Blog Entries

Blog Type
Tags
Beth & Amy book cover (two cartoon women, one walking a dog and surrounded by purses, the other holding a guitar)

Beth & Amy by Virginia Kantra

Kantra has taken the two younger March sisters from Little Women and weaved a compelling, contemporary story. Beth is on the road with country music star (and boyfriend) Colt Henderson. But the limelight is too much for her and her health takes a toll. Amy's getting her business, “Baggage,” up and running in New York, but can't forget her time in Paris with longtime family friend, and sister Jo's ex-boyfriend, Trey.
 

Battle Royal book cover (cartoon of a woman with a long braid and a polka-dot dress holding a rainbow cupcake, next to a man in a plain suit holding a plainer cupcake, both side-eyeing each other)

Battle Royal by Lucy Parker

As a contestant on the baking competition show "Operation Cake," whimsical baker Sylvie Fairchild clashed in a battle of personality with uptight judge Dominic De Vere. Had her glittery unicorn cake not exploded in Dominic’s face, she probably would have made it to the finale, but he promptly voted her off the show. Four years later, Dominic and Sylvie are running competing bakeries on opposite sides of the same street, vying for the same opportunity to make the cake for the upcoming royal wedding, and judging the new season of Operation Cake together. Flour, glitter, and sparks fly.

Yellow Wife book cover (a black woman, pictured from the neck down, showcasing her yellow dress, in front of an antique sewing machine)

Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson

Pheby Delores Brown lives in the year 1850. She was born on a plantation in Virginia, the daughter of the plantation owner Jacob Bell and Ruth (who was a slave there). She was given opportunities that most African American slaves did not receive because it was against the law.

Everybody Counts book cover (a crowd of diverse cartoon people)

Everybody Counts by Kristin Roskifte

Everybody Counts is so much more than just a children’s counting book!  The colorful illustrations on each page portray a variety of people in both humorous and grave everyday situations.  Each picture counts an increasing number of people; four in a band; twelve at a birthday party; thirty in a park, etc., but this is only one aspect of the book.  There is also a clever puzzle to be solved.
 

Young Heroes of the Soviet Union book cover (a man and a woman standing on a balcony, looking out, stylized like a World War 2 poster)

Young Heroes of the Soviet Union by Alex Halberstadt

Part Soviet history, part family biography, Alex Halberstadt’s Young Heroes of the Soviet Union: A Memoir and a Reckoning is a thought-provoking look at how trauma can echo down generations. For Halberstadt, born in Moscow in the 1970s, the past has always hung over his family’s lives like an ever-present specter. His paternal grandfather was one of Stalin’s last surviving bodyguards and a major in the KGB, a job that made him culpable in some of the brutal crimes carried out by the State.