by | May 4, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Rea's Reviews
Boys’ Weeklies Style? Review by Rea Keech This is an enjoyable story about a young man born and raised in Butte, Montana, whose Egyptian-born father abandoned him and his mother when he was three. He leaves Butte in his twenties and goes to Cairo in search of...
by | May 3, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Rea's Reviews
The Parenthetical Style Review by Rea Keech In an interview, Perrotta says that structure comes easy to him. He says, “I generally try to write brisk narratives and keep pushing forward all the time, and stop at strategic moments to give a glimpse into a character’s...
by | Apr 23, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Tom's Reviews
High-School Janitor or Brilliant Scientist: You/I/We Decide Review by Tom Keech A young woman who is thinking about committing suicide takes a car trip with her new boyfriend to visit his parents in their farm out in the country. She tries not to encourage him too...
by | Apr 12, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Tom's Reviews
Forty Million Readers Can’t Be Wrong Review by Tom Keech Cordelia wants to get rid of her crush on Aiden, a man she’s known since they were young children and who is the brother of one of her best friends. When her father suddenly dies, she discovers the real...
by | Mar 22, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Historical Fiction, Rea's Reviews
The More Things Change . . . Review by Rea Keech There couldn’t be a better time than now to read the story of a Syrian immigrant arriving in the United States. Saddo (Sam) Hanna is fleeing not the current ravages of warfare but the tyranny of the Ottoman Empire in...
by | Mar 6, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Reviews of Maryland Writers, Tom's Reviews
Failure to Jell Review by Tom Keech All of the ingredients are here – murder, rough sex, blackmail, compromised law enforcement officials, long-buried family secrets, betrayals, even Maryland local color – but to me it did not seem to jell into a credible...
by | Mar 4, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Reviews of Maryland Writers, Tom's Reviews
They Aren’t All Just Gymnasts, You Know Review by Tom Keech This novel’s elegant prose beautifully mirrors Miri’s artistic eye for the colors and shapes of the natural world she sees in in her small-town life in war-torn, Holocaust-haunted and poverty-stricken...
by | Mar 2, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Tom's Reviews
College of Contrition Review by Tom Keech Fourteen stories about people, mostly academics, seemingly searching for love. In the title story, a man gets the chance to relive two scenes with his third wife in backwards order: first as their marriage is wearing out and...
by | Feb 28, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Rea's Reviews, Reviews of Maryland Writers
Immersed in Two Cultures Review by Rea Keech The story is set in England and Greece about five years after the Greek war of independence from the Ottoman Empire. Helena’s Greek mother is dead, and she has been raised as a proper English girl by her English father. But...
by | Feb 7, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Historical Fiction, Rea's Reviews, Reviews of Maryland Writers
Clash of Clans Review by Rea Keech Tribal or clan warfare is still a major type of fighting that goes on in the world today. Campbell Ogilvy at the Battle of Arbroath is a historical novel depicting a feudal rivalry between clans in medieval Scotland. By examining the...
by | Jan 31, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Rea's Reviews, Reviews of Maryland Writers, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Longing for a Lost Faith Review by Rea Keech Mud is a dystopian fantasy apparently inspired by stories of descent into the underworld such as in the Orpheus myths and passages of the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid, as well as stories of the fall from heaven as in the Old...
by | Jan 27, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Rea's Reviews, Reviews of Maryland Writers
Passing Review by Rea Keech The cruelty and absurdity of racism in the American South haunts the lives of characters in Sawyer’s novel, which traces a family from the late 19th century through 1970. Hank, whose family lives on the “back side of town,” feels this...
by | Jan 25, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Crime, Rea's Reviews, Reviews of Maryland Writers
More Puzzle Than Mystery Review by Rea Keech True Death, on the surface, is a police investigation story, but it goes beyond that. The internal struggles and conflicts of the main characters become the focus of a story more about love, grief, compassion, and...
by | Jan 25, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Rea's Reviews, Reviews of Maryland Writers, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Stories within Stories Review by Rea Keech What would it be like if a novel told the same story simultaneously in two versions with different sets of characters in different settings but with only somewhat different plots? The Planck Factor answers this question—with...
by | Jan 25, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Rea's Reviews, Reviews of Maryland Writers
A Story Told at Arm’s Length Review by Rea Keech The story of House Divided is carefully constructed. Recent terror attacks in the U.S. have led the President to call Leonard Robbins, a retired CIA operative, back into action. After an introduction to Robbins’s...
by | Jan 25, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Historical Fiction, Rea's Reviews, Reviews of Maryland Writers
A Chronicle of Getting By Review by Rea Keech One reviewer aptly characterizes this enjoyable book as a “domestic historical novel.” The author uses diaries and letters to imagine the daily lives of her mother’s family from 1895 to1933 in Washington, D.C. The bulk of...
by | Jan 17, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Crime, Tom's Reviews
Bonus: Review Plus Dublin Cop Talk Glossary Review by Tom Keech Detective Antoinette Conway of the Dublin murder squad refuses to close out a case against a pathetic local dweeb who apparently killed his new girlfriend, the love of his life. It happened on the night...
by | Jan 11, 2017 | All Book Reviews, Tom's Reviews
Human Rights v. the Real World Review by Tom Keech An American college girl swept off her feet by an international human rights lawyer finds herself years later divorced, alone and despised by the residents of the small Swiss town into which she has been dumped. She...
by | Dec 29, 2016 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Tom's Reviews
Not Quite a Christmas Miracle Review by Tom Keech After being away for several years, a young man returns on Christmas Eve to his deceased mother’s dusty flat in a dilapidated neighborhood in Paris. Fighting off a pervasive sense of vague remorse and guilt, he tries...
by | Dec 29, 2016 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Tom's Reviews
247 To Go Review by Tom Keech This is only one of 248 thrillers written by Frederic Dard. It’s not his best. I know that, even though I’ve read only two. As a prisoner is being tortured in an adjacent room, a secret agent is given the task of befriending an inmate to...
by | Dec 15, 2016 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Tom's Reviews
Male Rage Review by Tom Keech (Spoiler alert: this review reveals the answer to the central mystery of the story.) A band of anarchists is led by a second personality who inhabits the narrator’s body without his knowledge. Hundreds of men flock to this person’s...
by | Dec 15, 2016 | All Book Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Tom's Reviews
Reluctant Futuristic Assassin Review by Tom Keech Science fiction about a futuristic female assassin. She is not only an assassin but also a captive, having sacrificed any chance for any kind of decent life in order to save her family members. She goes on a desperate...
by | Dec 15, 2016 | All Book Reviews, Crime, Tom's Reviews
Mafia Bagman with a Disability Review by Tom Keech A neurologically disabled Mafia bagman, prohibited by the rules from friendships, love, marriage, or even looking into the bags of money he delivers, falls in love with a Mafia widow who then betrays him. Throughout...
by | Dec 15, 2016 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Tom's Reviews
Well, Somebody’s Pleasures Review by Tom Keech In London in early Victorian times, during a horrific recession that brings the seething underclass out into the streets, an orphaned 19-year-old girl of the gentility takes an abnormal interest in a series of...
by | Dec 14, 2016 | All Book Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Tom's Reviews
Superpowers in the Projects Review by Tom Keech Midnight’s father was a wealthy and powerful Sudanese landowner who had many servants, a compound so big he needed an extra building just for his guns, diamonds, oil and gold reserves, a master’s degree and a PhD. He was...
by | Dec 14, 2016 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Tom's Reviews
Better Than the Old Wife Review by Tom Keech Michael, a 40-year-old, divorced New York suburbanite who has lost his prestigious job and his most recent girlfriend, is on the verge of falling into alcoholism and depression when he is rejuvenated by a 72-hour stand with...
by | Dec 14, 2016 | All Book Reviews, Historical Fiction, Tom's Reviews
What? Four New Gospels? Review by Tom Keech This is a novel of historical fiction reinterpreting the life and death of Yehoshuah (Jesus) as told by four new narrators. His mother, Miriam (Mary), is spurned throughout her life by her cold and querulous son. Deeply...
by | Nov 26, 2016 | All Book Reviews, Popular Novels, Tom's Reviews
Pulitzer Schmullitzer Review by Tom Keech This book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Olive’s outlook on life is so dark she spreads unhappiness wherever she goes. Her husband brings her flowers and embraces her, but she only “waits for the hug to end.” She doesn’t...
