There is the feel and spirit of epic family saga in Diamond Head (Harper Perennial), Cecily Wong’s debut novel, yet the book is not a doorstop. Wong’s style is spare and lean and she manages to impart a feeling of abundance with a vivid and muscular economy. The opening passage illustrates: Inside the car, it smells like hibiscus. It was his mother’s idea; something subtle, she told him, but fresh. As the man pulls from […]
A valuable art collection disappears turning a treasure-hunting duo into crime-stopping sleuths willing to risk their lives to vindicate family members in Kaylin McFarren’s action-packed suspense novel, Banished Threads. While vacationing at the stately Cumberforge Manor in Bellwood, England, Rachel Lyons and Chase Cohen attend an elegant dinner party hosted by her uncle, Paul Lyons, and his aristocratic wife, Sara. Before the evening ends, a priceless collection of Morris Graves’s paintings are stolen from her […]
The recent success of several novels based on the lives of some of history’s remarkable women has seen a rash of girl power-type novels go to press, bringing us glimpses into the possible lives of a bunch of women we never really thought we needed to know more about. In the way of such things, however, some of these books have been better than others. And a very few are much, much better than most. […]
It was never called “The Little Lost Prince,” but that’s how things were looking last week when Paramount dropped its distribution deal for the animated version of Antoine Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince, mere days before the animated film’s scheduled US theatrical release. Fortunately, a knight in shining armor was on the way to save the day in the shape of global home television content provider, Netflix. From Deadline Hollywood: The move at least assures U.S. [audiences] […]
The place is Lublin in Poland, the time the 1920s. The large, joyous Rabinovitch family, based on the family of the author’s grandmother, have to spread out across two first floor apartments because there are nine children and Papa is a rabbi, who needs an office where he can advise members of the community who come to him for help: hence the two front doors. The entire novel is centred around preparations for the wedding […]
Abel Velasco calculates many things. Things like the arc of falling sycamore leaves, the duration of a dog sneeze, or the number of times his aunt might hit him. He can’t help it — he’s a savant. It is 1982. Abel has left foster care to live with his newly found relatives. His typical teenage struggles are compounded by the complication of his savant talents. Searching for a challenge, Abel becomes obsessed with the mysterious […]
We do we love independent bookstores? Oh: let us count the ways! But writing for The Huffington Post, Red Hen Press managing editor Kate Gale nails it on a couple of fronts. First of all, we begin with the need for possession: My love affair with books began at libraries. Before I could afford to buy books, I could sit around in libraries and read them, carry them home, come back and get more. But […]
As reported here mid-2015, a film adaptation of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series is about to become reality with direction by Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair, Truth About Men) and starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey. From Entertainment Weekly: After many years, and many attempts, a film version of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower is finally getting underway with Idris Elba confirmed as the gunslinger and Matthew McConaughey as the mystical foe known as the […]
Everything has been Oscars and the best of the best movies for the last week or so. But the awards that most caught our attention were this year’s Razzies, where the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey won worst film by a landslide. From the BBC: The film adaptation of the erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey has swept the board at the annual Golden Raspberry or Razzie awards in Los Angeles. Fifty Shades […]
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