The Overbooked Bibliophile

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ “We may spend midwinter surrounded by warmth, good food, and companionship, but Christmas coincides with the darkest time of the year, and the legends we have repeated and adapted over the centuries remind us that beyond the glow of firelight, the shadows are waiting.” Meticulously researched and informative,  The Dead of Winter: Beware the Krampus and Other Wicked Christmas Creatures  by  Sarah Clegg  is a fascinating read that delves into traditions and folklore that are rooted in the darker history of winter traditions in Europe. Featuring witches, ghouls, monsters, and other “wicked” creatures ( Krampus, Grýla, Mari Lwyd and Père Fouettard among others) the author takes us on a journey through history tracing back to the Ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, to the Kalends of January celebrated through Late Antiquity and how several traditions have evolved. “For most of the last two thousand years, the days we now call Christmas were a time when you ...

Rating:  4.5⭐️ To Die For , the third installment in  David Baldacci ’s The 6.20 Man   series follows former U.S. Army Ranger Travis Devine, who is now employed by the Office of Special Projects (a stealth operation under the DHS), on his new mission, which takes him to the US West Coast. Danny Glass, a decorated former military man presently under investigation for RICO charges, is applying for guardianship of his recently; orphaned twelve-year-old niece Betsy Odom, and Travis is tasked with Betsy’s safety in collaboration with the FBI and supervising her visits with her uncle. Travis soon realizes that there is more to Betsy’s parents’ death than meets the eye and Danny’s enemies might be targeting her next. What follows is a complex web of murder, cover-ups, corruption, government secrets and much more! Complicating matters further is “The Girl on the Train,” who, after two failed attempts, is only more determined to complete her mission to kill Travis. Complex pl...

Rating:  3.5⭐️ “Firing pottery is like lighting a fire in your heart. There might be something inside that you’re trying your best to ignore, but it’s only by turning your gaze toward it that you can see it clearly.” The Healing Season of Pottery   by  Yeon Somin   (translated by  Clare Richards ) revolves around Jungmin, a young woman on the cusp of thirty who shuts herself away from the rest of the world after she quits her job as a broadcast writer after her disillusionment with her job and work pressure culminate in an emotional breakdown in her workplace. Living alone in a small apartment in Chestnut Burr Village, Jungmin struggles with depression and rarely ventures outside her home. On one of her rare outings, she discovers a pottery studio and gradually, as she begins to connect with the clay she is molding and the other members of the community among whom is an old friend with whom she shares a traumatic history, she also reconnects with herself. “Somet...

Rating: 4.5⭐️ In  Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark, author   Leigh Ann Henion combines scientific facts with her own life experiences, ‘lore and much more as she takes us across the landscape of Appalachia exploring the magical beauty of the nocturnal world and the living creatures that thrive after the sun sets. “Darkness turns familiar landscapes strange, evoking awe by its very nature, in ways that meet people wherever they stand. In Appalachia, as everywhere, night offers a chance to explore a parallel universe that we can readily access, to varying degrees. Nocturnal beauty can be found not only by stargazing into the distant cosmos or diving into the depths of oceans, but by exploring everyday realms of the planet we inhabit.” The author writes beautifully with a reverent appreciation for nature in all its wonder. A running theme in this stressing how artificial light pollution and the use of blue light technology...

  Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐ A new installment in author  Steve Cavanagh ’s  Eddie Flynn  series is always among my most anticipated reads, so much so that I don’t mind ordering a copy from the UK so as not to wait for the book to become available in the US ( Thank you, Blackwell’s for the getting the book to me a day before UK publication day!). I’ve enjoyed (to varying degrees) all the previous books (including one short story and one novella) in this series and I’m glad to say that the latest installment  Witness 8  is a worthy addition to the lot! Ruby Johnson, a young woman in her twenties, works as a maid and nanny in several houses in an affluent New York neighborhood. Once a resident of the same neighborhood, she is haunted by the events that caused her family’s downfall. She is cunning and perceptive and one night, after witnessing the murder of the wealthy socialite, she decides to use this information and manipulate the truth to further her own agenda. The narr...

Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐ Dan Curran, a rookie journalist at the Castlebridge Gazette, is glad to have been assigned his first investigative piece on Castlebridge Council’s last-minute decision to back out of the sale of a council-owned piece of land known as Abbot’s Meadow to local land developer – a sale that would have been beneficial to the council and the community. As Dan tries to find out the reason behind the committee's decision to not go forward with the sale, he meets with some unexpected obstacles – reports on council meetings that should have been available to the public but access to which has been restricted, a local landscaping company whose interest in the land isn’t above suspicion and certain important people aren’t too happy that Dan is looking into the issue. Aiding Den is his boss, experienced journalist Jack Marston, who sees potential in Dan and Jenny Swan, an accountant who works for the Council and who shares Dan’s suspicions about the committee’s decision. Dan and Jenn...

  Rating:  4.5⭐️ I’ve never had the privilege of watching the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, but the 1965 movie based on the same has been a favorite of mine ever since I watched it for the first time at the age of seven. Though I was too young to appreciate the more serious themes, I adored Maria and her dynamic with the Trapp children and loved the music. My father, amused by my enthusiastic renditions of the songs ( I can’t sing to save my life, but when has that ever stopped me?), gifted me a copy of the movie (a VHS tape - this was the 1980’s!) - which became one of my most cherished possessions. As I grew older, and rewatched the movie with friends and family more times than I can remember, I began to appreciate the story, (the knowledge that it was inspired by true events rendered the movie even more special), the characters and the themes addressed in the movie more. I remember a discussion I had with a colleague in the early 2000s that prompted me to read up on the ...

Rating:  4.5⭐ Revolving around themes of friendship, family, personal growth, self-acceptance and human connection,  The Wedding People  by  Alison Espach  is a beautifully written novel that will strike a chord in your heart. As the story begins, we meet Phoebe Stone, an adjunct professor in literature in her forties, as she arrives alone at the Cornwall Inn in Newport, Rhode Island, with a heavy heart. This was a place that she had hoped to visit with her now ex-husband, but here she was, in a green dress and heels with no luggage. Phoebe’s room is the only one not booked for the wedding of twenty-eight-year-old Lila, who has meticulously planned a week-long sequence of pre-wedding activities leading up to the day of her nuptials. Initially mistaken to be one of the wedding people, the misunderstanding is soon cleared up, but much to Lila’s dismay, she realizes that Phoebe’s plans for her own stay would surely ruin her wedding. The narrative follows as Phobe a...

Rating:  3.75⭐️ “ ‘He led us out of the burning city of Troy and guided us across the ocean to this fertile land. He had cared for us almost as well as he has cared for his own son.’ ” ‘He’s going to found the new Troy, and be the father of many generations of our children. We owe everything to him. Without Father Aeneas, the Greeks would have destroyed everything that is Trojan.’ ” Set in years after the Trojan War,  The Heir of Venus  by  Laura Shepperson  is a feminist reimagining of the story of Aeneas, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and Venus (Roman equivalent to the Greek goddess Aphrodite), a demigod who escaped the fallen city with his infant son Ascanius, his aging father and several other survivors. The narrative is non-linear and is presented in alternating perspectives of the women whose lives and fates were intertwined with Aeneas’s; his wife Creusa who was left behind in the burning city and who was the daughter of Trojan King Priam and Heku...

  Rating: 3.5⭐ Stella Hudson, a best interest attorney by profession, is appointed as counsel for Rose Barclay, a nine-year-old girl whose parents are in the middle of a bitter divorce. Stella’s role is to determine the best custody arrangement for Rose, which entails interacting with Barclays and studying the dynamics within the family based on which a decision might be taken. Rose suffers from traumatic mutism – a condition that developed after she witnessed her twenty-six-year-old nanny, Tina de la Cruz, plunging to death from her window on the upper floor of the Barclays’ house. The circumstances surrounding Tina’s death remain a mystery and given Rose’s condition, her family – parents Ian and Beth and her grandmother, Harriet, are protective of Rose, to the extent that they would prefer to restrict Rose’s interaction with Stella. Stella, who had a traumatic childhood herself, has Rose’s best interests at heart and tries to earn Rose’s trust, but Rose’s strange behavior on more...

Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐ Off the Books  by  Soma Mei Sheng Frazier  is a compelling read and an impressive debut. Twenty-four-year-old Mĕi L. Brown dropped out of Dartmouth after a family tragedy and has been working as a private chauffeur offering her services “going karura”  or “off the books” on the advice of her eighty-six-year-old Lǎoyé (grandfather) - an American history buff- who helps her find clients and who is her biggest ally, as she has distanced herself from her friends and is currently not speaking to her mother. Mei’s most recent client is the mysterious Henry Lee who is paying her handsomely for a trip from San Francisco to Syracuse. Henry’s insistence on timed stops and the enormous suitcase he guards diligently never letting it out of his sight strikes Mĕi as suspicious behavior and she turns to Lǎoyé for advice on how to proceed. His reassurance is enough for her to continue on her assignment and as the narrative progresses, she gradually befriends Henry a...

  Rating: 4.5⭐ Bestselling detective novelist  Emilia Ward,  lives a quiet life with her second husband and two children in a London suburb. Emilia is almost finished with her latest and possibly the final installment in her popular Miranda Moody series. Writing a best-selling series has been taxing and this last book has proved to be especially challenging. But truth becomes stranger than fiction for Emilia when an incident mirroring a scene from one of her books occurs in real life. This is not an isolated incident and it seems that someone is trying to send her a message using her own fiction against her. After a shocking incident that is eerily similar to a plot point from her unpublished manuscript, Emilia begins to suspect that the threat is closer to home since the draft was shared with a select few in her close circle and she begins to fear for her family’s safety. Does someone know Emilia’s secret – a truth that has been hidden from most in her close circle? Is s...

  Rating:4.5⭐ Inspired by true events, with elements of Gothic fiction, murder mystery, fantasy and magical realism woven into an immersive narrative,  The Nightingale's Castle  by  Sonia Velton  is a fascinating reimagining of the story of Erzsébet Báthory, the “Blood Countess", a sixteenth-century Hungarian noblewoman and alleged serial killer who along with four of her servants were accused of torturing and murdering hundreds of young women. Set in Hungary, in 1610, the narrative is shared from multiple perspectives including Erzsébet, her trusted servants János Ficzkó Újváry, Ilona Jó Nagy, Dorottya Szentes and Katalin Beneczky, who also stood trial for their role in the murders as well as Borbála Boróka Libalány, a young girl who is brought into the Countess’s castle to serve her. Erzsébet takes a liking to Boróka, even allowing her to attend the sessions in the Gynaeceum. Boróka, raised by her adoptive father, never knew of her origins but discovers a myst...

  Rating:3.5⭐ Set in the remote South Calabrian village of Santa Chionia in 1960,  The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia  by  Juliet Grames . follows twenty-seven-year-old American (of Calabrian and Norwegian descent), Francesca Loftfield, and the time she spent in the village in her efforts to open a nursery school funded by an international charity. Francesca estranged from her husband after a personal loss, is an educated, idealistic young woman who, despite having led a sheltered life, is motivated to take the assignment in the remote rustic village. Her job entails opening a nursery school and enrolling thirty-six pupils while also recruiting suitable candidates as teachers from the local community - not an easy task, trying to have her voice heard among those in a tight-knit community with their set ways. Complicating matters further is the fact that a human skeleton was recently discovered under the rubble of the old post office after flooding and Francesca is approac...

Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐ Well-written and laugh-out-loud funny with a cast of quirky characters,  Best Kept Village  by  Mart Capsticks  is an entertaining novel that revolves around the rivalry between two neighboring English villages in North Norfolk as they compete for first place in the Best Kept Village Competition. With active committees on both sides diligently planning and preparing for the competition round the year while also trying to keep tabs on their rivals, tensions are high in East Barton and West Barton. Matters are complicated further when both villages are victims of strategically timed acts of vandalism. With their carefully designed displays ruined just before the judges are scheduled to visit, both committees are quick to suspect the other and Sergeant Dale Richards is at his wit's end trying to maintain peace between the two rivals, while trying to find the person responsible for the damage. Frustrated with local law enforcement’s failure to apprehend the p...

Rating:  4.25⭐️ Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of reading Elizabeth Crook’s  The Madstone , which features then nineteen-year-old Benjamin Shreve as he recounts the sixteen-day odyssey across Reconstuction-era Texas and the perils he faces in his efforts to assist a stranded traveler and a pregnant woman and her young son. I found Benjamin to be an endearing character and was thrilled to find out that the author had previously penned a novel featuring Benjamin and his half-sister. I was eager to read  The Which Way Tree  and I’m glad to say that I was not disappointed! The narrative is presented in epistolary format through letters written by seventeen-year-old Benjamin in 1866, addressed to Judge E. Carlton, as a part of his testimony against one Clarence Hanlin, believed to be responsible for the murder of eight travelers. In the course of his testimony on his several encounters with Hanlin, Benjamin, excited to be able to share his story, drafts a series of...

Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐ Edwina “Edie” Nunn is surprised to discover that she has inherited an old castle on a remote Scottish island as the only living descendent of the Maundrell family. Now in her late forties, Edwina, recently widowed, has never known her biological family, having been left at an orphanage as a baby. Her teenage daughter, Neve, is excited at the prospect of inheriting a castle and Edwina is eager to know more about her real family. Neither of them could have been prepared for the ghostly inhabitants (not all of whom are particularly friendly), the deep-buried secrets of the island and the tragic history of the Maundrell family, most of which occurred on Samhain. Nor were they prepared for the mystery behind the Maundrell Red – a diamond that went missing decades ago and, as legend has it, is responsible for the tragedy that befell the family. With Samhain quickly approaching, and the eerie occurrences intensifying, Edie and Neve soon discover that evil lurks in various manifest...