Reviews by Gwen C. (Clearfield, PA)

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The Lamplighter's Bookshop
The Lamplighter's Bookshop
by Sophie Austin
Lamplighter’s Bookshop (5/18/2025)
I enjoyed this book, and initially thought it was above the standard fare, i.e. the sense of the bookshop “helping “ Evelyn; William correcting quotes, and Naomi’s advice from her mother. And who doesn’t enjoy the idea of improving a bookstore? The villain Violet was …more
The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant
The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant
by Liza Tully
The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant (3/12/2025)
The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant

What a rollicking fun mystery as the delightful title portends! With renowned and snooty Aubrey Merritt and inexperienced but eager Olivia as the awkward crime solving duo, this novel rolls along at an excellent pace. …more
Serial Killer Games
Serial Killer Games
by Kate Posey
Serial Killer Games (1/16/2025)
Serial Killer Games
by Kate Posey

   What a fabulous book! I'm already casting the movie in my mind. The book opens within a crowded corporate building elevator with people discussing "The Paper Pusher" who supposedly is responsible for 9 deaths by falling from …more
Songs of Summer
Songs of Summer
by Jane L. Rosen
Songs of Summer (1/16/2025)
This romance novel had a lot going for it: clever "tracts" of music instead of chapter names, witty conversations (especially regarding music), an introduction (for me) to Fire Island. Overall, a charming book with maybe too much being sorted out: girl looking for birth …more
Jane and Dan at the End of the World
Jane and Dan at the End of the World
by Colleen Oakley
Quite the Caper (11/22/2024)
The title was a little off putting but the book -fantastic! Even the chapters grouped under specific headings and the bomb pictures added to the suspense and delight. Jane, long married, tired of influencers' dictates, could have been me speaking. Husband Dan's …more
Going Home
Going Home: A Novel
by Tom Lamont
Going Home (11/6/2024)
This book grew on me. Teo's and Ben's up and down friendship-with its occasional hostility was hard for me to grasp. Teo was good and Ben was obnoxious it seemed. Sybil was intriguing )I loved "she was a glanced when it came to mirrors.") as was Joel's dead mother Lia. Vic …more
Follow the Stars Home
Follow the Stars Home
by Diane C. McPhail
Follow the Stars Home (5/16/2024)
How could a book that had a historic river adventure on an inaugural steam & paddle boat including dangerous waterfalls, birth, continuing earthquakes, a fire, river geysers, Indians and needy people turned away be tedious? I blame narrator Lydia with her mind flitting …more
The House on Biscayne Bay
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
The House on Biscayne Bay (1/5/2024)
Excellent setting for a satisfying novel: Splendid Marbrisa is built in southern Florida where the well described (and fascinating) mansion has beautiful views, swampy alligators and snakes, and unexpected deaths. I found Anna's story to be much more compelling than Carmen' …more
The Divorcees
The Divorcees
by Rowan Beaird
The Divorcees (11/12/2023)
The Divorcees by Rowan Beaird is a splendid novel. I was expecting a cliched telling of various women and their problems (like an old, stereotyped B movie) and instead I got a pulsating, well written plot with two amazing characters: awkward literate and movie lover misfit …more
Delicate Condition
Delicate Condition
by Danielle Valentine
A Delicate Condition (7/12/2023)
Danielle Valentines's book Delicate Condition is unnerving, engrossing, and downright scary. The cover mentions Rosemary's Baby. Yes, Rosemary's Baby on steroids with Gaslight included. We're transported into the hurly burly current world of overaggressive media followers, …more
The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise
The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise
by Colleen Oakley
The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise (10/7/2022)
This delightful, intelligent, charming, laugh out loud caper grabbed me from the first few pages. This deft take on “Thelma and Louise” begins with 21 year old injured and angry Tanner squaring off against 84 year old injured and feisty Louise. Amazingly enough I identified …more
The Empire of Dirt
The Empire of Dirt: A Novel
by Francesca Manfredi
The Empire of Dirt (6/9/2022)
Although the title is less than intriguing, this novel certainly is. I was immediately drawn into Francesca Manfredi's story of a twelve year old girl's maturation balanced against uneasy family dynamics, a strange curse hovering over her home, "the blind house," and the …more
Flesh & Blood
Flesh & Blood: Reflections on Infertility, Family, and Creating a Bountiful Life: A Memoir
by N. West Moss
Flesh & Blood (8/13/2021)
I was surprised how readable and relatable this book is despite my life experiences being completely different. No wallowing in self pity - just a straightforward account of her miscarriages and underlying disease, leading to surgery, supplemented by musings on nature, life/ …more
Ruthie Fear
Ruthie Fear: A Novel
by Maxim Loskutoff
Ruthie Fear (5/31/2020)
This is not the book to read during a pandemic, recession, rioting time. I felt it was a quasi Jungle Book/HillBilly Elegy take on motherless Montana native Ruthie Fear, daughter of hardscrabble Rutherford.
From her early years she has a mighty battle against nature, others, …more
Miss Austen
Miss Austen
by Gill Hornby
Miss Austen (2/14/2020)
What a wonderful step into the world of Cassandra Austen - and sister Jane. I was thoroughly delighted with Hornby's rendering of Jane and Cassie's lives. I have read other "Austen-add on's" and this one -by far- captures (what I perceive to be) the sisters' relationship - …more
Patsy
Patsy: A Novel
by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Patsy (6/11/2019)
I knew nothing about this book other than it had a bright cover when I packed it and headed out on a trip. From the beginning I was drawn in. The Jamaican dialect, daughter Tru, balancing wants and needs, and Patsy's plight(s). I was unsure how my companions would feel …more
The Family Tabor
The Family Tabor
by Cherise Wolas
The Family Tabor (4/14/2018)
Cherise Wolas has done it again. Her strong, evocative writing immediately pulled me in. The Family Tabor explores the paths Harry, Roma, Phoebe, Camille and Simons' lives are taking…and the paths they NEED to take. Memory suppression, avoiding acknowledging an inner hunger, …more
Other People's Houses
Other People's Houses
by Abbi Waxman
Other People's Houses (11/25/2017)
I have mixed feelings regarding this book. Opening it I was delighted to see the cast of characters (always a plus) and then, joy of joys, a neighborhood map! Frances Bloom, the linchpin of the book, is immediately identifiable as "the reliable one" whose thought processes – …more
Wonder Valley
Wonder Valley
by Ivy Pochoda
Wonder Valley (7/2/2017)
Here is Los Angeles in intimate detail. Like LaLa Land the story begins with an agonizing traffic jam. Unlike LaLa Land we are quickly drawn into a grey world of disparate characters struggling to run away from their unhappy pasts.

The narrative fluctuates between 2006 and 20 …more
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby
by Cherise Wolas
Te Resurrection of Joan Ashby (5/21/2017)
Wow! And double wow! This book made everything else I've read lately seem simplistic, dull, unimaginable and shallow. Just as Joan's husband quizzed her as to HOW she could create what she did, I found myself asking the same of the author. Simply the most worthy book of …more
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