The Sawbrook family is notorious throughout their part of northern Michigan. Founded by a beaver trapper in 1850, their clan had purchased large amounts of land along the Crow River for generations, for a variety of reasons as colorful as their history. Rhoda, the current matriarch, carried on the family tradition of bootlegging and other…
Beth Collins is a woman on a mission. A producer on the acclaimed TV news show Crisis Point, her instincts have been screaming at her to come back to Louisiana to make a final stab at convincing someone in authority to listen to her theory about the headline-making prior disappearance of teenager Crissy Mellin. Three…
Maybe it’s just that I had an overabundance of intense emotions as a teenage girl. But every time I read a new book that prods me in the feelings that I thought I’d safely boxed away with my memories, I’m reminded anew that other girls suffered in the same way I did, from longings so…
Matthew Redd wants nothing more than to spend quality time with his family, especially now that his wife is expecting their second child at any moment. Montana in the summer means wildfires, and Redd is asked to discover the whereabouts of a smokejumping team that has gone mysteriously silent. He finds that all but one…
A new Nora Roberts thriller is a cause for celebration and Hidden Nature is no exception. It opens with a bang: “The day Sloan Cooper died began before dawn and ended shortly before midnight.” Sloan Cooper is “a corporal in the Natural Resources Police” and she and her partner Joel Warren have spent three days…
Maggie Dunn has always been something of a control freak. She’s pretty sure it was due to her beloved mother dying from a rare, hereditary blood condition when she and her younger sister Lizzie were only in their teens, leaving their entire family both bereft and adrift. Kate McCormick had done her best to prepare…
Wally Daley is the mailman for the sleepy desert town of Bethlam, Nevada. He’s lived there for as long as he can remember, and spends almost all his free time now as an adult taking care of his ailing dad, who’s suffering from Alzheimer’s-related dementia. It’s a simple life, but it keeps him busy enough,…
Set aside all the time before embarking on Smoke and Embers. You will not be able to stop reading once you start. Germany’s Final Solution and the aftermath of the liberation of the death camps will be integral to understanding Inspector Troy’s latest absorbing mystery. Friends and Traitors, the 8th Inspector Troy novel, was set…
It was only after reading the first few pages of Allison Epstein’s excellent reimagining of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist that I realized I’d likely never read the original myself. Instead, I’ve somehow absorbed the characters and plot by cultural osmosis, as much from the movies and musicals and other adaptations as from any source text.…
Camilla Deschamps is spending what should be a banner day in her small family’s life feeling deeply annoyed instead. Her infant daughter Polly is about to attend nursery school for the very first time, freeing Camilla herself to go back to work at her literary agency. Her husband Luke, however, has suddenly gone missing. He’s…
