by JVBrown | Sep 28, 2020 | Robin, Staff Picks
In Dublin in 1918, the war is still raging in Europe and the city is confronting the dangerous new flu pandemic. Nurse Julia Powell presides over a tiny maternity ward set aside for pregnant women who have contracted the flu. In this understaffed ward, new life and...
by JVBrown | Sep 28, 2020 | Robin, Staff Picks
Two half-sisters are born in Ghana in the 18th century in neighboring villages. They are unaware of each other’s existence. One is captured and sold into slavery from the Cape Coast Castle occupied by Englishmen. The other marries one of those Englishmen, and lives a...
by JVBrown | Sep 28, 2020 | Robin, Staff Picks
Nina works in a bookstore and lives alone in an artsy enclave in Los Angeles with her cat, Phil. She is a voracious reader, she runs several book clubs for the store, and she is a fierce bar trivia competitor. She is fatherless, she thinks, but the death of a wealthy...
by JVBrown | Sep 28, 2020 | Robin, Staff Picks
The three books in the Hidden Iceland series by Ragnar Jonasson follow detective Hulda Hermansdottir backwards through her career. In this first installment, Hulda is on the eve of her retirement, and has asked for time to close a cold case of a dead Russian immigrant...
by JVBrown | Sep 28, 2020 | Dana, Staff Picks
The book opens up with a girl named Hal who is broke fortune-teller in a beach boardwalk. She receives a letter inviting her a funeral of someone who shares her last name, and the letter indicates it is a relative who will most likely leave her a good sum of money....
by JVBrown | Sep 28, 2020 | Dana, Staff Picks
This has been called a domestic noir novel and I couldn’t agree more. It focuses on two women, Jane and Marnie, who have been best friends since they were kids. Marnie falls in love with Charles, and naturally asks her best friend what she thinks of him. Jane lies and...
