Book Review: Prime Time Romance By Kate Robb

09-07-2024

For The Xennials. Yes, we are a tighter demographic than most others, but we - those born roughly 1978 to 1983 - are still mighty, and this book hits us pretty directly. While directly pulling from a hidden-just-e

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Blog Tour: The Summer Reunion By Leah Mercer

09-06-2024

For this blog tour, we're looking at a book where *everyone* has secrets... and even the secrets have secrets. For this blog tour, we're looking at The Summer Reunion by Leah Mercer.

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Book Review: A Heart Beyond By Grace Greene

09-04-2024

A Cozy Comfortable (Cat) Blanket. Sometimes You Just Need Space To Heal. Ok, so I can't decide on a title for this review and both of those work, so this review gets two titles. :) The first was stolen from a phrase another reviewer us

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Blog Tour: Magical Meet Cute By Jean Meltzer

08-30-2024

For this blog tour, we're looking at a book that has a WTF or two, but also quite a bit to love. For this blog tour, we're looking at Magical Meet Cute by Jean Meltzer.

First, the review I posted to the book sites (/ BookHype.com / BookBub.com / TheStoryGraph.com / Goodreads.com):

Lots To Love - With a WTF Or Two. First, my own "WTF" is the intense focus on anti-Semitism (meaning anti-Jew, specifically, even though Arabs are also Semitic, according to the actual genetic definition) throughout the text - but Meltzer actually uses that, eventually, to get into areas she's never really gone to in my experience reading most of her books. Thus, that actually turned into a good thing, as she was able to use it to further her growth as a storyteller.

And that actually gets into the lots to love here. Meltzer is unapologetic in seeking to make Jewish lives more "normal" to an outside audience, usually by taking quirky characters and showing them loving, laughing, making mistakes, learning from them... you know, doing the stuff we pretty well all do. But also including quite a bit of Jewish specific elements, here mostly focusing on magic and in particular the concept of the golem - which is more often, in my reading experience, used in science fiction to varying degrees. (Both Jeremy Robinson and Kent Holloway have used them quite effectively, among others.) Meltzer even provides some in-story exposition on the histor

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Book Review: Distorting Democracy By Carolyn Renee Dupont

08-30-2024

Distorting The Discussion. For a book about the history of the Electoral College that opens up admitting that the author thinks the Electoral College is foolhardy at best... the actual history here is quite good, and absolutely stuff virtually no one learns about even with a major in American History in college. (Perhaps Masters' or PhD students specifically studying the EC or at least the Constitutional Convention that created it would know at least some o

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Book Review: Polarized By Degrees By Matt Grossman And David A Hopkins

08-30-2024

Solid - And Solidly Dense - Examination Of The Topic. You know those jokes about the Christmas fruitcakes that are so dense you could use them as an anvil or eve

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Book Review: The Twin By Steena Holmes

08-30-2024

'Deliciously Dark' Sounds Apt But Becomes Problematic. Without going into spoiler territory, I can't find a better title for

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Book Review: An Echo In Time By Boo Walker

08-27-2024

Strong Multi-Generational Tale. With this tale, Walker expands into something I've never seen from him (though I *am* a somewhat recent fan, only finding him within the 2020s or so) - a dual timeline, present day/ historical f

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Book Review: Behind Every Good Man By Sara Goodman Confino

08-27-2024

Want An Election Themed Book That AVOIDS The Real Ones Entirely? Here Ya Go! Seriously, this book does a phenomenal job - tru

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Book Review: The Highest Law In The Land By Jessica Pishko

08-26-2024

An Imagined History. Pishko starts off this text openly admitting that, as the Southport NC Police Dept cop who murdered Keith Vidal in North Carolina a decade ago this year said less than two minutes after encountering Vidal - and 14 s

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