New Release Tuesday: The Summer Before the War, by Helen Simonson

Title: The Summer Before the War, Helen Simonson

Print Length: 496 pages

Publisher: Random House

Publication Date: March 22, 2016

Rating: 4/5 Stars

I was lucky enough to read an advanced copy of this charming novel by Helen Simonson. Set in 1914, the summer before the outbreak of the Great War, we meet the inhabitants of Rye, a small town in Sussex England who are more focused on the perfect summer weather and garden parties than the rumored war on the continent. It is to this idyllic country town that Beatrice Nash arrives just as life for everyone is about to change.

Memoir Monday: Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem

My Life on the Road

It's Memoir Monday and continuing with works inspired and written by women (it is women's history month after all), this week's memoir was My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem. For those unfamiliar with Steinem, she is in my opinion one of the most influential women's rights advocates and activists in this country. Not only was she huge in the women's rights movement, she was part of the civil rights movement and I found her memoir riveting and more importantly - a must read for humanity. If you are a human being - you need to read this.

5 Novels for Saint Patrick's Day

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! While your friends and family are out pinching people who are not wearing green, proudly displaying their "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" shirts and generally enjoying the raucous holiday that is Saint Pat's - why not curl up with one of these titles and your celebratory green beer or wine while spending the holiday swept up in Ireland via a book? My motto always is, have book will travel (in my mind I suppose).

New Release Tuesday: Burning Down the House by Jane Mendelsohn

It's new release Tuesday!
This week the much anticipated novel by Jane Mendelsohn, Burning Down the House is available on kindle and in print.

From Amazon:
"In cinematic, dazzlingly described scenes, we enter the lavish universe of the Zane family, from a wedding in an English manor house to the trans-global world of luxury hotels and restaurants—from New York to Rome, Istanbul to Laos. As we meet them all—Steve’s second wife, his children from his first marriage, the twins from the second, their friends and household staff—we enter with visceral immediacy an emotional world filled with a dynamic family’s loves, jealousies, and yearnings. In lush, exact prose, Mendelsohn transforms their private stories into a panoramic drama about a family’s struggles to face the challenges of internal rivalry, a tragic love, and a shifting empire. Set against the backdrop of financial crisis, globalization, and human trafficking, the novel finds inextricable connections between the personal and the political."

This sounds to be an interesting novel, I'm adding it to my list of new releases to check out. Have you read it? I'd love know what your thoughts were.

Buy it here.