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Sometimes Netgalley sends me emails to tempt me to read or listen to something. I have to thank them for this recommendation. I am so happy that I got a chance to pick up “Send Judah First” by Brian C. Johnson. It is one of these stories that everyone…
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Faithful
L.L. Tremblay writes her novel in the first person, bringing an authentic sensitivity to a haunting story of love and loss. Grappling with personal, family, friend, partner and mystical relationships, several tumultuous life-defining events unfold in this heartfelt drama. Tremblay crafts an absorbing story that reaches into our desire…
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This is the heartbreaking story of Hugh ‘Shuggie’ Bain and his mother Agnes. He’s lonely, on the receiving end of much unpleasantness around his sexuality and has to cope with Agnes’ drinking. Set in the 1980’s of Thatcher’s Britain it shows a time of hardship, of the industrial decline…
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Accession
Small Island is a keenly examined story exploring the prejudices that existed, and still do, around racial inequality in post-WWII Britain. The novel flips back and forward from 1948 to a time before the war when two Jamaicans, Gilbert and Hortense dream of immigrating to Britain. Hortense has an image…
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Warrior
Kristin Hannah’s latest novel is an outstanding historical saga sparking memories of the classic John Steinbeck story, Grapes of Wrath. Based during the great depression, the hardships and demise of small farmers and the migration of people from the Dust Bowl states in America to the land of milk…
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Restrain
Shuggie Bain is a beautifully written, poignant account of a Glaswegian family and their struggles through poverty, family breakdown, alcoholism, and community divisiveness. In a society where misery and despair circle like vultures, after years of economic assault from a Thatcher government on working-class people, the Bain family’s own story…
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Broken
The Prophets is an absorbing novel, with unsettling overtones, profound and deeply moving. Masterfully written in beautiful poetic prose it enriches the soul through the dreams and expression of love amidst the most repressive and abusive life imaginable.
“Blessèd be the ones who gaze upon the night and holy are the…
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Troubled
It is a unique reading experience with Fredrik Backman, and it often takes a few chapters to appreciate a special journey is underway. Sometimes the humour and dialogue feel unusual but once into the novel, his turn of phrase becomes entertaining and revealing of the characters.
Anxious People, like the…
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Incomparable
The anticipation is thrilling when you start a new Donal Ryan book, and it finishes with a mix of satisfaction and longing – this form continues with his latest novel. Strange Flowers is a beautifully written family drama that treats us to a cast of characters that take the story through…
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Searching
A Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom is a story of human history brimming with mythical vibrancy as we are invited to explore the world through a nonlinear lens. The challenge is to see the progress of a man’s life and his experiences from birth to an elderly grandfather over…
Founder of The Reading Desk, supporting readers, authors, publishers and book industry. Top Reviewer on Amazon, Goodreads, and NetGalley peter@thereadingdesk.com
