Nicola Marter has psychometric powers. This means that when she touches an object, she can see glimpses of whoever’s owned it or touched it before. Her grandfather, who escaped from Russia, has the same powers and always admonished her to keep the gift hidden, which she does, even from her boss Sebastian, an eccentric and successful antiquities dealer. Yet when a woman, Margaret Ross, comes to them with a wooden carving which she wants authenticated, claiming that it was once owned by Empress Catherine of […]
#ReadWomen1964
For the 2014 Cannonball Read, 50 of my 52 reviews will be of books written by women. I am doing this as part of the #ReadWomen2014 campaign and as a way to mark my upcoming 50th birthday. Among the books to be reviewed, I have decided to include a book written by a woman in the year I was born (1964), as well as for each subsequent 10 year anniversary of my birth. First up: 1964. I came upon this novel while searching for something […]
Giant bugs, tainted corn, and half-cannonball!
Recently, bunnybean and I discovered an awesome new (newish?) book store really close to our house. It’s on a weird little side street, and we had no idea there was a whole little world down there — coffee shop, Lebanese cafe, and a book store. And we found out that Sasha and Malia shop there, and that their dad does, too. Really, it’s a great little store. One of my favorite things there is that all of the employees make notes on all of the […]
The Bennets Are the MacGuffin
Longbourn by Jo Baker is proof that new work based in an homage can be so much more than the wish-fulfillment and bizarre tangents of fan fiction. A lot of literature provides alternate perspectives of a known works and Baker took Pride and Prejudice, a novel known so well by so many, and used it as a starting point for an interesting and compelling new story. The Bennets and their love lives are the MacGuffin to hang the narrative upon, but what Baker shows the […]