All in one place — the books we’ve reviewed this week. Click on a link to take you to our review, or to purchase it on iBooks or Amazon.
Arrivals
Once Upon a Time in West Toronto, Terri Favro
Terri Favro brings her lovely writing and strong storytelling skills to this sequel to her 2012 novella “The Proxy Bride,” which follows Ida, newly arrived to Toronto from Italy, and her new love, Marcello.
Read the Star’s review here
Buy it on Amazon here
Tarry This Night, Kristyn Dunnion
Kristyn Dunnion’s vividly imagined dystopian novel follows the daily traumas of life within a cult’s bunker and the civil war that rages above on the Earth’s surface as a cult member tries to find sustenance.
Read the Star’s review here
Buy it on Amazon here
Buy it on iBooks here
The Other Mrs. Smith, Bonnie Burstow
Noni’s three journals tell the story of her life — growing up in the 1940s and ’50s in Winnipeg’s north-end Jewish community; enduring memory-zapping electroshock therapy and dulling medication in Toronto in the 1970s; concluding around 2010 when Noni finds comfort and a degree of reconciliation.
Read the Star’s review here
Buy it on Amazon here
Buy it on iBooks here
Say My name, Allegra Huston
This novel follows Eva, a garden designer nearing 50, and her love affair with Micajah, a 28-year-old son of an old friend. Despite the 20-year age gap, they click and embark on a series of erotic adventures, even though it cannot last.
Read the Star’s review here
Buy it on Amazon here
Buy it on iBooks here
Brown Girl in the Room, Priya Ramsingh
Sara is the daughter of South Asians from the Caribbean, and she is fully aware that her brown skin was important in her landing a job at the Albatross Community Services. Although smart and competent, not everyone at the office is prepared to accept the new girl.
Read the Star’s review here
Buy it on Amazon here
Reviews
Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff
Though hard to put down, Michael Wolff’s breathless tell-all tells us little we didn’t already know about the character of Trump himself. Nearly everyone around him considers him to be a moron. He is needy, paranoid, and narcissistic. None of this is news. It is full, though, of scoops and gossipy revelations that have been feeding the media mills for the past week.
Read the Star’s review here
Buy it on Amazon here
Buy it on iBooks here
Trumpocracy, David Frum
David Frum looks to the big picture with this angry assessment by a diehard “Never Trumper” of what Trump’s use and abuse of power is doing to America’s political culture. There is much to pick over in the analysis, with many valuable insights and observations.
Read the Star’s review here
Buy it on Amazon here
Buy it on iBooks here
The Woman in the Window, A.J. Finn
Although written well, A.J. Finn’s debut novel (a pseudonym for publisher Daniel Mallory) falls into the clichés of the “grip lit” formula. The Woman in the Window follows Anna Fox, who mourns the end of her marriage, downs endless bottles of wine and spies on suspicious neighbours. She’s unstable, unreliable, unbelievable to police. An agoraphobic psychologist with a penchant for film noir, and plenty of secrets to spill.
Read the Star’s review here
Buy it on Amazon here
Buy it on iBooks here
Fire Sermon, Jamie Quatro
Married for nearly two decades to her college sweetheart, a generous, thoughtful and supportive but agnostic man who does not satisfy her sexually (and possesses a dominant, sadistic streak), Maggie ponders sex, faith, longing, fidelity, marriage, happiness, loyalty, prayer and the rest through a Christian lens. She ends up writing a famous poet, and the letter writing intensifies and they go on coffee dates, culminating in an earth-shattering hotel liaison.
Read the Star’s review here
Buy it on Amazon here
Buy it on iBooks here
Science Fiction
Semiosis, by Sue Burke
The story begins with a small group of settlers arriving on a habitable planet they name Pax. The life forms native to Pax are exotic but comparable to life on Earth. As the settler community adapts to life on Pax, they enter into a co-operative relationship with Stevland, a sentient form of bamboo, which leads to some interesting observations on the building of complex social systems from the ground up and the dangers of trying to direct the process of evolution.
Read the Star’s review here
Buy it on Amazon here
Buy it on iBooks here
Senlin Ascends, by Josiah Bancroft
The new edition of a self-published book plots the story of an unworldly provincial schoolteacher named Thomas Senlin, who has brought his beautiful new wife Marya to the famous Tower of Babel for their honeymoon. Almost immediately, however, Marya goes missing, and Senlin is forced to climb the tower in pursuit.
Read the Star’s review here
Buy it on Amazon here
Buy it on iBooks here
One of Us Will Be Dead by Morning, by David Moody
The premise behind this series is that, for some unknown reason, a certain segment of the population (the Haters) have turned into homicidal furies, indiscriminately killing everyone who has not been so transformed (the Unchanged). In short, what we have here is yet another take on the popular zombie apocalypse genre that’s full of blood and brutality.
Read the Star’s review here
Buy it on Amazon here
Buy it on iBooks here
Nemo Rising, by C. Courtney Joyner
This story serves as a type of reboot of Jules Verne’s classic novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Reunited with his steampunk submarine the Nautilus after being released from prison, Nemo, along with a patchwork crew, is soon off monster-hunting and trying to prevent the outbreak of a world war.
Read the Star’s review here
Buy it on Amazon here
Buy it on iBooks here