The Overbooked Bibliophile

My Rating: 3.5⭐ Our narrator Ernest “Ern” Cunningham is a self-published author who writes books on “how to write books”. A fan of Golden Age detective novels, he tries to adhere to Ronald Knox’s 10 Commandments of Detective Fiction (1929). He isn’t too fond of new age tropes such as the “unreliable narrator” and therefore makes his intentions of being a “reliable narrator” clear as writes his book based on the events that occurred during a family reunion held in a ski resort in winter. The discovery of a body of a local man on the grounds of the resort and Ern's brother Michael’s release from prison after serving a three year sentence (Ern’s testimony was instrumental in sending Michael to jail) sets the tone for an eventful (to put it mildly) and tension fraught family reunion. What follows is a complex web of multiple suspects including a serial killer who could be someone among them, a hefty sum of cash that Ern’s brother left his him before being jailed the origins of which re...

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Our protagonist Joseph Bogart is a man in his thirties, living alone in a rented flat in London. His daily routine revolves around work and home. With a history of unsuccessful romantic relationships in the past, he limits his social interactions to the bare minimum even with his office colleagues and though he yearns for company, Joseph hesitates to fully engage with others spending most of his free time watching reality television. When he meets ten-year-old Aaron, the son of his new neighbor, their unlikely friendship and Aaron’s innocent inquisitiveness motivate Joe to not only open up but also look inward and confront issues that have burdened him for years. As the narrative progresses we get to know more about Joseph, his family and relationships and the events from his past that have cast a long shadow on his present, holding him back from experiencing all that life has to offer. As Joseph navigates through his past trauma and personal losses, his friendship with...

My Rating: 4.5⭐️ (Book: 4⭐️ ; Audio Narration: 5⭐️) "Take the needle to the thread. Not the other way around. That’s the secret. Always yield to the needle because it’s inflexible. It’s the secret with people too. If a person seems inflexible, yield, then slip in sideways and get what you want." Newly married to a much older man, fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion moves to New York from her home in the Dominican Republic in January 1965. We follow Ana as she tries to make sense of her new situation- a new country, new language and culture very different from the one she has been accustomed to. Her husband Juan who is both emotionally and physically abusive does not make it easy for her. Ana is young, innocent and naïve in the ways of the world but she is aware of the enormous responsibility she carries on her shoulders- the responsibility of her family back home who expect her to help them move to America once she has settled in. Only when her husband Juan travels back to the Domin...

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ As the story begins, we meet seventy-two-year-old Jeannie Sharrock. A lifelong resident of Combe Pomeroy, she runs her family’s orchard and cider business. Divorced from her philandering husband years ago, who has since relocated to Spain, she now lives with her ninety-five-year-old mother Violet, and her teenage grandchildren who stay with her while finishing up with school after their father, Jeannie’s son moved to Spain with his wife. Jeannie has a lot on her plate and does feel overwhelmed but tries to shoulder all her responsibilities with a smile on her face. She enjoys meeting up with her book club at the local library, hosted by Ruth, the librarian and retired university admissions officer who moved to Combe Pomeroy eight years ago. Ruth is lonely and yearns for new experiences, Verity is experiencing trouble in her marriage to Mark, Danielle is dealing with the breakdown of her marriage after her husband’s infidelity and Aurora still nurses a broken heart from ...

   My Rating : 3.5⭐ On Christmas Eve, 1944 Franny Steinberg, still a teenager, manages to gain entry to the Empire Room of the Palmer Hotel in Chicago to catch a performance by notable comedian Boopsie Baxter and experience the much talked about “Showstopper” that she had been curious about. Earlier, the same day, her family received a telegram informing them that her older brother, who was fighting in the War, was missing. Fast forward seven years, Franny and her friends sneak off to the Blue Moon Cocktail Lounge to see a Boopsie Baxter show the day before her best friend’s wedding only to be thrown out because of Franny’s ill-timed comments. But Franny is back the next day after a traumatic memory leads to her leaving the wedding party. Franny knows what she wants – which is to follow in her idol’s footsteps and perform on stage! As the narrative progresses, we meet Franny’s family, her fun-loving father who believes in the importance of laughter in the most difficult of tim...

My Rating: 3.5 ⭐ As the story begins, we meet our protagonist, twenty-eight-year-old Maggie Banks as she reaches the small town of Bell River at the invitation of her best friend Rochelle, who is about to go on maternity leave and needs someone to take over her duties at Cobblestone Books, the bookshop partially owned by Rochelle’s family. Maggie, who has been unable to settle down in a career of her liking after graduating college and has been out of work and living with her parents in California, welcomes the change and the opportunity albeit a temporary one. Though not much of a reader herself, she is sure that with Rochelle’s guidance she should have no problems in managing a small town bookshop. Unbeknownst to Maggie, River Bell is a town with a literary legacy and is thus also a tourist destination for those who are drawn to the literary legend of the late Edward Bell (after whom the town has been named), whose family partly owns most of the commercial establishments in the area ...

My Rating:  4.5⭐ Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine and NetGalley for granting my wish! All opinions expressed in this review are my own. This novel is due to be released on March 7. 2023. On November 12, 1975, ten-year-old Miranda Larkin returned home from school to find her mother gone. Thirty-nine-year-old Jane Larkin was declared missing and her husband criminal defense attorney Dan Larkin, would remain the prime suspect in the eyes of lead investigator Detective Tom Glover but with no evidence or witnesses, Dan was never charged. His children remain divided on their opinions about their father’s role in their mother’s disappearance and needless to say this would complicate their relationships with their father and between themselves in the years to come. In 2015 author Philip “Phil” Solomon is contacted by his school friend Jeff Larkin after a long gap of forty years and is encouraged by Jeff and his sister Miranda to base his next book on the Jane Larkin...

My Rating:3.5 ⭐ This novel is set against the backdrop of the case of the fatal shooting of Akai Gurley by Asian American cop Peter Liang, which sparked protests in 2015-16 –with Asian American groups protesting on behalf of Liang stating that that the shooting was unintentional (the bullet ricocheted off a wall to fatally injure Gurley) and that Liang was being made a “scapegoat” for several white police officers guilty of violence against Black men. Many Asian Americans however joined BLM counter-protests supporting action against police brutality against Black people. Our protagonist, twenty–one–year–old Reed, a student at Columbia University and the child of a Korean American mother and Chinese American father returns home to Los Angeles to visit his ailing grandmother. Reed is currently actively engaged in the BLM movement protesting the shooting of Akai Gurley. He is fired up, motivated and seriously considering dropping out of college to take on a full- time role with the moveme...

My Rating: 2.5 ⭐ It has been fifteen years since the bodies of Charles and Saran Drummond were discovered in their home with their two young daughters, Abby and Mia, asleep upstairs. It was presumed that Charles had strangled Sarah before stabbing himself to death. The children were taken in by their grandparents who promptly relocated, changed the girls’ surnames to avoid public attention and told them that their parents died in a car crash. But now, after a freak accident at work Mia starts getting flashbacks from her childhood – memories similar to the one her sister Abby has been experiencing. When their grandmother finally shares the truth about what happened to their parents, it is evident that their memories are from that fateful night. When a journalist spots the girls’ grandmother at a seniors’ hotel, the renewed interest in the case fuels the search for new facts and witness statements. The narrative takes us back and forth between past and present and as the story progresses...

  My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ “I’ve often wished that human bodies were as clever as those of octopuses. If we could divvy up the work of one heart among three, if we could have a semiautonomous brain in each of our appendages, perhaps we’d be more efficient with our time, less likely to waste it on grudges and hurts and all the things we feel we can’t say to one another.” It has been fifteen years since Ro’s (Aurora) father, a marine biologist employed with a local aquarium disappeared, on a research trip. Her father’s love for marine life is something he shared with Ro ever since she was a child. Ro’s fascination with sea animals prompted her to take up a job in the same aquarium in the field of animal husbandry. Ro, now in her thirties and employed with the aquarium for over eight years, feels a special connection to Dolores a giant Pacific octopus that was one of her father’s finds and feels that Dolores can understand her and vice versa. Ro misses her Apa and harbors hope that one day he ...

My Rating :⭐⭐⭐⭐ Former police detective turned FBI consultant, Amos Decker is back! Grappling with a personal loss, adjusting to working with a new partner and experiencing changes in his own medical condition(a sports injury from years ago that altered his brain function resulting in his perfect recall and synesthesia), he has a lot on his plate. When a federal judge Julia Cummins and her bodyguard Alan Draymont are murdered in the judge’s home, he travels to Florida with his newly assigned partner FBI Special Agent Frederica “Freddie” White to take lead on the case assisted by the local FBI office. It appears that the MO for both murders was different. While the judge was brutally stabbed to death, her bodyguard was shot with a wad of foreign currency shoved down his throat. Decker suspects more than one perpetrator. Working together or separate agendas? What follows is a deep – dive into the personal and professional lives of both victims. What follows is a complex web of murder, li...

My Rating: 4.5⭐️ In 1939, as WWII rages on, sisters fourteen-year-old Hazel Mersey Linden and five-year-old Flora Lea Linden are evacuated from London as a part of Operation Pied Piper along with other children to protect them from German aerial bombings. They end up in Binsey, Oxfordshire in the home of the Aberdeens - Bridie and her son Harry who welcome them and treat them with kindness and compassion. But their time in the safe idyllic countryside comes to a tragic end in 1940 when six-year-old Flora disappears from the banks of the River Thames, where she had been napping on a blanket. The pain and guilt for having not been able to protect Flora from harm haunt Hazel for years to come and resulting in her cutting all ties with the Aberdeens. Fast forward to 1960 and we find Hazel in the middle of her last day at Hogan’s Rare Book Shoppe in Bloomsbury where she has been employed for the last fifteen years and is now moving on to her dream job in Sotheby’s. When she opens a parcel f...

My Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐ “She was good at forgetting; she had practiced for years, and it was now a skill at which she excelled.” A call for help in the form of an unsigned letter has Isabel Gibson hurry home to Brinkley’s Island, Maine to her childhood home and the family bookstore, years after she left her sister Sophie, with whom she has been estranged for years. Once an avid reader, her love for reading waned after losing her mother and after her father’s death she had been keen to sell the failing bookshop , a move opposed by her sister. In an unexpected turn of events, she is left in charge of the bookshop while her sister recuperates from surgery. “Isabel remembered what books had meant to her so long ago, and she suddenly had a longing for all those fictional worlds that had helped her through the worst years of her life.” As the story progresses , we see how Isabel reconnects with family, old friends ,the island, rekindles her love for books and the bookstore and comes finally comes to ...

My Rating:  4.5⭐ It’s Christmas and we’re back in the world of luxury solar-powered cars, flying feather dusters (I could really use one!) and lifelike companion bots designed and manufactured by Jolvix. It’s been two years since all of the Jagger siblings came home to Santa Barbara for Christmas. The last time they were together with their widowed father Jeremy and his new companion bot January ended in an act of violence toward January committed by Jesse, the third sibling. The siblings’ mother committed suicide years ago and Jeremy’s acquisition of January came as a surprise for all the siblings. But while Josiah, Julianna and Jada keep their opinions to themselves, Jesse in a fit of rage, attacks January causing severe damage. Fast forward two years and the family is together again with January (who has been repaired completely with a wiped memory, or so we are made to believe). It’s going to be an interesting  (to put it mildly!)  Christmas at the Jagger family home,...

  My Rating:⭐⭐⭐ Twenty-five years ago 5 teenagers buried a secret in the grounds of Saviour House – a foster home for homeless teenagers – a place that was supposed to be a safe haven for children who were orphans or wards of the State but was not quite so. After all these years one of them is murdered and there have been attempts on the lives of the remaining four. It seems that someone knows what they did all those years ago. In the past twenty-five years, the five have gone their separate ways – Ben, a federal judge; Nico, a television producer with gambling debts; Donnie, a fading rock star whose attempts at sobriety are mostly unsuccessful; Artemis, a successful tech entrepreneur and Jenna, assassin-turned suburban homemaker – and someone is out to get them! Why , after all these years, is someone targeting them? Will this secret from their past upend their present lives? Will they be able to find out who is behind it all before anyone else gets hurt? Add to this the assassins...

My Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “We grow up fast. Not by force, but because we are needed.” Families can be complicated. Twenty-five-year-old Madeleine "Maddie" Wright’s family is no different and Maddie is struggling. Her life is far from ideal. The daughter of Ghanaian immigrants settled in London, Maddie, working a dead-end administrative job is responsible for the care of her father, whose Parkinson's Disease is now at an advanced stage. Her mother who alternates between Ghana and London is constantly critical of Maddie but this does not stop her from guilting Maddie into shouldering the greater part of all financial responsibilities – paying the bills and well as sending money to her in Ghana where she runs a hostel with her brother. Maddie’s brother who lives separately is self-absorbed and never seems to be around when Maddie asks for help. When Maddie’s mother returns to London for a year, Maddie takes this opportunity to move out of her father’s house, take up residence in a fla...

 My Rating: 4.5⭐ “Once upon a time, there was a boy. Once upon a time there was a mother. Once upon a time, there was a boy, and his mother loved him very much.” It has been over ten years since the “Crisis” - a period of economic decline - failing businesses, unemployment, poverty and lawlessness - a period of chaos that was attributed to being the result of the manipulations of an Asian country that was thriving during the same period. In the interest of boosting the economy and preserving American culture, PACT -“The Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act”- has been passed allowing for reporting and arrest of those perceived to be “anti –American” and children from families perceived to be guilty of the same have been relocated to state-approved homes and foster families. Books viewed as teaching un-American values have been removed from schools and libraries (destroyed and pulped, recycled into toilet paper as opposed to being burnt!- “Much more civilized, right?”)...

My Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐ A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has our protagonist Alex, an aspiring writer and associate editor in a publishing company, attending a month-long writing retreat at the home of famous horror author Roza Vallo at her home, Blackbriar Estate in the Adirondacks. Among the four other aspiring writers is Wren, her former best friend with whom her problems remain unresolved. However, this is not an opportunity to be missed and Alex is thrilled to be attending unwilling to let Wren’s presence ruin this experience for her. Roza has them following a rigorous schedule as far as the writing goes, expecting them to write a full- length novel by the end of the month, motivating them with a lucrative publishing deal for the “winner”, whose novel would be judged as the best. With her struggles with writer's block, escalated tensions with Wren, Roza’a unorthodox methods of running her retreat, the isolated location and eerie occurrences in the house which has an interesting history...

  My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Plot :3.5⭐; Audio Narration 4.5⭐ Set in 1959,  Ghost 19  by  Simone St. James  revolves around off-Broadway actress Ginette Cox whose “nerves” and “breakdown” and subsequent hospitalization prompt her doctors to advise her to take time off work and away from any kind of excitement. Not wanting to venture too far from New York City, she rents a house in Meritville, a NY suburb, at 19 Howard Ave, where she spends her time spying on her neighbors from her window, making up names and stories about them as she goes along. Her initial impression of the house is that it feels “impersonal” and “wasn’t lived in”. But as the days progress, strange noises from the basement and other eerie occurrences including a strange man looking in her windows have Ginette on edge. Her doctor dismisses her fears and prescribes her pills to help her sleep and the police don’t take her complaints seriously. Narrated in the first person by Ginette, the narrative is shared...

My Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐ ( Plot :3.5+⭐; Audio Narration: 4.5⭐ ) “You want to understand this place? Then you need to understand its connections, the way everything and everyone is tied to everything and everyone else by invisible threads of relationships and loyalties and debts: the ice rink and the factory, the hockey team and the politicians, league position and money, sports and employment opportunities, childhood friends and teammates, neighbors and colleagues and families.” I approached  The Winners , having read and loved  Beartown  and  Us Against You  (both 5⭐ reads for me), with very high expectations (Fredrik Backman himself is to blame for that!). Having already fallen in love with the characters, their stories and the small town setting, there was little doubt in my mind that I would enjoy spending more time with these characters, which I did! Much of my love for The Winners stems from my love for this series. While it is difficult to separate my thoughts on t...