Svetlana's Reads and Views

Name of Book: A Reason for Living

Author: Julian Jingles

ISBN: 978-1-64367-865-8

Publisher: urlink

Type of book: Jamaica, 1960s, incest, Rasta, drugs, corruption, parties, students, art, gratuitous sex, violence, Gary Stu, relationships, poor, country, activity

Year it was published: 2020

Summary:

It is the mid-1960s in Kingston, Jamaica, and the country is steeped in social, political, and economic inequities. Howard Baxter, the heir to a real estate empire, has no interest in seeking or managing wealth. Painting and deflowering Jamaican maidens are his passions. As he combs the streets looking for greater meaning in his pathetic life, it soon becomes apparent that Howard's journey will not be easy. Bernaldo Lloyd, a member of the Baxter clan, is a medical student who is sensitive to the hopelessness of the Jamaican masses. Inspired by his close friend and Howard's cousin, Ras Robin Pone, and their ties with the Rastafari movement that calls for social and economic equity, Bernaldo…

Name of Book: Darling Rose Gold

Author: Stephanie Wrobel

ISBN: 978-0-593-10006-6

Publisher: Berkley

Type of book: suspense, Missouri? Relationships, 2012-2017, survival, Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, USA, modern times, thriller, mother/daughter, revenge, diseases, desperation, hunger

Year it was published: 2020

Summary:

Sharp Objects meets My Lovely Wife in this tightly drawn debut that peels back the layers of the most complicated of mother-daughter relationships...

For the first eighteen years of her life, Rose Gold Watts believed she was seriously ill. She was allergic to everything, used a wheelchair and practically lived at the hospital. Neighbors did all they could, holding fundraisers and offering shoulders to cry on, but no matter how many doctors, tests, or surgeries, no one could figure out what was wrong with Rose Gold.

Turns out her mom, Patty Watts, was just a really good liar.

After serving five years in prison, Patty gets out with nowhere to go and begs her daughter to take h…

Name of Book: A Gentleman in Moscow

Author: Amor Towles

ISBN: 978-0-670-02619-7

Publisher: Viking

Type of book: Moscow, Russia, 1922-1954, wealth, breeding, culture, class, Metropol, trapped, claustrophobia, reading, literature, friendship

Year it was published: 2016

Summary:

The mega-bestseller with more than 1.5 million readers that is soon to be a major television series

He can't leave his hotel. You won't want to.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility--a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel.

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel'…

Name of Book: Turn to Stone

Author: James W Ziskin

ISBN: 978-1-63388-552-3

Publisher: Seventh Street Books

Part of a Series: Ellie Stone Mysteries

Type of book: September 1963, mystery, Italy, Boccaccio, Decameron, quarantine, secrets, stories, trip, curiosity, women's rights, wealth, WW2, second chances

Year it was published: 2020

Summary:

This 1960s-era locked-room mystery takes Ellie Stone to Florence, Italy--a seemingly idyllic setting, which in this case has sinister undertones.

Florence, Italy, August 1963. In Italy to accept a posthumous award for her late father's academic work, "girl reporter" Ellie Stone is invited to spend a weekend outside Florence with some of the scholars attending the symposium. A suspected rubella outbreak leaves the ten friends quarantined in the bucolic setting with little to do but tell stories to entertain themselves. Deciding to make the best of their confinement, the men and women spin tales, gorge themselves on fine Tuscan food and wi…

Name of Book: Ghost of the Bamboo Road

Author: Susan Spann

ISBN: 978-1-63388-550-9

Publisher: Seventh Street Books

Part of a Series: Hiro Hattori Novels

Type of book: Japan, samurai, mountains, fox, 1566, kitsune, entertainers, revenge, plans, mystery, yamabushi, Shinobi, crime, murder

Year it was published: 2019

Summary:

When a vengeful spirit terrorizes a mountain village in medieval Japan, a ninja and a Jesuit priest must reveal the truth and save the villagers from the phantom's wrath.

January 1566: En route to Edo, Master ninja Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo spend the night in a rural mountain village whose inhabitants live in terror of a legendary vengeful ghost. When the innkeeper's wife is murdered and Father Mateo's housekeeper, Ana, is blamed for a crime she did not commit, Hiro and Father Mateo are forced to investigate and reveal the truth. But when another woman turns up murdered in the snow, the detectives must face the shocking truth that the venge…

Name of Book: A Bottle of Rum

Author: Steve Goble

ISBN: 978-1-64506-003-1

Publisher: Seventh Street Books

Part of a Series: Spider John Mysteries

Type of book: 1723, pirates, insane asylum, mystery, violence, murder, cursing, Spider John, friendship, loyalty

Year it was published: 2019

Summary:

August, 1723 -- Spider John Rush believes he has escaped piracy forever. Enjoying rum and chess in a dark Lymington tavern, he dreams of finding passage to Nantucket to reunite with his beloved Em and to finally get to know the son he remembers only as a babe in arms, though the lad must be dreaming of going to sea himself by now. But when a lazy taverner is stabbed to death, one glance at the victim tells Spider the pirate life has followed him ashore and he cannot possibly ignore this bloody crime. The wise maneuver would be to run before authorities arrive, but Spider is denied that choice because he’s already deeply, connected to the crime—he fashioned the murder weapon with his own hands.

The kni…