This is my symphony

What I read & what I lived …

The Best Kind of People Zoe Whittal Ballantine Books The story is an all-too-familiar one: a beloved teacher is charged with improper behavior towards female students. Headlines scream. Families crumple. Lives disintegrate. I’d venture a guess it’s happened in just about every high school at one time or another. And if a parent or administrator …

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A Piece of the World Christina Baker Kline William Morrow Christina Baker Kline’s Orphan Train made me curious to read more about the orphans shipped cross-country at the turn-of-the-century. So when I read about her latest novel A Piece of the World and it’s subject–the painting Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth–I immediately put the book on my wishlist. …

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The Lauras (NetGalley) Sara Taylor Crown Publishing Ma bustles twelve-year-old Alex out of bed in the middle of the night, grabs a backpack always waiting by the front door, and Alex doesn’t return “home” for nearly four years. And “home” is what Sara Taylor’s novel The Lauras is all about. Is “home” the birthplace our …

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Girl Last Seen (NetGalley) Nina Laurin Grand Central Publishing/Hatchett Group Unbecoming Rebecca Scherm Penguin Two young women: Laine, a kidnap victim; and Julie, an accessory to a crime. Both are living under assumed names, supposedly for protection. Except, as both Girl Last Seen and Unbecoming demonstrate, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to run away from one’s past. The …

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Himself (NetGalley) Jess Kidd St. Martin’s Press release date: March 14, 2017 Jess Kidd’s first novel Himself is a poignant and darkly funny story about a Mahony, a n’er-do-well Dubliner, who travels clear across the island to the idyllic village of Mulderrig to discover what happened to the mammy who (apparently) abandoned him on the steps of an …

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