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Review: How Can My Manager Be So Stupid? by Kazumasa Hayami, Translated by Haydn Trowell

How Can My Manager Be So Stupid? by Kazumasa Hayami, Translated by Haydn Trowell Blurb from Goodreads : A candid story of one woman's fight to find her way through her working life, while, against all odds, clinging to her passion for reading and for sharing books. Kyoko still loves books. Just about. But life at the Musashino Bookshop is starting to get her down. Above all, there's one question that keeps going round and round her How can my manager be so stupid? From his obsession with self-help books to his insistence on giving inspirational speeches at staff meetings, everything about Takeru Yamamoto seems designed to set Kyoko's teeth on edge. And, as the bookshop lurches from crisis to crisis, facing criticism from customers and authors alike, it's tough for her to keep her love of literature alive. Only the prospect of chang...

Review: Meet Me in the Garden by Nina LaCour

Meet Me in the Garden by Nina LaCour Blurb from Goodreads : New Orleans, 1944. Odette has always been one of the Honore sisters, glamorous and admired in their Creole community. But while Odette’s older sisters are content to be wives and mothers, Odette has always wanted something else. It is only with her beloved cousin, Delphine, that Odette can tell her secret: she is in love with a woman, and she longs to be an artist. Delphine has a secret lover, too, a white man. In the hidden garden they’ve discovered, Odette and Delphine can dream of futures full of passion and freedom. But five years later, Odette's life is nothing like what she'd planned. She's a widowed mother, living in Los Angeles, and she and Delphine, who is passing as white, have spiraled away from each other. When Delphine reaches a breaking point, Odette must make a shattering choice to try to hold her family together. Profound and expansive...

Review: The Treasure House by Amy Matthews

The Treasure House by Amy Matthews Blurb from Goodreads : Zoe Copeland and her daughter Florence need a new start. The only problem is, she can’t really afford one . . . Opportunity calls in the form of a listing for a charming cottage that may just be in their price range. The catch? It’s a treasure house – filled to the brim with junk. The place is a certified disaster zone in the middle of a tiny seaside town Zoe’s never heard of, but beggars can’t be choosers. Eleven-year-old Florence loves the old house full of knick-knacks and other people’s memories, but Zoe is daunted. It doesn’t help that her grouchy new neighbour, Jake, thinks she’s crazy for taking this on – though that doesn’t stop him from lending a hand, and it’s not long before Zoe can’t get the handsome man off her mind. As they clear out the house, Zoe becomes increasingly intrigued by the woman who lived there before them. Who was Marly, and how did ...

Review: The Rayburn Affair by Laurie Petrou

The Rayburn Affair by Laurie Petrou Blurb from Goodreads : Art, ambition and desire collide when a struggling academic becomes entangled in the life and marriage of her literary idol. By day, Dr Ruth Morgan lectures on ‘ the new frontier of storytelling’ at East Toronto University. By night, she toils away at a collection of short stories, fantasising about a literary career to rival that of the iconic Shelby Rayburn, internationally renowned and widely hailed as the voice of Ruth’s generation of women. When Shelby and her husband, Oscar, make an appearance at an annual faculty party, Ruth can’t believe her luck. The trio immediately hit it off, and an intoxicating intimacy develops between them, underwritten by a simmering sexual tension. Everything changes when Shelby makes Ruth an offer she can’t refuse—one that she can’t tell anyone about, incl...

Review: The Three Graces of Pearl Street by Elizabeth Wellington Rollins

The Three Graces of Pearl Street by Elizabeth Wellington Rollins Blurb from Goodreads : In this tender, voice-driven debut novel, an Italian American grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter find their lives—and their secrets—colliding when, after years apart, they come to live under the same roof, together finding courage to be the most authentic versions of themselves. When three generations of powerful Valentini women find themselves living under one roof in the old family home for the first time in years, they’re forced to reckon with not only each other, but with womanhood itself. Named after a statue in a country two of them have never seen, and one refuses to return to, they must finally come face to face with the secrets and tensions that have been dictating their lives for as long as they can remember. Graziella, the ninety-six-year-old matriarch of this Italian American family, spends her days running no...

Audiobook Review: Heart of Glass (Wonderland #2) by Jennifer Hillier, Narrated by Brittany Pressley, Chris Brinkley, Eunice Wong, Ferdelle Capistrano and January LaVoy

Heart of Glass (Wonderland #2) by Jennifer Hillier, Narrated by Brittany Pressley, Chris Brinkley, Eunice Wong, Ferdelle Capistrano and January LaVoy Blurb from Goodreads : Twenty-five years ago in Seaside, Washington, a charming drifter named Sam met three inseparable teenage girls at the local amusement park. Days later, one of them was found dead, her body surfacing in a flooded cranberry bog not far from where she was murdered. Barb and Nicolette were shocked to learn that the man they all met at Wonderland was the Carnival Killer. After he's arrested for the murders of five young women – one of whom was their best friend, Lorelei – Nicolette moved to the city to pursue her dreams of being famous. Barb stayed behind in Seaside, eventually becoming a reporter for the local paper. Their past safely behind them, they’ve both moved on with their l...