A Season of Leaves by Catherine Law

Wartime romances are not generally on my list of must-reads. I expect schmaltzy love stories between doll-faced maidens and battle-hardened heroes. However, Catherine Law is a first time novelist and I’m a sucker for debut novels, so I agreed to take a look at A Season of Leaves. I found a vivid and haunting novel [...]

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Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx

If you’re looking for quirky stories about middle-class families experiencing city life, then don’t look between the covers of Close Range. Close Range is ostensibly a selection of tales about Wyoming country life, but there’s nothing picturesque on offer. The landscape is vast, the seasons are unforgiving, the work and the workers are hard. Life [...]

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The State of Me by Nasim Marie Jafry

The State of Me by Nasim Marie Jafry is an interesting look at the debilitating illness, ME (Myalgic encephalomyelitis). The narrator, Helen, is struck down with a mystery virus during her student year out in France. Exhausted and sick she comes back to her home in Scotland, where she undergoes extensive tests, and faces scepticism [...]

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Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer by Jane Brocket

Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer by Jane Brocket remembers and recreates some of the wonderful foods found in classic children’s fiction. It’s a treat of a book, but a word of caution: after each chapter I found myself RAVENOUS - at one point even madly craving a roasted egg.
Despite the title, Cherry Cake and Ginger [...]

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The Divorce Party by Laura Dave

First off, I should say there’s a slim chance that I can give you an accurate flavour of this novel. The plot, the writing style, the characterisation, have to be experienced firsthand. Whatever I say now will be a poor substitute, because in this book there is some exceptional, dare I say, magical writing.
Laura Dave [...]

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Coming Up On Vulpes Libris

Plenty of treats in store this week: Stalin, billionaire divorces, a missing athlete and an exciting two-part feature on graphic novels.
Monday - Jackie profiles Roadrunner, a serious novel about a star athlete whose injury and disappearance has a severe impact on his family.
Tuesday - Kirsty introduces the upcoming sub-series “Writing Stalin” with her very own [...]

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Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult

The Thursday Soapbox will be back next week.
Songs of the Humpback Whale was Jodi Picoult’s first ever novel, released when she was just 26, and allegedly purchased by the publisher for the sum of $3000. Before reading this novel, all I knew of Jodi Picoult (apparently pronounced pee-KOE) was that she was a multi-million-selling novelist [...]

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Coming up on Vulpes Libris

A bit of a Young Adult theme emerging in our reviewing choices this week. We also have an interview with Katie Fforde, a dash of fatal familial insomnia and a sprinkling of humpback whales.
Monday: Kirsty has an exciting interview with best-selling novelist, Katie Fforde.
Tuesday: Leena raves about Finding Cassie Crazy by Jaclyn Moriarty, a YA [...]

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Senseless by Stona Fitch

Adapted from my review on the TRP blog. I feel slightly strange reviewing a novel by one of my Two Ravens Press stablemates, but here goes…

Senseless by Stona Fitch is a literary thriller originally released in the U.S. just days after the September 11th terrorist attacks. The main character is Eliott Gast, an American economist [...]

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Coming Up On Vulpes Libris

We have something of a mixed bag coming up this week. Ferrets, unlovable heroines, torture. . . but thankfully not all in the same book.
Monday: Jackie reviews a modern mystery with the misleadingly cute title of Nothing to Fear But Ferrets.
Tuesday: For the next installment of her Russian series, Kirsty writes a continuation to her [...]

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