Recent changes in my personal schedule gifted me a fresh start – an opportunity to get back into the habit of cooking regularly! I am really enjoying this change and hope to keep things interesting by trying a variety of recipes, but also need to keep it simple and quick. As with many people, I […]
Truly Livingston is a romance author and hopeless romantic. She believes in happily ever afters. And then…she walks in on her fiance cheating on her. Not only that, her parents, whom she believed to be in the perfect marriage, have announced they are separating. She is devastated, angry, and lost AND she was just invited […]
“The Innocents” (1961), directed by Jack Clayton and starring Deborah Kerr just a few years after she filmed “An Affair to Remember” and “The King and I”, is a creepy, dark ghost movie-cum-psychological thriller well worth a peek (during the daytime, with a friend in the room). Based on Henry James’ iconic ghost story The […]
During the Golden Age of Piracy, Jacquotte Delahaye, the daughter of a French father and Haitian mother, is forced to flee her life as a shipwright in Santo Domingo when her father is assassinated. Unfortunately, the ship she escapes on is captured by pirates. She and a fellow refugee named Teresa are made indentured servants […]
Ria Khan wants nothing more than to become a famous stuntwoman, so she puts all of her prodigious determination and energy into making a name for herself online. She is bullied at school and discouraged by her parents for this dream, so she relies heavily on her older sister Lena. Lena has dropped out of […]
Barbara Kingsolver employs her exceptional talent for character development and world-building for the eponymous Damon “Demon Copperhead” Fields, set in Appalachia from the 1990s to today, in her retelling of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield. For readers of the Dickens tale, it is fun exercise to compare the new and the old versions of the classic […]
In Holly Jackson’s latest young adult mystery, Bel Price’s family is the focus of a new documentary being filmed based on the disappearance of her mother, Rachel Price. Rachel Price disappeared 16 years ago without a trace. Her car was found on the side of the road, running, with the heat on and the doors […]
There are two things that Wren Martin hates more than anything: The Valentine’s Day Dance at Rapture High, and his Student Council Vice President, Leo Reyes. When Wren becomes Student Council President (by a technicality, but that’s not important) he’s determined to make the school better by doing away with the Dance and using the […]
Garrard Conley, the author of the bestselling memoir Boy Erased, covers similar themes of reconciling queer sexuality with a deeply repressive religious community in this foray into historical fiction. In 18th-century Massachusetts, a Puritan preacher falls in love with a physician who leaves Boston to join his small religious community. Their affair and the steps […]
The Velvet Underground. Just the name conjures images of gritty New York City nights, avant-garde soundscapes, and lyrics that dared to push boundaries. If you’re a fan like me, you know their impact on rock and roll is undeniable. But even if you haven’t fully delved into their world, Todd Haynes’s 2021 documentary, simply titled […]
