Cloud of Bone, by Bernice Morgan

Cloud of Bone is another of those books that I’m much too prejudiced to be reviewing, but I will anyway.  Bernice Morgan is not only my favourite Newfoundland author, not only a friend and mentor, but also my aunt.  I have to tell you that in the interests of full disclosure, and then I have [...]

A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini

I’ve read a few online reviews suggesting that A Thousand Splendid Suns is not as good as Hosseini’s masterpiece first novel, The Kite Runner. With all due respect to the writers of those reviews, they are so, so very wrong. At least from my perspective. I thought this novel was, if anything, [...]

The Garden of Ruth, by Eva Etzioni-Halevy

This is a book I should love, but I’m afraid I didn’t.
In my ceaseless quest for excellent Biblical fiction, I stumbled across Etzioni-Halevy’s earlier book, The Song of Hannah, last year and read it.  I didn’t think it was as good as it could have been, but I was willing to try another book by her [...]

Bishop’s Road, by Catherine Safer

I’m not sure quite what to say about Bishop’s Road, except that I enjoyed it. It’s a good book, but an odd one. The novel is set in a boarding house in downtown St. John’s, and follows the interconnected lives of five eccentric women boarders over the course of a year or so. [...]

Black Water Born, by Fara Spence

Black Water Born is the story of two young lovers, Lucky and Helen, in the tiny Newfoundland community of Burgoyne’s Cove in 1913.  Lucky is seen as an outsider in the community although he has grown up there, since his pregnant mother drifted ashore after falling off a ship and died after giving birth [...]

The Keep, by Jennifer Egan

I’m still not entirely sure what I thought of this book.  I didn’t dislike it, that’s for sure, but I also feel that I didn’t like it as much as I could have –  it didn’t quite live up to its potential.  Yet I did find it intriguing and read it very quickly, turning pages [...]