Svetlana's Reads and Views

Name of Book: All We Shall Know Author: Donal Ryan ISBN:  9780143131045 Publisher: Penguin Year it was published: 2017 Summary: A breathtaking and redemptive novel from the award-winning and Man Booker nominated author Donal Ryan Melody Shee is alone and in trouble. At 33 years-old, she finds herself pregnant with the child of a 17 year-old Traveller boy, Martin Toppy, and not by her husband Pat. Melody was teaching Martin to read, but now he's gone, and Pat leaves too, full of rage. She's trying to stay in the moment, but the future is looming, while the past won't let her go. It's a good thing that she meets Mary Crothery when she does. Mary is a bold young Traveller woman, and she knows more about Melody than she lets on. She might just save Melody's life. Following the nine months of her pregnancy, All We Shall Know unfolds with emotional immediacy in Melody's fierce, funny, and unforgettable voice, as she contends with her choices, past ...

Name of Book: Promised Land Author: Martin Fletcher ISBN: 978-1-250-11882-0 Publisher: Thomas Dunne Type of book: Israel, 1950-1967, family, history, Mossad, Judaism, shaping, control, power, hidden secrets, wars, survival, travel, US Year it was published: 2018 Summary: "Promised Land is a great sweeping epic, reminiscent of Leon Uris’ Exodus." —Nelson DeMille, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Cuban Affair Promised Land is the sweeping saga of two brothers and the woman they love, a devastating love triangle set against the tumultuous founding of Israel. The story begins when fourteen-year-old Peter is sent west to America to escape the growing horror of Nazi Germany. But his younger brother Arie and their entire family are sent east to the death camps. Only Arie survives. The brothers reunite in the nascent Jewish state, where Arie becomes a businessman and one of the richest men in Israel while Peter becomes a top Mossad agent heading s...

Name of Book: Burton Blake Author: Robert Tucker ISBN: 978-1-944056-91-9 Publisher: Wise Words Part of a Series: The Revolutionist was prequel Type of book: 1940s-modern times, company, Blake corporation, father/son relationships, family, friends, power play games, politics, housing, money, wealth Year it was published: 2018 Summary: In this sequel to The Revolutionist, the American journey of three generations locks the neophyte company president, Burton Blake, in a vicious struggle with corporate intrigue, financial greed, and social corruption. Born to a taxi dancer at the beginning of the Second World War, Burton’s father, Elias Blake, never knows his natural father, who is killed in the South Pacific. He is raised by his mother and stepfather from her second marriage who makes his fortune during the post war real estate boom of the 50’s. Their untimely death by his business partner leaves the boy Elias in the guardianship of his mother’s best friend and her ...

Name of Book: Girls' Night Out Author: Liz Fenton, Lisa Steinke ISBN: B078GPQS1P Publisher: Lake Union Publishing Year it was published: 2018 Summary: From the bestselling authors of The Good Widow comes a chilling novel of psychological suspense that will make you think twice about what your best friend may be hiding… For estranged friends Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren, it’s time to heal the old wounds between them. Where better to repair those severed ties than on a girls’ getaway to the beautiful paradise of Tulum, Mexico? But even after they’re reunited, no one is being completely honest about the past or the secrets they’re hiding. When Ashley disappears on their girls’ night out, Natalie and Lauren have to try to piece together their hazy memories to figure out what could have happened to her, while also reconciling their feelings of guilt over their last moments together. Was Ashley with the man she’d met only days before? Did she pack up and leave? Was sh...

Name of Book: Death Logs Out Author: E.J Simon ISBN: 9781980730318 Publisher: Endeavour Media Part of a Series: Michael Nichols Type of book: Humanity, brotherhood, intelligence, artificial intelligence, secrets, pope, the vatican,  murders Year it was published: 2018 Summary: Is Alex Nicholas really dead? Two years since the brutal shooting of Alex Nicholas, a gambling underworld boss in Queens, NYC. But his brother, Michael, a respected CEO, struggles with a secret: his murdered brother has been communicating with him via his laptop using AI. This AI-Alex can foresee dangers in Michael’s path, and appears to be trying to help him – even controlling machinery and electronics via WiFi. Meanwhile, trouble is stirring in the historic capital cities of Rome, Berlin and Paris. Inside the Vatican, Monsignor Kurt Schlegelberger has designs to build his power and prepare for the sudden ascension of the Free Forces Party, a throw-back to the Nazis. Schlegelberger...

Name of Book: Stolen Obsession Author: Marlene M. Bell ISBN: 9780999539408 Publisher: Self published Type of book: mystery, murder, art, curse, Greece, attraction, chemistry, trust issues Year it was published: 2018 Summary: People die, but legends live on. New York antiquities appraiser Annalisse Drury recently lost her best friend to murder. The killer’s identity may be linked to her friend’s expensive missing bracelet—a 500-year-old artifact that carries an ancient curse, one that unleashes evil upon any who dare wear the jewelry created for the Persian royal family. Weeks later, Annalisse sees a matching necklace at a Manhattan gallery opening. She begs the owner to destroy the cursed piece, but her pleas fall on deaf ears—despite the unnatural death that occurs during the opening. With two victims linked to the jewelry, Annalisse is certain she must act. Desperate, Annalisse enlists the gallery owner’s son to help—even though she’s afraid he’ll break he...

Name of Book: Free Food For the Millionaires Author: Min Jin Lee ISBN: 978-1-4555-7167-3 Publisher: Grand Central Type of book: Korea-America, rape, negative portrayal of Korean men who like Caucasian women, New York, 1990s, haves and have-nots, pride, kindness, marriage, relationships, family, church, faith, struggling, surviving, class, Asian women/Caucasian men relationships, money, debts, working at a bank Year it was published: 2007 Summary: Casey Han's four years at Princeton gave her many things, "But no job and a number of bad habits." Casey's parents, who live in Queens, are Korean immigrants working in a dry cleaner, desperately trying to hold on to their culture and their identity. Their daughter, on the other hand, has entered into rarified American society via scholarships. But after graduation, Casey sees the reality of having expensive habits without the means to sustain them. As she navigates Manhattan, we see her life and the lives...

Name of Book:  The Vineyard Author:  Maria Duenas ISBN:   B071DDL9V3 Publisher: Atria Year it was published: 2017 Summary: The New York Times bestselling author of The Time in Between returns with a magnificent new novel set in 1860s Mexico City, Havana, and Spain about a self-made man who loses his fortune overnight but finds his destiny as he works to restore a legendary vineyard to its former glory, and to win the love of the combative widow who once owned the property. Mauro Larrea sees the fortune that he had built after years of hardship and toil come crashing down on the heels of a calamitous event. Swamped by debts and uncertainty, he gambles the last of his last money in a daring move that offers him the opportunity to resuscitate his fortune. But when the unsettling Soledad Montalvo, wife of a London wine merchant, comes into his life, her passionate intensity lures him toward an unanticipated future. The Vineyard spans diverse worlds...

Name of Book: That Woman Author: Wayne Clark ISBN: 9780992120269 Publisher: Createspace Type of book: 1748-1755, New York, kidnapping, France, surviving, resourcefulness, revenge, payback, trading, indentured servitude, land schemes, business, merchants Year it was published: 2017 Summary: Beating the Odds in Colonial New York • 2017 Book Excellence Awards Finalist for Fiction • 2017 Winner 50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading Kidnapped in France and brought to America as an indentured servant, a young woman takes on the brutal merchant king of New York’s East River waterfront… Illness suddenly deprives 17-year-old Sarah Da Silva and her older brother Jacob of a mother. Before Sarah has come to terms with that loss, her merchant father grows frail and increasingly desperate in the face of impending bankruptcy. On the rainy night their father scours the docks of Bordeaux, France, to make his final bid to save his family, his children are kidnapped and forced ...

Name of Book: Where the Sweet Bird Sings Author: Ella Joy Olsen ISBN:   B01NCHBT7B Publisher: Kensington Year it was published: 2017 Summary: In this provocative new novel, the author of Root, Petal, Thorn offers a powerful story of resilience, hope, and the secrets that, no matter how deeply hidden, can shape and ultimately unite a family. What connects us to one another? Is it shared history? Is it ancestry? Or is it love? People respond to tragedy in different ways. Some try to move on. Some don’t move at all. A year after her young son’s death due to a rare genetic disease, Emma Hazelton is still frozen by grief, unable and unwilling to consider her husband Noah’s suggestion that they try to have another child. She can’t gamble with heartbreak and loss again. Yet she can’t stand in the way of Noah having the family he deserves—even if she believes the answer is to push him away. As the future Emma once imagined crumbles, her family’s past comes into s...

Name of Book: The Laws of Gravity Author: Liz Rosenberg ISBN: 9781611099546 Publisher: Amazon publishing Year it was published: 2013 Summary: An exquisite tour de force, The Laws of Gravity is a testament to what it means to be a family, what it takes to save a life, and the lengths we will go to to protect the ones we love. Two families, bound by blood, hear terrible news. One decision holds the key to survival--but at a devastating cost. Nicole, auburn-haired, airy, and beautiful, discovers her body is betraying her. She turns to cousin and childhood best friend Ari for the cord blood he's been banking for his own children. Ari stands firm, bringing them before the scales of justice. Solomon Richter, a state Supreme Court judge on the brink of retirement, is touched by this legal battle like no other. His blood case, he calls it. A case that calls into question the very things we live for: the enduring bonds of family, and the love that lasts a lifetime. It...

Title of the book: The Fever of 1721; The Epidemic That Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics Author: Stephen Coss Publisher: Simon and Schuster Publishing Date: 2016 ISBN: 978-1-4767-8308-6 Summary : More than fifty years before the American Revolution, Boston was in revolt against the tyrannies of the Crown, Puritan Authority, and Superstition. This is the story of a fateful year that prefigured the events of 1776. In The Fever of 1721, Stephen Coss brings to life an amazing cast of characters in a year that changed the course of medical history, American journalism, and colonial revolution, including Cotton Mather, the great Puritan preacher, son of the president of Harvard College; Zabdiel Boylston, a doctor whose name is on one of Boston's grand avenues; James and his younger brother Benjamin Franklin; and Elisha Cooke and his protegee; Samuel Adams. During the worst smallpox epidemic in Boston history Mather convinced Doctor Boylston to try a proc...

Name of Book: True East Author: Raymond Ahrens ISBN: 978-1-934690-86-4 Publisher: Tasora Type of book: Brazil, anthropology, mysticism, Alice in wonderland, present time, America, swimming, savior, missing spouse, politics Year it was published: 2017 Summary: Katy Givens, thirty and brilliant, learns in a static-filled phone call that her husband Andrew is missing in the Amazon and possibly dead. Although still mourning the death of their infant son, Katy flies to Brazil in search of Andrew, discovering that the man she married has secrets. As the mysteries surrounding Andrew's disappearance mount, so does the list of shadowy forces benefitting from the recent discovery of oil in the Amazon. Katy's field of genetic anthropology proves useful when accounts of the Unnamed Ones, a primitive and possibly pre-human tribe, are rumored to exist in the same valley as the oil reserves. Katy tracks Andrew through the jungle, deciphering riddles he left before disappear...

Name of Book: Seeing Double Author: Nancy J. Alexander ISBN: 9781512160291 Publisher: NJA Productions Type of book: Jewish main characters, Israel, modern times, secrecy, missions, spying, terrorist cult, charisma, family, siblings, relationships, Lebanon Year it was published: 2015 Summary : "A chill ran up her spine, triggering an alarm that spread through her system. Her eyes studied him as his eyes studied her. In the recesses of her mind, a fragment of a memory tingled...a tiny blip from long ago. An image spiraled, then vanished. There was something about this young man, this Ari Ben Aviv. There was something about him she couldn't pinpoint." On the heels of her last mystery, Elisabeth's new patient is more than meets the eye, and unraveling his secrets will throw her team into a desert storm of double agents and religious extremists. All that stands between love and ware are two families, two brothers, and two conflicting versions of the tr...