This book’s plot started out seeming like a well-known rom-com plot of “fake dating leads to real love”. That is the basic theme, but the book is entertaining along the way with a lot of pieces to the plot. I really enjoyed the book.

This was a very entertaining book! Alice Feeney’s books always keep me guessing and have twists I can never truly guess at accurately. I was a little confused with how the stories came together at the end, however.

This book had me in tears by the end of it. It was almost like I could feel the pain of the characters seeping through the pages. By far one of the best books I have ever read.

I have mixed impressions of and feelings about this novel. I found the plot intriguing, and enjoyed Serafina's narrative voice in her alternating chapters, as compared to Sara's, which disappointingly tended to fall more often into cliché turns of phrase. I understand the need to set the characters' "voices" apart and distinguish the eras in which they are living, but wonder if this could have been done with a bit more finesse for Sara's chapters. Some plot revelations were telegraphed and therefore more predictable, while others felt more satisfyingly surprising. At times, the events and interactions themselves seemed to draw on stereotypes, though I appreciate that the author appears to have researched the book quite thoroughly. There were also some unexpectedly graphic passages in the book, so readers who are especially sensitive to intimate and/or violent imagery may wish to be aware of this before reading. Overall, though it would be missing a meaningful modern dimension, I think I might have preferred this as a purely historical fiction novel, set entirely in Serafina's time period. All that said, I would still be interested to read other novels by this same author, in the hopes that they are more of the quality of Serafina's chapters than Sara's.

This book was well written. The author expressed some incredibly insightful ideas beautifully. The story line itself was average. There was domestic abuse which was difficult to read.

Flint is my favorite poem from here. Saw him on AGT and had to get his book. Super great. He can get a little religious which isn’t typically my cup of tea but it wasn’t too much. Still a great poet and sooo amazing.

A Sherlock Holmes-ish mystery set in the 1920s, as a good cop teams up with a “graphologist” in a dangerous bid to expose corruption within the London police department.

Fences is a beautifully written yet heart wrenching story of a black man and father being so affected by the past that he can’t move forward, causing him to lose control of those he loved over time. Troy, the main character of the play, is in many ways scarred from his past. He works with his hands because his father did and he knows that a skill if the only thing the harsh world can’t take away from you. Growing up in the post-civil war time period and seeing the ways in which his father and black people struggled, he refuses to believe society will ever treat black people justly and allow them a chance to pursue what they love most. This is reflected in his refusal to sign a paper and let Cory, his son, play football and gain an opportunity for college. Troy can not fathom a world which allows black people to play mainstream sports and tries to prevent the pain before it starts by stopping Cory from playing. Resentment grows in Cory and with added issues of society’s treatment of his disabled veteran brother, Gabe, Troy begins to feel stuck and out of control with his life’s path. In doing so, he cheats on his wife, Rose, with a woman named Alberta and becomes the father to a girl who he asks Rose to take in. Miserable, and pushing away all who cared about him in his life, he becomes a stranger in his own home and begins his “fight” with death until he passes 8 years later. His impact on those around him (both good and bad) lingers on. I liked the story, even with us heartfelt sad ending. It is an overall great book!

Twisty and entertaining thriller about an unsolved murder and a group of college friends at a very Duke-like university. Lots of twists and turns, suspenseful, and also a really interesting look at the complexities of friendship, especially within a group.

I love how Jeanne Birdsall made a surprising twist