michellehogmire

A boarding school cooking competition creates a matchless atmosphere for rivalry over family traditions in Mary Ramsey’s engaging and original young adult novel, Run It! Elena has big shoes to fill at the top-tier Toshaini-Kai Institute, including the fact that her mom and dad are both celebrated alumni. Elena faces her similarly well-known peers, while a secret about her father simmers in the background. Mary Ramsey’s novel deftly balances themes of personal loss and sorrow with the pressure of career success, making the book a positive, feel-good read overall, with a fascinating fly-on-the-wall perspective on both boarding school life and […]

A country lawyer begrudgingly takes on a complicated and notorious murder case in R.G. Ashcroft’s Fetch Me A Hangman, a page-turning legal thriller about crossing tangled ethical lines. Brandeis Fields does not want to defend Aaron Tait, a young man accused of killing the mayor’s daughter, but there’s no one else for the job. Not only will Fields have to contend with the wrath of locals, but he’ll have to cope with a cantankerous client, an incompetent co-lawyer, and the feelings of his own family. While Ashcroft’s writing is sometimes a bit stiff, the book’s gradual twists and turns are […]

A one-sided love story about obsessive fantasy gone wrong, C.O.B.’s The Beauty in Ms. White is a striking novel about the power of delusional assumptions. Carlos Castillo is an unsuccessful novelist living in Philadelphia, where he spends his days as a shoe store manager and his nights in a drunken stupor. After moving into a new apartment, Carlos becomes infatuated with a woman living next door and fabricates an intimate relationship with her. Readers should hold on tight for a wild, sharply plotted ride, as C.O.B.’s unreliable narrator sinks further and further into shocking madness, for an intriguing mixture of […]