May 29, 2019
This is an important book that brings to mainstream literature a tragic and neglected chapter in Korean history. For me, this is Lisa See’s strongest novel yet.
May 21, 2019
Jean Kwok delivers a twist that turns this novel about families and secrets into a page-turner of a mystery dove-tailed with riveting domestic drama.
November 7, 2018
When I scored a signed (!) copy of Aimie K. Runyan’s latest novel GIRLS ON THE LINE it felt like hitting jackpot. Set in World War I, the novel is about the “Hello Girls”, American women sent to work in the field as telephone operators for the US Army Signal Corps.
June 13, 2018
It's impossible to read the title of this book and not smile. Its young heroine, Peasprout Chen, doesn’t let you down. Her voice is as cocky and self-confident as the title, the story as action-packed as the cover design suggests.
December 3, 2016
Book review and analysis of writing technique. Complex emotions are needed to create powerful tensions in a story, especially if the story is character-driven. This novel shows the importance of layering on emotions when character motivations are pivotal to the story.
April 2, 2014
Book review and analysis of writing technique. Rosen has devised a conflict for Vera that keeps us turning the pages. One man is dependable and devoted to her, the other is impulsive but she can’t turn off her physical attraction to him. It can’t go on like this.
January 12, 2014
Book review and analysis of writing technique. Dense with imagery, tense and skillfully plotted, Truth Like the Sun kept me reading as compulsively as if it were a news-breaking story clattering out of a teletype machine.
January 19, 2013
Book review and analysis of writing technique. It was news to me that Lisa See had written a trilogy of thrillers set in China. And they are great. Book review on Flower Net, the first of the Red Princess mysteries.
November 30, 2012
Book review and analysis of writing technique. Daisy Lawrence is hosting Keiko, a Hiroshima Maiden: a survivor of the bomb, the recipient of free American plastic surgery to remove her scars, and a poster child for the anti-bomb movement that funded her trip.
November 3, 2012
Book review and analysis of writing technique. Girl in Translation captured me from the start. You feel as though you’re reading a diary, an account of true events and not a work of fiction.