I read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn a few years ago, and really liked it. For those of you unfamiliar with the book (or the subsequent movie), it’s essentially a thriller rooted in marriage difficulties, with lots of twists and turns. It was enormously successful when it came out, so much so that a movie…
As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust is another Flavia de Luce masterpiece by the prolific and always humble Alan Bradley: a Canadian author that we are all too proud to call our own. I think it’s safe to begin comparing Bradley to Alexander McCall Smith now; both create wonderful mystery novels with enduring female detectives that…
So, Landing Gear by Kate Pullinger has a really interesting premise: a man drops out of the sky, onto the roof of a woman’s car in a grocery store parking lot. He doesn’t just drop out of the sky magically, he’s actually falling from the landing gear of a plane, which he was stowed away…
I succeeded in something that very few others in this world have: I read the entire novel The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith without realizing that Robert Galbraith was a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling. Yes, I realize how impossible this feat seems to be, but I accomplished it, mainly through my inattention to detail and the…
More Alberta writers to love! That’s really how I should title every book review that I write on an Alberta-born book. People don’t typically see Alberta as the literary hot-spot that it truly is, but I’m hoping to change that by highlighting amazing books by Western writers that don’t get the attention they deserve. Lee…
I haven’t read much Ruth Rendell in my day (in fact, this may be the first book of hers I’ve ever read!), but her name is always mentioned alongside other major mystery novelists, so I knew I was in a for a good read when I picked up No Man’s Nightingale. If you enjoy Peter…
I never thought I would willingly pick up a book about the Civil War, mainly because the idea of it bores me. People may find this offensive, because granted, the various wars in our history are an important part of who we are today, but that doesn’t mean I need to spend my spare time…
“…how can a man be so headstrong about not asking for directions, and such a wimp about pain?” These, and other answers can be found in the collection of essays titled What I Meant to Say: the Private Lives of Men edited by Ian Brown. Although not all my questions about men were answered (which…
I am a big fan of Alexander McCall Smith. Granted, I’ve just started making my way through his most famous series, but I love it already, and I know there’s only months of delightful reading ahead of me when it comes to his novels. However, his foray into the ‘romance’ genre has left a little…
Have you ever attended the reading of a book you hadn’t read yet, and gotten a pre-conceived notion of what it was going to be like before you actually bought it? Or just based on the few pages the author reads to you, you think you already have a good idea of what the story…
Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes is a very dark book. It takes place in dark territories (the crumbling city of Detroit being the main setting), but it also delves into the darkest parts of people’s psyches and souls. It shows the dark side of everything: from the mediocre visual art industry, to the crude jokes…
A woman who is so obsessed with Michael Jackson she roasts her chicken on the ‘clean’ setting of her oven because she’s distracted by listening to his music, a man who wears a t-shirt that says “Thank you for Having Me” at a wedding, a married couple who met at a peace movement but have…
