The Rabbit's Paw Book Reviews

  The Book of Magic , Alice Hoffman's conclusion to the Owens family saga, is populated with the family members we know and look forward to meeting again, in another fascinating adventure. We witness Franny and Jet's last day together, which reads like an emotional tribute to their past lives, and all that they've shared. Meanwhile, the lives of Sally and Gillian, the nieces they've raised, are examined and contrasted. Finally, we get a look into the lives of Franny and Jet's granddaughters, Antonia and Kylie. And yes, Vincent makes another appearance. In the early part of this book, Kylie's story is the most prominent, because she is in love--and afraid of the family curse, which her mother Sally will not talk to her about. Actually, Sally has hidden everything to do with magic from her daughter.  It is Kylie's actions that set the main plot moving, and I thought this took a bit too long. When she starts to explore the origins of the curse in England, the a...

  Note: This book has been left out! I read this novel back in February, and forgot to include it in my Netgalley  reviews. So, here it is. This story is set in the late 1970's and is the story of how Cassie Lyman, a graduate student, navigates a critical time in her life. She is developing a research subject for her doctoral thesis in women's history, when she comes across a fascinating amount of information at Smith College about Kate Easton, a woman who founded the Birth Control League of Massachusetts in 1916. Cassie also discovers that she is actually related to Kate Easton. At this point, Cassie has been living in Minnesota, but she has returned to her childhood stomping grounds for the wedding of her sister. So, in the foreground of this story is Cassie's current family drama surrounding the wedding and-- other later developments. Meanwhile, Cassie is obsessed with reading Kate Easton's journal entries and letters. As time goes on, Cassie finds parallels between ...

  This is the first audiobook I've ever listened to and it was a wonderful discovery. We meet Nives, a Tuscan woman who has just been widowed, but feels an absence of emotion. After the funeral, after her daughter and grandchildren have left, though, she realizes that she is lonely. During her soliloquies, we learn that Nives has a tough exterior, a woman strong in both spirit and limb, one who has helped run a farm, raise a daughter, and run a household. In her loneliness, she becomes attached to one of her hens, the one she has named Giacomina. This hen has a complacent manner, despite struggling with a bad foot, and Nives finds her endearing. Her sudden loneliness has caused Nives to examine her life, and this new habit of spending time in a company of a hen has Nives worried about herself, wondering why this hen is enough company to replace her husband. One evening, when Nives is watching TV with her avian pet beside her, she notices that Giacomina has been put in a tran...

T here is an ancient, mysterious Greek tale, written by Antonius Diogenes. Mysterious, because it was lost, and then some of it has been obliterated with damage and time. Five people, in three different time periods separated by centuries, read and bring their own meanings to this tale. This novel leads us into the lives of Anna, Omeir, Zeno, Seymour, and Konstance, who each have compelling stories of their own. The way the narrative switches back and forth between stories, letting the reader notice the connections, is brilliant and compelling. This ancient tale captures attention and imagination, allowing people to just enjoy it, to live in the moment. The themes that run through these stories are beautiful, too. To need hope, to need other people, is to be human. And we are all in this together, and can't give up. There are so many wonderful details in these stories! Jonathan Doerr writes magically, so that time disappeared while I was reading this. For a time, it was all I ...

  I confess that this is merely my third Elizabeth Strout book, but I will certainly go back and read the rest of them. The lack of knowledge about Lucy Barton did not hamper me, though, since the author included all the information I needed to thoroughly enjoy this story. Stories, really. Elizabeth Strout has a splendidly strong voice. In 𝐎𝐡, 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐦!, the narrator is Lucy Barton, a writer who is telling us about her ex-husband, William Gerhardt. Of course, to tell us about William is to tell us about the people in William's life, including herself and especially his mother, Catherine Cole. In the beginning, I did not like William at all. He seemed cold, distant, and self-absorbed. It did make me wonder, at first, why Lucy was still so friendly with him, but then, I thought, they did have two daughters together. However, it's more than that. When a couple of startling things happen to William, and Lucy heeds his call for help, she begins to deeply ponder what it ...

  This is a historical fiction novel which is part family saga, part gangster story, taking place in the early 1960's. The protagonist is Ray Carney, a man who is smart in every sense of the word. He's got common sense, street smarts, and a business degree. He's a man who is struggling to make a life for himself and for his family, and does not want to follow in his father's footsteps. Big Mike, as they called him, was part of Harlem's criminal underworld. And yet, this world has its hooks in Ray. He pays both a cop and a gangster protection money, and this is a dance that many step to, and keeps a part of the city's hierarchy intact. Sure, Ray Carney is a bit crooked. He was raised on ill-gotten money and goods, and the seed money for his furniture business came from his father. And he does some fencing, as in not checking the provenance of certain items that he sells. But, he's keeping a low profile, just staying on the outskirts of all the craziness. Un...

  Rémy Ngamije has written an intriguing and painful coming of age story about an intelligent and unusually insightful young man. His name is Séraphin, born in Rwanda to educated, prosperous parents who were forced to flee their country, along with their three sons. Séraphin has memories of living in different places, before settling in Windhoek, Namibia. Everywhere his family has lived, they have been treated with diminished respect for being immigrants, sometimes called refugees, which in some places has a derogatory implication.Séraphin, always atune to his surroundings, is very sensitive and easily angered by this unfairness. Additionally, he is verbally talented and able to interpret and articulate what he sees. During most of this novel, Séraphin is attending law school in Cape Town, South Africa, and dreaming of remaining there. As we follow Seraphin's adventures with his group of friends, we see a South Africa in which Apartheid has ended, but racism is still very much a...

  Vern has grown up in a commune, one that is organized by a religious cult. As a bright child, she begins to question the beliefs of the adults raising her and chafes at the rules imposed on her. At the age of fifteen, she has already been married off to the cult leader and is pregnant. Desperately unhappy and with no one she can relate to, she escapes into the surrounding woods. Rivers Solomon has drawn Vern's character in a well-written, intelligent manner. Vern is a young woman who is torn between some of the teachings of Cainites and what her intelligence perceives to be her truth. It is important to the story that the Cainites are African-Americans who separate themselves from the surrounding economy, especially white culture. The members of this community have sought to live together and help one another without persecution and mistreatment. However, as Vern slowly realizes, the Cainites are still victims. There is an atrocity happening here, and it's told as an unfol...

  𝑻𝒂𝒌𝒂𝒌𝒖𝒔𝒉 is a paranormal fantasy that mostly focuses on Elena Lukas, a young professor, who has just returned to her childhood home and family B&B business in Olympia, Washington, after a painful romantic breakup. She is to start a job at a local university in the fall. Elena's family has the fate of serving a powerful Lithuanian goddess. At first, she is not ready to accept this, but when she is contacted by a local wildlife ranger for help in dealing with some strange animal attacks, she naturally calls on the goddess's powers. I chose to read this because fantasy is a genre that appeals to me, and I enjoyed the premise of this tale. Once the story gets moving, I found that the mood was expertly set, the details of The Capitol Forest were well-written, and the mood was fittingly eerie. There is a mythical creature stalking the forest, a mutant-looking bear, using a kind of black magic on its prey. And now, it's after Elena. A later part of the story inv...

  This story is set in the late 1970's and is the story of how Cassie Lyman, a graduate student, navigates a critical time in her life. She is developing a research subject for her doctoral thesis in women's history, when she comes across a fascinating amount of information at Smith College about Kate Easton, a woman who founded the Birth Control League of Massachusetts in 1916. Cassie also discovers that she is actually related to Kate Easton. At this point, Cassie has been living in Minnesota, but she has returned to her childhood stomping grounds for the wedding of her sister. So, in the foreground of this story is Cassie's current family drama surrounding the wedding and-- other later developments. Meanwhile, Cassie is obsessed with reading Kate Easton's journal entries and letters. As time goes on, Cassie finds parallels between her life and her great grand aunt's, and is thankful for and awed by the work and strength exhibited by her predecessor. I enjoyed...

The Streel tells the story of a very young woman named Brigid Reardon, born in Gallway, Ireland, who immigrates to the United States, along with her brother Seamus, to escape famine and extreme poverty. Her story begins in 1877. This novel appealed to me because I like both mysteries and historical novels for the intrigue and information to be learned about different cultures and time periods. Brigid's adventures begin during her passage across the ocean, when she and Seamus meet a couple of guys named Paddy and Billy, and bond with them. Actually, there is a scene in which the three young men must physically protect Brigid that seems to be a foreshadowing about the ferocity of one of the characters. Mostly, though, the story focuses on Brigid. After arriving in the states, Brigid does what many young ladies do--she becomes a servant, in the employ of wealthy families. Eventually, when she begins to attract the attention of Charlie Hunt, the son of the wealthy people she is wo...

The Ship of Dreams is a lovingly written and researched volume that centers on the sinking of the Titanic, but also encompasses the history of the society that invented her. Gareth Russell focuses on just a few of the passengers, and lets us look into their lives and family histories. The author delved into these surrounding histories with a completeness that I must admit surprised me. It wasn't at all the book I was expecting. One of the passengers Russell introduces us to is The Countess of Rothes, or Lucy-Noelle Martha Leslie, who was traveling with a companion and her maid. Her life history was educational for its depiction of the aristocracy in England during the Edwardian Era. She was also remarkably kind and generous, the type of person I would expect to be lauded in a history such as this. Russell also illustrates the story of Ida and Isidor Straus, an older American couple who did not survive. As the lifeboats filled with women and children first, Ida and Isidor r...