Over the past several years I’ve been slowly but surely making my way through the Kowalski Family books by Shannon Stacey. They cover the romantic lives of the Kowalski cousins in New England and the people in their lives. I started reading these because Ms. Stacey writes the kind of straightforward, serviceable romance novels that let the reader slow down, read about some characters who aren’t too far from yourself and people you know, but just far enough to be fiction, and have a little […]
Not as Illuminating as the Title Would Suggest
Marie-Laure is a blind Parisian girl whose father works at the Museum of Natural History. When she goes blind at age 6, her father builds a to-scale model of their neighborhood so she can learn her way around gradually. Then the Nazis occupy Paris. They flee to Saint-Malo, where they find refuge with extended relatives, Madame Manec and shell-shocked Etienne. Oh, and Marie-Laure’s father carries a jewel with him that may or may not be magical but is most certainly valuable, which is sought tirelessly by a German jeweler, von Rumpel. Meanwhile, […]
Underwhelmingly Beautiful Ruins
This book came highly recommended to me by more than one friend, and I went in with high hopes. I am sure it suffered by following the superb Hild in my reading queue. But here I am a few days later and still I can only muster a “meh.” Here’s the summary: In the early 60s, in a sleepy little Italian fishing village, Pasquale dreams of upgrading his “Hotel Adequate View” to a resort along the lines of neighboring Cinque Terre. One day a beautiful American actress […]