Reviewed by L.D.Y. Hardcover, 336 pages, 2008 Rating: 9/10 Reason for Reading: Historical fiction and the promise of the Salem witch trials? Yes, please. Synopsis: Nine-year-old Sarah has a family that works hard on their farm and doesn’t especially go looking for trouble – except in the form of her mother, Martha, whose bold opinions […]

Reviewed by L.D.Y. Hardcover, 394 pages, 2007 Rating: 10/10 Reason for Reading: I love old movies, so a story with (a fictionalized) Errol Flynn, star of movies like ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’ and ‘Captain Blood,’ living in Jamaica sounded too good to resist. Synopsis: When movie-star Errol Flynn washes up on the shores of […]

Reviewed by L.D.Y. Trade, 263 pages, 2007 Rating: 10/10 Reason for Reading: Part of my plan to read all of the Booker Prize Winners. Synopsis: When her brother Liam is found in the sea at Brighton, an apparent suicide, Veronica can’t quite believe it – or maybe she can. He was an alcoholic, something that […]

Reviewed by L.D.Y. Hardcover, 439 pages, 2008 Rating: 10/10 Reason for Reading: Always happy to try out a new thriller author – especially one who had a big-name director (Ridley Scott, American Gangster) attached to the movie adaptation a year before his debut novel was even in stores. Synopsis: It’s hard for atrocities to stand […]

Reviewed by L.D.Y. Trade, 441 pages, 2004 Rating: 9/10 Reason for Reading: I picked this up at the used bookstore because I figured anything about the 1960s tends to be interesting, and if a man could write entire (and popular) books on things like salt and cod fish, it was a good bet. Synopsis: In […]

Reviewed by L.D.Y. Hardcover, 278 pages, 2007 Rating: 9/10 Reason for Reading: I like books that are set in unusual locations, and Indonesia qualified. Synopsis: Mata Hari sits in her Paris jail cell, accused of spying for Germany during World War I. While waiting for her trial, her life story pours out like an offering: […]

Reviewed by L.D.Y. Hardcover, 377 pages, 2007 Rating: 9/10 Reason for Reading: A fondness for both women in historical novels and books set in the Middle East. Synopsis: In seventeenth century Persia, a young woman experiences a devastating loss that destroys her future prospects and finds her transplanted from a small village to a big […]

Reviewed by L.D.Y. Hardcover, 210 pages, 2007 Rating: 10/10 Reason for Reading: The title drew me in. Synopsis: Louis Proby is a 90-year-old man when he hears that Hurricane Katrina is on the way, but his mind isn’t on the upcoming events – it’s on the great floods of 1927 that happened in Louisiana when […]

Reviewed by L.D.Y. Hardcover, 328 pages, 2006 Rating: 9/10 Reason for Reading: I read the first few pages, and had to find out what fate lay in store for a young girl forced to hang from a curtain rod by a mother who believed it would make her taller. Synopsis: Tessa’s life doesn’t hold much […]