Things You Save in a Fire

By: Katherine Center Goodreads description: Cassie Hanwell was born for emergencies. As one of the only female firefighters in her Texas firehouse, she’s seen her fair share of them, and she’s excellent at dealing with other people’s tragedies. But when her estranged and ailing mother asks her to uproot her life and move to Boston, […]

The Villa

by: Rachel Hawkins Goodreads description: As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable. But by their 30s, their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend. Villa Aestas in Orvieto is a high-end […]

All Good People Here

by: Ashley Flowers Goodreads description: Everyone from Wakarusa, Indiana, remembers the case of January Jacobs, who was found dead in a ditch hours after her family awoke to find her gone. Margot Davies was six at the time, the same age as January—and they were next-door neighbors. In the twenty years since, Margot has grown […]

Demon Copperhead

by: Barbara Kingsolver Goodreads description: Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never […]

Mad Honey

by: Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan Goodreads description: Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New […]

Nightbitch

by: Rachel Yoder Goodreads description: One day, the mother was a mother but then, one night, she was quite suddenly something else… At home full-time with her two-year-old son, an artist finds she is struggling. She is lonely and exhausted. She had imagined – what was it she had imagined? Her husband, always travelling for […]

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by: Gabrielle Zevin Goodreads description: On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and […]

Tidbit- January 2023

New Year’s resolutions? We both agree that “I want to lose 10 lbs” is trite. Let’s do something positive that adds to our lives instead of creating undue stress and pressure. Helen says: Lifelong learner here! I want to reacquaint myself with Greek Mythology (Hence The Song of Achilles for next month) and I am […]