Svetlana's Reads and Views

  Name of Book: On Fragile Waves Author: E. Lily Yu ISBN: 978-1-64566-009-5 Publisher: Erewhon Press Type of book: modern times, iimmigration Australia, camp, survival, money, friendship, Afghanistan, loyalty, family, duty, upbringing, magical realism, death  Year it was published: 2021 Summary: Characters: Main character is Firuzeh, the eldest daughter. She often refers to her mother and father as abay and atay ( unfortunately there is no glossary for Afghan words...) And is best described as someone caught between multiple worlds of her gender and upbringing. She also has a younger brother Nour and a ghost friend who stayed with her for years and years. There are also mother and father who do the best they can with the given situation and for whom reputation and hospitality is far  more important than mere survival. Nour has far more freedom than Firuzeh, despite him being younger, and also requires a lot of money for his activities.       Theme: We ...

 Name of Book: Bedloe a true fable Author: Tony Powers ISBN: 9798680366479 Publisher: Bambaz Press Type of book: USA, survival, New York, future, presidents, totalitarianism, liberal, conservative, climate change, language, propaganda, daily life  Year it was published: 2020 Summary: “My name is John Bedloe. I am 48. My 16 year old son James and I are members of the Associate Class living in New York in the year 2040. I am reaching out to you with a warning from a society which is the direct result of the 2016 election of one Ransom B. Conover to the office of president of the United States.” This is John Bedloe’s sardonic comment on the human condition based on his life experiences. As such, it is an existential reflection on the rise of The State which has now taken Bedloe from enjoying relative free will in 2016, to the tyrannical present in 2040. In this present he lives mostly in the past via recollections of his youth, and of the love between himself and his murdered wif...

  Name of Book: Crocodile Tears  Author: Mercedes Rosende  ISBN: 978-1-913394-43-1 Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press Type of book: Uruguay, crime, trauma, corruption, destruction, modern times, heist, goals, things going wrong Year it was published: 2021 Summary: The setting: Montevideo’s Old Town, with its dark alleys, crumbling facades and watchful residents. The gig: an armoured truck robbery. The cast: Diego, a failed kidnapper with weak nerves, Ursula Lopez, an amateur criminal with an insatiable appetite, the Hobo, a notorious hoodlum with excessive self-confidence. Dr Antinucci, a shady lawyer with big plans. And finally, Leonilda Lima, a washed-out police inspector with a glimmer of faith in justice. Characters: Definitely the characters were mine favorite. First was the lawyer, Antinucci who sees a sin to utter Gods name in vain, but doesn't see himself as a bad person despite his overly checkered past And present. Ursula Lopez has been dealing with trauma, namely we...

  Name of Book: Muted Author: Tami Charles ISBN:978-1-338-67353-1 Publisher: Scholastic Program Type of book: music, YA, fame, verse, poetry, modern times, Colored heroines, friendship, lies, betrayal  weight, diet, singing, focus, stardom, talent, USA, abuse, grooming,  Year it was published: 2021 Summary: A ripped-from-the-headlines novel of ambition, music, and innocence lost, perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo and Jason Reynolds! Be bold. Get seen. Be Heard. For seventeen-year-old Denver, music is everything. Writing, performing, and her ultimate goal: escaping her very small, very white hometown. So Denver is more than ready on the day she and her best friends Dali and Shak sing their way into the orbit of the biggest R&B star in the world, Sean "Mercury" Ellis. Merc gives them everything: parties, perks, wild nights -- plus hours and hours in the recording studio. Even the painful sacrifices and the lies the girls have to tell are all worth it. Until they're ...

 Name of Book: Rebel Daughter Author: Lori Banov Kauffmann  ISBN/asin: B08BYTKX6T Publisher: Delacorte Press Type of book: Jerusalem, Rome, siege, history, 65- 70 ME, war, temple, daily life, survival, slavery, rituals, Second Temple, starvation, resourcefulness  Year it was published: 2021 Summary: For fans of The Red Tent and The Dovekeepers! Rebel Daughter transports the reader to one of the most dramatic and momentous events in human history – the destruction of Jerusalem in the 1st century. This stunning tale of family, love and resilience was inspired by a major archaeological discovery in southern Italy: the 2,000 year-old gravestone of Claudia Aster (Esther). The few Latin words chiseled into the ancient stone, proof of a very unlikely romance, shocked and intrigued scholars around the world. Rebel Daughter is Esther’s story. An aristocratic young woman, she comes of age during the Jewish revolt against Rome. Esther dreams of so much more than the marria...

 Title of the book: Cold Case Story Author: Stephanie Kane Publisher: Cold Hard Press Publishing Date: 2021 ISBN/ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08TQTBB84: Summary: Cold Case Story is based on the brutal murder of a housewife in the Denver suburbs in 1973. A college student back then, Stephanie Kane was more than a witness to this terrible crime. For nearly thirty years, she remained silent. Then, in 2001, she tried to exorcise the crime by fictionalizing it in a mystery novel called Quiet Time. But instead of laying the murder to rest, Quiet Time brought it roaring back to life. Cold Case Story is about a family that fractured along the fault lines of a murder. It's about fiction colliding with a cold hard crime, and the very personal story of how it feels to ping-pong between participant and observer, novelist and witness to one's own uneasy set of facts. In the end, all are punished--even the guilty. Author Info: (From amazon) Stephanie Kane is a lawyer and award-winning author of four crime n...

 Miracle by miracles, I got THE FOUR WINDS BY KRISTIN HANNAH! But yes, I would like more books. So far I still hadn't won any goodreads giveaways, and no I don't know why. My USA project is starting to go. I got Own voices African American history, which I will read soon. I also made outlines for early Native American history as well as Western European history. Wish me luck!  Book tours/ spotlights  On Fragile Waves by E. Lily Yu  Pieces of Eight by Steve Goble  Possible reviews:  The Kennedy moment by Peter Adamson  Cometh the hour by Annie Whitehead  Sown in tears by Beverly Magid  Not our kind by Kitty Zeldis  On the edge of sunrise by Cynthia Ripley Miller  Love and other consolation prizes by Jamie Ford  All the winding winding world by Kate Innes  The master and the maid by Laura Libricz  Possible reads:  Burnt toast makes you sing good by Kathleen Flinn Washington's spies by Alexander Rose My half of the ...

Vera- Carol Edgarian SR: March 22nd, 2021 FR: Pieces of eight- Steve Goble SR: March 1st, 2021 FR: March 13th, 2021 The last collection- Jeanne Mackin SR: March 1st, 2021 FR: March 22nd, 2021 You will remember Me- Hannah Mary McKinnon  SR: February 7th, 2021 FR: March 1st, 2021 Madeleine last French casquette bride- Wanda Maureen Miller SR: March 3rd, 2021 FR:   The strange case of Eliza Doolittle- Timothy Miller  SR: February 9th, 2021 FR: March 1st, 2021 The foreign girls-Sergio Olguin  SR: March 1st, 2021 FR: March 18th, 2021 The land beyond the sea- Sharon Kay Penman  SR: March 18th, 2021 FR:  Crocodile tears- Mercedes Rosende SR: February 12th, 2021 FR: March 1st, 2021 Nonfiction