The Temple of Fortuna, by Elodie Harper
Review by Lory Widmer Hess The Temple of Fortuna is the third book in a trilogy that began with The Wolf Den and continued with The House with the Golden…
The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
Review by Lory Widmer Hess In the expansive days of summer, what better book could there be to read than a classic of travel literature, Mark Twain’s career-making account of…
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
Translated by Ralph Manheim, illustrated by Marie-Alice Harel Review by Lory Widmer Hess He picked up the book and examined it from all sides. It was bound in copper-colored silk,…
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Review by Lory Widmer Hess “The people who offer us the best insights into reality are often novelists,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has said, [The Guardian, 14 Jan 2020] and reading…
The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin
Review by Lory Widmer Hess The Farthest Shore, third book in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea sequence, was originally published in 1972. Picking it up for a reread today, in…
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Review by Lory Widmer Hess I wouldn’t normally expect much of a book created as the novelization of a TV series, but in this case, you know—Neil Gaiman. His first…
The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin
Reviewed by Lory Widmer Hess In our upside-down world of reversed values, where what is most lasting and important is given the least amount of attention, while superficial, transitory things…
The House with the Golden Door by Elodie Harper
Review by Lory Widmer-Hess The House with the Golden Door returns to the world of Elodie Harper’s acclaimed novel, The Wolf Den, set in first century CE Pompeii. If you…
Daughters of the Labyrinth by Ruth Padel
Reviewed by Lory Widmer-Hess When we went to Crete last October (during a brief window when travel was possible), I knew little of the island’s history beyond the myth of…
The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper
Review by Lory Widmer-Hess Ancient Greece and Rome, which formed the foundation of so much in our Western civilization, have been getting a revisionist look lately. A number of novels…
Featherweight by Mick Kitson
Reviewed by Lory Widmer Hess “A woman has to fight sometimes. It’s as well ya know how.” Annie Loveridge is a fighting woman, and no mistake. Helpless to protest as…
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker
Reviewed by Lory Widmer-Hess Schizophrenic. The very word is a trigger for aversion, a signal to run away, with its spiky, spluttered consonants and imprisoned vowels, four foreign syllables meaning…
The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Stories, by Joan Aiken
Reviewed by Lory Widmer Hess For over sixty years – starting about age sixteen and continuing right up until her death in 2004 – storyteller extraordinaire Joan Aiken wrote tales…
Suspense with Style: The Novels of Mary Stewart
Written by Lory Widmer Hess “The whole affair began so very quietly.” With the first line of her first novel, Mary Stewart already proclaimed herself a sublimely intelligent storyteller, saying…
Seacrow Island, and Mio, My Son by Astrid Lindgren
Reviewed by Lory Widmer Hess If you’ve been lucky enough to spend summers as a child in a special place, you know that they carry a most particular magic. The…
The Road to Middlemarch: My Life with George Eliot by Rebecca Mead
Reviewed by Lory Widmer Hess No two readers can really read the same book. The nuances generated by our particular set of experiences, associations, and interests color our reading, making…
The Hollow Land by Jane Gardam
Reviewed by Lory Widmer Hess A witch becomes a friend. A pool of blood turns out to be blackberry juice. A theft turns into a gift, and a surly city…