The Overbooked Bibliophile

    Rating : 4.5⭐ “Everyone knows the truth of this: It’s always hard to leave a home, a country, a partner, a way of life. But it’s also true that a homecoming can be a more perilous journey.” Meticulously researched, informative and inspiring, The Silent Women by Tara Lynn Masih   is an engaging work of historical fiction that highlights the contribution of women to the WWII effort back home and in the jobs left vacant by men fighting on the front lines. The author particularly highlights the lives and work of those employed at  Oak Ridge, Tennessee—the Manhattan Project’s “Secret City” as experienced and observed through the eyes of our protagonist, Song Holloway. We meet Song as an eight-year-old  in Oklahoma 1935 and follow her journey over the next decade from the dust storms of Oklahoma to rural life in Andover , Massachusetts to her experiences in Oak Ridge, Tennessee  where she works at a secret research facility as leak tester...

  Rating: 4.5⭐ Having read and enjoyed the author’s previous works of WWII fiction,  A Song of Silence  and  To Dream Of Shadows , I was eager to read  Steve N. Lee ’s latest offering and I’m glad to say the author does not disappoint. Set in WWII Warsaw and inspired by true events,  The Ruins in Which We Bleed  follows thirteen-year-old Helena Sliwicka in the years following the Nazi invasion of Poland. Though the novel begins in 1943 Poland where we meet sixteen-year-old Helena, the narrative moves back and forth between 1939 and 1943 slowly shedding light on the events that impact the lives of Helena and those around her. The vividly described setting and the author’s meticulous attention to detail transport you to WWII Warsaw and life in the Ghetto with Helena and her family. The descriptions of the living conditions within the Ghetto, the hardships faced by those struggling to survive and the violence inflicted upon them by the Nazis, render this ...

Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Miss Pauline thinks about the meaning of land. She knows it’s not eternal. If it can be owned, it can be stolen or sold and new owners can do as they please with it, excavate it down to bedrock and deeper, lay it to waste. Even weather wages war against land, land can shake and rend and tear itself apart. And once people arrive, land ceases to be itself. It becomes the place where human events unfolded, it becomes its memories, ghosts and tragedies.” Ninety-nine-year-old Miss Pauline Evadne Sinclair, a resident of the small village of Mason Hall, St. Mary parish, Jamaica, takes the noises she hears at night—whispers she believes are coming from the shifting stones her house is made of—stones extracted from the ruins of a white slaveholder's home—as an omen signaling that her time on earth will soon come to an end. Miss Pauline has led an eventful life and has braved many storms, but she has held her own and lived life on her own terms. Though she lives alone, she has a...

  Rating:  4.5⭐ “Leaving is one thing, but staying away is another.” Set in 2018 Dublin ,  Nesting  by  Roisín O’Donnell  revolves around Ciara Fay , former English teacher and presently homemaker and mother of two in her mid-thirties, who decides to take her two young daughters, Sophie and Ella, and leave her controlling and emotionally abusive husband, Ryan, after five years of marriage. This is her second attempt to escape her marriage to Ryan, who outwardly appears to be an ideal life-partner, having left him once two years before only to return soon after. Ciara’s family lives across the sea and she has no close friends she can turn to for support. Having given up her career after marriage, Ciara has only a bare minimum of funds to support herself and her children until she can find a job and is put up in a hotel room as waits for her turn on a long list of those awaiting social housing. Complicating matters further is Ryan, who oscillates between asse...

Rating:  3.5⭐ ”The world went on in spite of its prisoners.” Set in 2014, Florida  A Season of Light  by  Julie Iromuanya  revolves around a  Nigerian immigrant  family: Fidelis Ewirike- a barrister and former POW of the Nigerian Civil War and his wife Adaobi, an educator and their children sixteen-year-old daughter Amarachi, “Amara” and fourteen-year-old son Chukwudiegwu “Chuk". News of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping in Borno State, Nigeria, triggers a traumatic response in Fidelis, taking him back to the year he spent fighting the Civil War in Nigeria and the tragedy that befell his family and the disappearance of his younger sister Ugochi. His sense of past and present blurred, concern for his daughter’s safety prompts Fidelis to lock Amara, who bears a strong resemblance to Ugochi, in her room keeping her from leaving the house. Though he makes a point of attending to her needs, he offers no explanation or justification for his actions. We follo...