Jane Litte's Blog, page 7

Review: Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum

INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER * NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER
INDIE NEXT PICK * Debutiful Most Anticipated Book of 2024 * Powell’s Pick of the Month

The Korean smash hit available for the first time in English, a slice-of-life novel for readers of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library and Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of AJ Fikry.

Yeongju is burned out. She did everything she was supposed to: go to school, marry a decent man, get a respectable job. Then it all fell apart. In a leap of faith, Yeongj...

REVIEW: Saving Susy Sweetchild by Barbara Hambly

Welcome to Hollywood of the 1920s: a world filled with glamour, fake names . . . and the occasional felony!

July, 1924. After nine months of living in Hollywood and working as a companion to her beautiful silent-movie star sister-in-law, young British widow Emma Blackstone is settling into her new role: doctoring film scenarios whenever the regular scenarist is overwhelmed with work, which seems to be most of the time.

Shoots for the Western movie Our Tiny Miracle are in full swing, with littl...

REVIEW: Worst Case Scenario by TJ Newman

The International Nuclear Event Scale has seven levels.

Level 1: Anomaly

Level 2: Incident

Level 3: Serious incident

Level 4: Accident with local consequences

Level 5: Accident with wider consequences

Level 6: Serious accident

Level 7: Major accident

There are only two INES level 7s on record: Fukushima and Chernobyl. There has never been a level 8.

Yet.

Dear TJ Newman,

I enjoyed your previous books, Falling and Drowning, so I was keen to read your latest release, Worst Case Scenari...

Open Thread for Readers for September 2024

Got a book you want to talk about? Frustrated with a book or series? In love with a new one? Found a buried treasure? An issue that keeps popping up in the books you are reading? Just want to chat about stuff in general? Post about it here!

REVIEW: The Phoenix and the Firebird by Alexis Kossiakoff and Scott Forbes Crawford

A bullet-riddled train staggers into a Chinese station in 1920, and Lucy discovers that her father, a Russian officer, has been kidnapped. A mysterious feather guides her into a dangerous realm of magic and monsters to rescue him. But she knows she can’t take on the quest alone. With her friend Su, a girl as quick with words as with her fists, the two uncover the terrifying truth: a notorious warlord has seized Lucy’s father. Worse, he is about to invade their city. The friends brave the crimi...

REVIEW: The Traitor’s Daughter: Captured by Nazis, Pursued by the KGB, My Mother’s Odyssey to Freedom from Her Secret Past by Roxana Spicer

The masterful narration of a daughter’s decades-long quest to understand her extraordinary mother, who was born in Lenin’s Soviet Union, served as a combat soldier in the Red Army, and endured three years of Nazi captivity—but never revealed her darkest secrets.

As a child, Roxana Spicer would sometimes wake to the sound of the Red Army choir. She would tip-toe downstairs to find her mother, cigarette in one hand and Black Russian in the other, singing along. Roxana would keep her company, a...

REVIEW: The Dragon from Chicago by Pamela D. Toler

For fans of unheralded women’s stories, a captivating look at Sigrid Schultz—one of the earliest reporters to warn Americans of the rising threat of the Nazi regime

“No other American correspondent in Berlin knew so much of what was going on behind the scene as did Sigrid Schultz.” — William L. Shirer, author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

We are facing an alarming upsurge in the spread of misinformation and attempts by powerful figures to discredit facts so they can seize control o...

REVIEW: Two Doors Down by Mary Hargreaves

Sometimes love is closer than you think.

Career woman Eve is on the brink of a major promotion. So what if her personal life is a disaster — her online dating app constantly matches her with the most awful dates. And her best friend’s chaotic love life is a constant drama she just doesn’t need. Anyway, she has everything she needs at work.

If only her neighbour from two doors down would stop his cat getting into her house!

Laid-back Adam has everything he needs. A dedicated tutor, he h...

Review: Darkness by Eden Winters

Darkness follows Lieutenant Morrisey James.

As an Atlanta PD detective, Morrisey understands the worst atrocities the city has to offer—or believes he does. His recent cases present something new: a killer who unleashes unbridled terror in victims before moving in for the kill. Morrisey has an edge, though, the terrifying ability to gain flashes of insight from each victim.

Most people assume Farren Austin is a shallow, pretty boy, but he’s so much more. Agent Austin keeps secrets as part of th...

REVIEW: The Berlin Apartment by Bryn Turnbull

This sweeping love story follows a young couple whose lives are irrevocably changed when they’re separated overnight by the construction of the Berlin Wall.

Berlin 1961: When Uli Neumann proposes to Lise Bauer, she has every reason to accept. He offers her love, respect, and a life beyond the strict bounds of the East German society in which she was raised — which she longs to leave more than anything. But only two short days after their engagement, Lise and Uli are torn violently apart when...