Latest Reviews
On the eve of the American Revolution, half a million enslaved African Americans were embedded in the North American population. The slave trade was flourishing, even as the 13 colonies armed themselves to defend against the idea of being governed without consent. This paradox gave birth to what Joseph J. Ellis calls the “great contradiction”: How could a government that had been justified and founded on the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence institutionalize slavery? How could it permit a tidal wave of western migration by settlers who understood the phrase “pursuit of happiness” to mean the pursuit of Indian lands? In THE GREAT CONTRADICTION, Ellis addresses the questions that lie at America’s twisted roots --- questions that turned even the sharpest minds of the Revolutionary generation into mental contortionists.
Maya, an artist, and Noah, a quantum physicist, share an insatiable curiosity about the world. But their happy marriage has a shadow over it: Serena, the child Noah had with his first wife, who died before she turned four. When Noah is invited by the Janus Project to unravel the secrets of time travel, he jumps at the opportunity. At a laboratory deep in the Texas desert, he begins participating in a dangerous experiment that could result in something he thought impossible: seeing his daughter again. Meanwhile, Maya embarks on a journey back to her own past in Japan, and to a formative lover who once shattered her heart. As Noah and Maya grapple with hope and despair, new information emerges that the experiments might not be exactly what they seem.
Words are the currency of culture --- and never more than today. From selfie to doomscrolling to rizz, our hyper-connected digital world coins and spreads new words with lightning speed and locks them into mainstream consciousness with unprecedented influence. Journalist and bestselling author Stefan Fatsis embedded as a lexicographer-in-training at America’s most famous dictionary publisher, Merriam-Webster, to learn how words get into the dictionary, where they come from, who decides what they mean, and how we write and think about them. As he recounts in UNABRIDGED, he discovered the history and fascinating subculture of the dictionary and of those who curate and revere “one of the most basic features of our collective humanity.”
Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind --- a subject of folklore and awe, part-elemental god, part-aerial demon blasting through the sublime landscape of Northern England since the dawn of time. Through the stories of those who’ve obsessed over Helm, an extraordinary history is formed: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate Helm, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish Helm, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture Helm --- and the farmer’s daughter who fiercely loved Helm. But now Dr. Selima Sutar, surrounded by infinite clouds and measuring instruments in her observation hut, fears that human pollution is killing Helm.
El Paso, Texas: Rebecca Carter awoke on a morgue table with only two desires: to find her daughter, Moonflower, and to sate her gnawing hunger. Rebecca sets out on a desperate quest, fighting her murderous craving for blood and pursued by a vengeful FBI agent. One night, a young man lures Monica Carter through the mountain scrub with the scent of human blood, promising that he and his little brother will feed her and keep her safe. Somehow they know her nickname --- Moonflower --- and the truth of what she is. Can she trust them? When FBI Special Agent Sarah McGrath learns that Rebecca’s body has disappeared from the morgue, she’s on the next plane to El Paso. Rebecca is responsible for the death of her partner, and McGrath wants answers. But she never expected them to come from a shadowy figure within the Bureau.
American heiress Ruby Vaughn and her octogenarian housemate and employer, Mr. Owen, run a rare bookshop in Exeter. His penchant for arcane, unusual --- and occasionally illegal --- books has been known to get Ruby into her fair share of trouble. And after the last year, she is looking forward to spending a quiet holiday in picturesque Oxford while Mr. Owen attends the annual meeting of his antiquarian society. When he secures two tickets to an upcoming exhibition of artifacts amassed by disgraced scholar Julius Harker, she reluctantly agrees to attend. Harker’s dead body is discovered amongst the collection, and his business partner is hastily arrested. The murder case is suspicious at best, but the last thing Ruby wants is another investigation. That is, until an old friend comes begging for her help.
Maggie Hodges and her daughter, Piper, are looking forward to a restful knitting retreat in the picturesque village of New Hope, Pennsylvania. But instead, they are surprised to find themselves sharing their charming riverside inn with a rowdy bushcraft bachelor party. Undaunted by the clash of interests and personalities, Maggie suggests a lighthearted competition --- a battle of crafts --- that sparks a rivalry between the two groups, and perhaps something more. But as the weekend unfolds, old mistakes and buried resentments begin to surface, threatening to destroy Maggie and Piper’s cherished connection. In knitting, one can easily fix mistakes by picking apart each stitch and starting anew. But life’s tangles aren’t so easily mended. With tensions rising and the retreat coming to a close, Maggie must act quickly before she loses everything she holds dear.
New Year’s Eve, 1932. Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool arrive on the tiny Greek island of Lamperos to celebrate the holiday with what turns out to be a rather odd community of locals living in a dilapidated house. A dark sense of foreboding overshadows the beautiful island getaway when the guests play a New Year’s Resolutions game after dinner, and one written resolution gleefully threatens to perform “the last and first death of the year.” Hours later, one of the home’s residents is found dead on the terrace. In light of the shocking murder, Poirot reveals to Catchpool the real reason he’s brought him to the island --- the life of another community member has been threatened. Now both men resolve to ensure that the first murder will be the last.
Shannon Wells is a private investigator who helps women with nowhere else to go. Last year, a woman named Faith Selby came to Shannon with a strange request: Find out who I really am. Shannon soon discovered that Faith was hiding a whole other life, but was unable to penetrate the web of mystery the woman had built around her past. Now Faith is dead. The only clue to who she was and why she was murdered is an old photograph of a little girl in the rain outside a Midwestern motel. The hunt for answers takes Shannon from the hot beaches of Florida to a remote small town in Michigan as she peels away layer after layer of a shocking cold case that has rippled violently into the present. With each secret she uncovers, the danger around her grows --- and forces Shannon to confront the demons hiding in her own past.
Sir Una Everlasting was Dominion’s greatest hero: the orphaned girl who became a knight, who died for queen and country. Her legend lives on in songs and stories, in children’s books and recruiting posters. But her life as it truly happened has been forgotten. Centuries later, Owen Mallory --- failed soldier, struggling scholar --- falls in love with the tale of Una Everlasting. Her story takes him to war, to the archives --- and then into the past itself. Una and Owen are tangled together in time, bound to retell the same story over and over again, no matter what it costs. But that story always ends the same way. If they want to rewrite Una’s legend --- if they want to tell a different story --- they’ll have to rewrite history itself.
