Allure of Deceit

Ordinary, everyday relationships offer more intrigue than a murder case in Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. In small Crosby, Maine, ...

At the start of the COVID pandemic, in the midst of lockdown, a family is devastated after the loss of an infant daughter in  The Burrow by...

Real Americans  by Rachel Khong is a family saga – an odd mixture of fantasy, suspense and speculative fiction that toys with genre and sens...

  Flags on the Bayou by James Lee Burke is set in the fall of 1863. Much of Louisiana is occupied by the Union Army. The Civil War rages, an...

  Wolf at the Table, t he family saga by Adam Rapp spans 1951 to 2010. A withdrawn, hardworking  veteran of World War II and a devout Catho...

Animals exhibit strong character and distinctive points of view for those who are most perceptive. Pets narrate two recent books, Buster   b...

  The words "automated" and "autonomy," though related, have wildly contrasting meanings. Automation is work performed b...

Imagination can separate or connect individuals, leading to resentment or harmony - as suggested by  the enticing theme of Cristina Henríque...

  In The Fiction Writer by Jillian Cantor, Olivia Fitzgerald is a published author, but her second novel failed and her agent struggles to s...

  The Peacock and the Sparrow by I.S. Berry is set in Bahrain in 2011-12, with the Shiite-majority population energized by the Arab Spring, ...

  Titus Crown, elected first black sheriff of the fictional Virginia county of Charon in All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby, has years of e...

  Many will give up on Dayswork by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel for its odd quality, a hodgepodge of observations and facts mostly ab...

The Trackers by Charles Frazier has a dual personality – the story’s beginning is slow as a young, ambivalent protagonist arrives in Dawes, ...

The Disenchantment by Celia Bell starts off slowly despite the setting of 1680 France and volatile politics. Characters make the mistake of ...

In The Lie Maker by Linwood Barclay, Boston journalist and novelist Jack Givins is down on his luck. He’s fired before even starting a new j...

  Small towns are miserable places when they let the bullies take control. The bullies are unhappy and yearn for everyone to feel the same. ...

  Seven people happen to be in Lindbergh’ s Pharmacy on the evening of June 24 in the small college town of Athens, Georgia, when a would-be...

In Beyond That, The Sea by Laura Spence-Ash, Londoners Reg and Millie Thompson disagree but ultimately decide to protect their daughter at ...

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang is a provocative examination of race relations and career ambitions in the publishing industry that lead to ruth...