I have taken many fiction writing courses, and I’ve also had my writing reviewed by readers, critics, and my agent. One thing I've found to be consistent is, no one seems to like it when a main character does something unlikeable. Just this weekend, I took a fiction writing workshop where the presenter said the main character needs to be sympathetic or compelling, and he or she needs to change over the course of the novel. For most readers, a compelling main character doesn’t seem …
My Book Reviews
My favorite genres are contemporary romance, women's fiction, suspense, and psychological thrillers. I mostly read books on my kindle, and I listen to audio books every morning when I go for my run.
I do NOT love star ratings for novels. For each book review, I give background, my thoughts, and if I would recommend it. Full disclosure: if I'm not into a book, I don't finish it. Since I review books I finish, most of them will be positive.
Little Disasters
I still remember those days leading up to having my first baby, the anxiety I felt that I might lose my identity once I became a mother. All I heard was, “nobody tells you hard it is,” it being motherhood. Yet I felt the opposite was true. Not that motherhood isn’t hard, but that the hardship was all I seemed to hear about. What took me by surprise was the overwhelming love and joy that this little baby brought to my life. This “little baby” is now a teenager, which reminds …
The Escape Room
Nearly two years ago, before Covid 19 was a thing, my son Eli and I went to an escape room together. I had bought a Groupon, thinking it would be a fun mother/son activity, especially since Eli’s good at solving puzzles and I’m good at being a sidekick. I remember that he’d just had his braces put on that morning and that I’d injured my knee, so neither of us were in top form, and it was our first escape room ever and we were the only two people there. We tried to solve the clues, while he …
The Comeback
Ella Berman’s The Comeback is a post #metoo saga about Grace Turner, a Hollywood star who achieves fame at a very young age, develops the requisite addiction and emotional issues that childhood stars seem often to battle, and then drops suddenly and inexplicably into obscurity. When the story begins Grace is living with her parents in a suburb of LA, but after tensions with her mother bubble over, Grace returns to Hollywood and confronts her estranged …
The Wife Upstairs
Rachel Hawkins’ The Wife Upstairs is a book that I didn’t want to end. I almost regretted reading it, because I knew I’d have a hard time moving on to another book that I’d enjoy as much as I did reading this one. I believe that feeling of regret is called a “book hangover” - when the effects of a really good read linger with you after it’s over, often for ill. But I can assure you, reading The Wife Upstairs was worth the book hangover. Perhaps people will think my high …