage of her benevolent employers—she works her way into college at Cambridge. When World War I breaks out, Maisie goes to the front as a nurse. It is there that she learns that coincidences are meaningful and the truth elusive. After the READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | THE CUCKOO’S CALLING – ROBERT GALBRAITH
A brilliant debut mystery in a classic vein: Detective Cormoran Strike investigates a supermodel’s suicide. After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime READ MORE
RELEASE DAY REVIEW | IF I FALL, IF I DIE – MICHAEL CHRISTIE
A heartfelt and wondrous debut, by a supremely gifted and exciting new voice in fiction. Will has never been to the outside, at least not since he can remember. And he has certainly never gotten to know anyone other than his mother, a fiercely loving yet wildly eccentric agoraphobe who drowns in panic at READ MORE