Svetlana's Reads and Views

  Name of Book: The Spider Author: Leo Carew ISBN: 978-0-316-52140-6 Publisher: Orbit Part of a Series: Under the Northern Sky (The Wolf is prequel, The Cuckoo is sequel) Type of book: North, Unhieru races, war, politics, strategy, secrets, legions, indifference, ways of life, chess  Year it was published: 2019 Summary: A battle has been won, but the war still wages on... Roper, the Black Lord of the northern people, may have vanquished the Suthern army at the Battle of Harstathur. But the greatest threat to his people lies in the hands of more shadowy forces. In the south, the disgraced Bellamus bides his time. Learning that the young Lord Roper is planning to invade the southern lands, Bellamus conspires with his Queen to unleash a weapon so deadly it could wipe out Roper's people altogether. And at a time when Roper needs his friends more than ever, treachery from within puts the lives of those he loves in mortal danger... Characters: There are a lot of characters, but main...

  Name of Book: The River and the Star Author: Gabiela Romero Lacruz  ISBN: 978-0-3126-33717-5 Publisher: Orbit  Part of a Series:The Warring Gods (Sequel to The Sun and the Void)  Type of book: Fantasy, lowest class, LGBtQI+, female/female relationship, turning to monster, possessions, father/daughter relationship, South American legends and stories., marriage relationships, secrets  Year it was published: 2025 Summary: Sequel to the #1 Sunday Times bestselling novel, The Sun and the Void. THE GODS ARE RETURNING As they emerge from the ruins of Rahmagut’s tomb, Reina and Eva are now hosts to ruthless, ancient entities: The gods of the sun and the Void. In the service of the Liberator, Reina wants to rebuild a new life with Maior. But Enrique’s forces loom on the horizon, seeking reparations for the attempt against Celeste’s life and to give eternal rest to the soul of his late wife Laurel. As Maior is still haunted by Laurel’s soul, her life is threatened, risk...

  Title of the book: We the people; a history of the U.S Constitution  Author: Jill Lepore Publisher: Liveright  Publishing Date: 2025 ISBN: 978-1-63149-608-0 Summary: Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Readers' Favorite History & Biography (2025) The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world--and one of the most difficult to amend. At what cost? In this landmark, lavishly illustrated book, Harvard professor of history and law Jill Lepore argues that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism. Challenging both originalism and the Supreme Court's monopoly on constitutional interpretation, Lepore argues that the framers never intended for the Constitution to be kept, like a butterfly, under glass, but instead expected that future generations would be forever tinkering with it, improving the machinery of government. In an account as radical as Charles Beard's An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the U...

  Title of the book: Stealing America; The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in US History  Author: Linford D Fisher Publisher: Liveright Publishing Date: 2026 ISBN: 978-1-324-09495-1 Summary: Indigenous enslavement was a colossal phenomenon of almost unimaginable consequences that ensnared nearly 600,000 Native Americans in North America. In a saga that predates 1619, this double-stealing of Indigenous people and their lands upends virtually every known narrative of American history. Captured Natives, often deliberately misidentified as Black slaves, were used not only on southern plantations, but on small northern farms, and were routinely shipped overseas. While the American Revolution pealed the bells of freedom for colonists, it paved a larcenous trail of westward expansion that decimated tribes and plundered Indigenous lands. Even after Congress outlawed Native slavery in 1867, Americans forced Indigenous children into boarding schools and white homes, where they labore...

 Name of Book: Goodbye Chinatown Author: Kit Fan ISBN: 978-1-64286-165-5 Publisher: World Editions  Type of book: Hong Kong, England, China, protests, 2001-January 2020, relationships, mother/son relationship, parents/daughter relationship, cooking, ambitions, fame vs motherhood  Year it was published: 2026 Summary: As her native Hong Kong seethes, torn between two world powers, Amber Fan tries to build a career as a chef in London’s Chinatown. Amber Fan, a young Oxford-educated chef, opens the first Chinese fusion joint in London’s Chinatown following the failure of her father’s traditional restaurant. When her parents decide to return to Hong Kong, taking with them their young son Bobby as well as the haunting secret surrounding his birth, Amber is left alone in London. That is, until a woman called Celeste hires out the restaurant, coughing up three grand for a dinner for one. Who is this extravagant stranger, and how did she get so wealthy? Set in the aftermath of Hon...

  Title of the book: Returning; A Search For Home Across Three Centuries Author: Nicholas Lemann Publisher: Liveright  Publishing Date: 2026 ISBN: 978-1-63149-841-1 Summary: Nicholas Lemann grew up thinking he wanted to be Jack Burden, the ever–curious reporter–historian in Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men who gets drawn into a web of southern intrigue. Like his fictional mentor, Lemann pulls us mesmerizingly into a three–century family drama, in which he traces the Lemanns from their humble beginnings in Germany to the nineteenth–century American South, where they became Jewish plantation owners and aspirants to New Orleans society. Yet Lemann began chafing against the South’s strict racial hierarchy and his relatives’ eagerness to be accepted in an anti–Semitic environment, including a deliberate blindness to the plight of desperate European Jews. Returning follows the narrator as he rejects this assimilated world and embraces the rites of Judaism. Through its nuanced...