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Reviews by Kathy D. (Spotsylvania, VA)

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Ordinary Love: A Novel
by Marie Rutkoski

Ordinary love not so ordinary after all (4/14/2025)

Friends since fifth grade, Emily and Gen realize their love for one another in their senior year of high school. Their relationship changes over time, through misunderstandings, life choices, intimacy, friendships, guilt, and loss. After a years-long separation they cross …more

The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise
by Colleen Oakley

Filled with surprises! (11/10/2022)

I was drawn into this story from the very first chapter. The relationship between Tanner and Louise, generations apart, evolved from a frosty, almost hostile beginning, forced together through mutual need, to one of trust, where each felt drawn to confess their fears and …more

True Crime Story: A Novel
by Joseph Knox

True Crime Story is fiction. Or is it? (11/8/2021)

Although described as a novel, this engrossing story sure doesn't read like fiction! The title is what originally drew me to this book, and I was intrigued from the very first page. Mystery lovers will really enjoy this one. I loved it and appreciated the originality of the …more

Golden Child
by Claire Adam

A bit slow in the middle (11/6/2018)

After finishing this book, I realized why so much of the text in the middle of the book, which I found difficult to plod through, was necessary for background to understand the characters, what happened and why. I also got slowed down a bit by the cultural vocabulary. This …more

Happiness: The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After
by Heather Harpham

I loved this book! (7/5/2017)

This book grabbed my attention from the very beginning and never let go. Harpham has a gift with words, allowing us to know her thoughts and emotions in such a way that we, too, can feel her conflict, her joy, her turmoil, her fear. The choices she and her partner Brian had …more

The Gypsy Moth Summer
by Julia Fierro

Jam-packed with important issues (4/26/2017)

I had a difficult time getting into the story at first, but then the characters drew me in. My feelings about them changed as the story progressed. The more I read, the more anger I began to feel - angers towards some of the characters, and also towards societal attitudes …more

The Forgetting Time
by Sharon Guskin

Read this one all in one sitting! (11/28/2015)

"The Forgetting Time" drew me in from the start, and I couldn't put it down! The riveting storytelling and realistic characters you genuinely care about, challenge the reader to reconsider how we look at life, and how far we are willing to go and push our beliefs, when …more

BookBrowse Book Club

The Lilac People
by Milo Todd

For fans of All the Light We Cannot See, a poignant tale of a trans man’s survival in Nazi Germany and postwar Berlin.

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Lessons in Chemistry
by Bonnie Garmus

Praised by Parade and The New York Times Book Review, this debut features a 1960s scientist turned TV cooking star.

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Daughters of Shandong
by Eve J. Chung

Based on the author’s family story, comes an extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters’ escape from Taiwan.

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