• Embroidery and Scissors
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    Review: Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater

    Dora Ettings has a problem: she is missing half of her soul (which was stolen by a faerie when she was a child), and therefore is unable to feel emotions such as shame or embarrassment. Far from being an advantage, it has caused quite a few difficulties in the regency society where she lives with her aunt and her cousin Vanessa. When Vanessa is taken to London by her mother to try and find a husband, Dora is allowed to accompany her. Hoping only not to cause too much trouble and interfere with her cousin’s prospects, Dora’s plans are upset when she meets the handsome but bad-tempered Elias Wilder, the…

  • Mob
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    Review: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

    Two men who bear a startling resemblance to one another — Charles Darnay, a frenchman, and Sydney Carton, an English lawyer — have their lives collide and intertwine between their two countries in the years before and during the French Revolution.  The two meet by chance during Darnay’s treason trial in England, and both fall in love with the same woman — Lucie Manette, the daughter of a French doctor called to witness at the trial. Years later, the chaos of the French Revolution threatens their doorstep, and they each make a difficult decision that sets them on the path to their ultimate fate.  This book has made me tear…

  • Concentration camp
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    Review: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

    Lale Sokolov is a Slovakian Jew; one fateful day in 1942, he finds himself packed in with other passengers in a train car, on the way to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.  With no idea of his destination, Lale is horrified by the cruel surroundings he finds himself in; but from the very start of his time at the camp, his objective is to survive. He is clever, resourceful, and fluent in several languages, and he soon puts his skills to good use to help himself and his fellow inmates as best he can, hoping to make it to a day when this nightmare is no longer their reality.  Lale soon…

  • Girl in the desert
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    Review: The Revolution of Ivy by Amy Engel

    (WARNING: spoilers for The Book of Ivy.)  See the review for The Book of Ivy here.  Banished to the wilderness outside the fence after taking ownership for a crime she did not commit, Ivy must learn to survive the harsh reality of the landscape outside of the city where she has spent her whole life. Alone and unprepared, she must battle against the elements, predators, and old enemies in order to survive, and to face her hardest challenge: learning to let herself love again.  I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I did the first in the series. There were some good points that followed through from the first…

  • Girl in a field
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    Review: The Book of Ivy by Amy Engel

    Against the backdrop of a dystopian society, two rival families have established a city of survivors where citizens live in uneasy peace. Life is tolerable, but sacrifices must be made; punishment for not following the rules is harsh, with offenders banished outside of the protective fence that surrounds the city — a fate worse than death.  Ivy Westfall — the daughter of the family that founded the city, but lost the war — has just come of age. In a yearly ceremony, the daughters of the losing faction are married to the sons of the winners. This year, it’s Ivy’s turn — she will be married to the president’s son,…

  • Dying Roses
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    Review: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

    While on holiday in Monte Carlo, a young traveling companion with very little to her name catches the eye of Max de Winter, a rich widower and the owner of the Manderly estate in England. Weeks later, after a short and unlikely romance, Maxim proposes marriage.  But problems begin to arise upon their arrival at Manderly. The new Mrs. de Winter discovers that life at the estate is not all she imagined it would be; instead, she finds a distant husband, cold staff, and a dark mystery that hangs over the house and haunts the daily lives of its inhabitants.  Loneliness, curiosity, and jealousy soon begin to cloud the happiness…