BookBrowse Highlights
Hello Readers!
This week, we bring you our interview with Donna Everhart, author of Women of a Promiscuous Nature—check out the video below!
In First Impressions, we have Jaclyn Moriarty’s Time Travel for Beginners, a unique story of family, relationships, and yes, time travel, but in a less straightforward way than the title might suggest.
Our Editor’s Choice review covers Nina LaCour’s Meet Me in the Garden, a finely drawn tale of racial passing, hidden sexuality, and midcentury history. We also share a “beyond the book” reading list for another book about secrets and lies, Teddy Wayne’s The Au Pair, with more novels featuring nannies who are not Mary Poppins.
Why are there so many book jackets showing women whose faces you can’t see? We investigate this phenomenon in a recent blog post.
Plus, enjoy our newest Wordplay!
Thanks for reading,
The BookBrowse Team
Interview with Donna Everhart
First Impressions
Each month, we share books with BookBrowse members to read and review. Here are their opinions on one recently released title.
Time Travel for Beginners by Jaclyn Moriarty
“This book has humor, creativity, interesting characters throughout, and I found it very entertaining…The story is nominally about a time travel agency, but one of the questions running in the background of the story is whether the time travel offered by the agency is real or just a clever psychological trick. The book is strongly character-driven, with each character's unique point of view expressed by communication style. There are journal entries, social media, conversations, and experiences used as well as some jumping back and forth between present and past.” —Sue_P
“I ended up reading the whole book in three days; I had that delicious feeling of being lost inside the story. I only came up for air when absolutely necessary. A fun and thought-provoking book. I would recommend it for those who like love stories, family stories, and light fantasy or science fiction—but the best part about this book is that it combined all three.” —Kathleen_L
“I found this to be a very satisfying read. This book could easily be a springboard for book club discussions about so many things, besides, of course, the ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ of time travel.” —Kathy_D
For Members
This issue of The BookBrowse Review contains reviews and "beyond the book" articles for 14 titles, including Meet Me in the Garden by Nina LaCour, It Will Come Back to You by Sigrid Nunez, and The Wound Is Where the Light Enters by Chris Young.
We also bring you previews of upcoming releases, an interview with author Cynthia Weiner, and more.
Not Yet a Member? Do you love to spend your reading hours immersed in captivating storytelling and intriguing ideas?
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Editor’s Choice
Meet Me in the Garden by Nina LaCour
Nina LaCour's paternal family and their city-home of New Orleans, with its lush gardens, narrow streets, streetcars, and jazz is the setting of her latest novel, Meet Me in the Garden. It is the 1940s as Creole sisters endure racial hardship in a city that spews rejection and exclusion. Youngest sister Odette Honoré carries a deeper burden. Her sexual desires are outside the mainstream, forcing her love affair with a local seamstress to remain secret.
Meanwhile, Odette's favorite cousin, wildly impulsive Delphine, is carrying on an affair with an older white businessman named Bill until she becomes pregnant and the stakes change immensely. … continued
Review by Valerie Morales
Beyond the Book
Fictional Nannies Who Would Not Get Good References
Teddy Wayne's domestic thriller The Au Pair focuses on an affair between a father and his children's caregiver that leads to tragedy.
The au pair, Astrid, might earn the children's affection, but as readers come to learn, she's anything but trustworthy.
Here are several other novels that feature babysitters, nannies, and au pairs who are not exactly Mary Poppins. … continued
Article by Norah Piehl
“Women Looking Away” Book Jackets
If you’re a regular reader of historical fiction, chances are you own at least a few books with images on their jackets of female-coded figures whose faces are obscured in some way.
Book covers presumably depicting their women characters looking away, walking away, viewed from below the neck, or featured in silhouette has become a persistent phenomenon that shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. … continued
Wordplay
Solve our Wordplay puzzle to reveal a well-known expression, and be entered to win a one-year membership to BookBrowse!
"C by the S H"
Click for the answer to the last Wordplay (T it W a G O S), and a detailed breakdown of its meaning and history.
Want to play even more word games? Try our daily book trivia and see if you can get to the top of the leaderboard.
