The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell – Audio ARC from PRH audio and Knopf for an honest review Book Blurb: The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the...
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng – 400 pages ARC from PRH audio for an honest review Book Blurb: Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng: Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a...
Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro– 240 pages ARC from Knopf and PRH audio for an honest review Book Blurb: SIGNAL FIRES opens on a summer night in 1985. Three teenagers have been drinking. One of them gets behind the wheel of a car, and, in an instant, everything on...
Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese – 336 pages ARC from St. Martins and Netgalley for an honest review Book Blurb: Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese: Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with...
Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe – 224 pages Book Blurb: Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe: Felicia “Fe Fe” Stevens is living with her vigilantly loving mother and older teenaged brother, whom she adores, in building 4950 of...
The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz – 448 pages ARC from Celadon and Netgalley for an honest review Book Blurb: The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz follows the story of the wealthy, New York City-based Oppenheimer family, from the first meeting of parents Salo and...
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters is a novel not to be missed. I went into the book completely blind, and it served me well. I still can’t believe this is a debut.When Ruthie, the youngest in a large Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia goes missing, her family is wrought with grief. Joe, one of the protagonists suffers the most as he was the last person with Ruthie. His life is shattered in many ways, both physically and emotionally. Not a day goes by where he doesn’t feel guilt and/or shame for his behavior. We learn early on that Ruthie was taken by a woman unable to hold a pregnancy. She is overprotective to a fault for fears of Ruthie (now Norma) getting hurt or recognized. Norma has dreams that relate to her family, but she was too young at four years old to have any real memories of her earlier family. Norma’s parents completely ignore her dreams by shushing them away.There is a lot of grief in this book, but there is also many lessons about forgiveness and hope. Peters also touches on alcoholism, discrimination, and terminal illness. At its heart, this book centers around the meaning of family, the hope of reunion and the ties that bond one person to another.I will be first in line to pick up Peters next book. The writing was exquisite.@amandapetersauthor #Catapult 📘 Have you ever been berry 🫐🍓 picking? #newbookreview#bookreview#bookreader#TBR #addtoTBR #booklover#bookstagram#goodbookfairy#goodbookfairybookreview ... See MoreSee Less