BookBrowse | Book Reviews and Recommendations

Reviews by Janet H. (Utica, NY)

Mrs. Plansky's Revenge
by Spencer Quinn

Revenge is Sweet (5/3/2023)

As a senior citizen I enjoy reading books about other mature adults who don't let age limit their lives. That certainly happens in this book and the story of Mrs. Plansky's adventure kept me engaged. It is a light and fun story about a serious and tough issue - internet …more

The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
by Brad Meltzer, Josh Mensch

History Brought to Life (1/2/2023)

As an avid reader of both histories and mysteries, I found this book both informative and exciting and just what I was looking for with a true story as engrossing as fiction (no dry lists of dates and battles here). Even though I have a good knowledge about the people and …more

The Last Russian Doll
by Kristen Loesch

Russian Dolls (10/25/2022)

I enjoy novels with multiple timelines, Russian history, and mysteries so this book was a delightful read. When I saw the title I thought I would be reading about the nesting dolls common in Russia. While the dolls in the book are a different type, the story gave me the …more

The Blind Light: A Novel
by Stuart Evers

The Blind Light (10/30/2020)

This book takes us through 60 years of history, focusing not so much on the facts of the events, but the emotions these events stirred in the people living through them. It begins in the present and then goes back in time to tell the story of two families living in the …more

I Want You to Know We're Still Here: A Post-Holocaust Memoir
by Esther Safran Foer

I Want You To Know (12/2/2019)

I have read extensively on the Holocaust and appreciate the different perspective this book offers on the horrors and suffering experienced by so many. Esther Safran Foer doesn't offer a neat package of her parent's lives during the years of World War 2 and its aftermath. …more

Stay with Me
by Ayobami Adebayo

Stay with Me (9/16/2017)

Set in Nigeria, this book describes a culture very different than my own. However those differences were forgotten quickly as the story describes emotions--hope, joy, grief, anger, loss, love-- that are universally understood. The author switches perspectives between two of …more

Letters to the Lost
by Iona Grey

Great Cast of Characters (4/4/2015)

Letters to the Lost is a novel of love and loss, of heartbreaking mistakes and ultimate redemption. Shifting between the present and the years of World War II we are caught up in the lives of people we learn to care about. There are a couple of almost too-obvious villains, …more

Resistance
by Owen Sheers

resistance (2/26/2008)

Stories of Nazi occupation in continental Europe are a staple of World War II literature. But what if...what if the allies had been defeated on D-Day? This book is an engrossing look at what that might look like. The author has the ability to bring the reader into the mind …more

BookBrowse Book Club

Death at the Sign of the Rook
by Kate Atkinson

Jackson Brodie returns in a gripping new mystery! Welcome to Rook Hall. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed.

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The Cover Girl
by Amy Rossi

Find them early enough, and they will always be her girls.

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