Valley of the Moon by Melanie Gideon

A special thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is told from the perspective of two narrators who are separated by nearly a century.  It is 1975, and we meet single mother Lux Lysander, who lives paycheque to paycheque on one floor of a a three-story house with her son, Benno, and roommate Rhonda. Lux goes on a solo camping trip to Sonoma, also know as the Valley of the Moon and is transported through time during a full moon to 1906 by way of a dense fog. She ends up in a small, well-run farming community led by our second narrator, Joseph Bell. Bell is a Londoner that values men and women alike and has deemed all jobs as equal. He founded "Greengage Farm" in honour of his late mother who committed suicide after his father has her committed the second time. This community is stuck in time after an earthquake hits and leaves it behind a dense fog that you cannot pass through.  Lux seems to be the only one who can pass through the fog and time and does so whenever there is a full moon.             

Sounds kind of hokey, right? Well it is... Some of the narrative really grabbed me. There was some great writing—I loved the backstory of Lux and her father and wished that that was a standalone book. But there were many unanswered questions and you must suspend your disbelief.   

The Color of our Sky by Amita Trasi

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Did I just read that correctly, that this is a debut novel?  Seriously?  Outstanding.  This is an emotional story of two childhood friends—one a victim of the human slave trade, the other on a mission to save her after she is kidnapped from the room they share.

In 1996, Mukta at the age of ten has come of age to become a prostitute like her mother and grandmother.  In an effort to escape her fate, she is sent to be a house girl for a family in Mumbai.  There she forms a strong bond with Tara, the eight-year-old daughter of the family and the girls become like sisters.    

One fateful night in 1993, Mutka is kidnapped from the room she shares with Tara and disappears.  Tara ends up in America but never recovers from losing her best friend and cannot settle in LA.  She blames herself for Mukta's kidnapping and embarks on a journey to bring her home.  What she is not prepared for are the secrets that are uncovered about her own family along the way.

For fans of Khaled Hosseini, Nadia Hashimi, and Shilpi Somaya Gowda, you will not be disappointed that you picked up this book, you will be disappointed when you finish it.     

The Day I Died: A Novel by Lori Rader-Day

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

We meet Anna Winger, a handwriting analyst with a messy past, who is called upon to use her talent on a high-profile case in the small town that she is currently living in.  As a handwriting expert, she is able to identify the writer's personality traits and psychological state.  Some believe in her craft and use her to profile individuals, while others consider her to be a charlatan.  For Anna, her profession allows her to keep people at arms-length and keep her anonymity while supporting her son.

She immerses herself into the case of a missing boy.  Unfortunately for her, the case awakens elements of her past, things she's tried to keep hidden, and she is unable to outrun it any longer.          

This is my first book by Rader-Day and it won't be my last.  I enjoyed this story and would like to read more about Anna.  She is a well-writen character with an interesting talent, this would make a great series.  

The Witches of New York by Ami McKay

A special thank you to NetGalley,Penguin Random House Canada, and Knopf Canada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Set two hundred years after the trials in Salem, Adelaide Thom ('Moth' from The Virgin Cure) runs a tea shop with Eleanor St. Clair, that specializes in cures, potions, and spells.  Feeling that they are run off their feet, Adelaide puts an ad in the local paper to secure extra help.  Beatrice Dunn is a perfect fit, she has an untapped gift of seeing things and hearing things that nobody else can.  The three main characters were rich and well-written, but were let down by the plot which ironically is given away in the blurb (hopefully this will be amended for the inside/back cover of the finished product).  

I loved the setting and descriptions throughout the city of New York in the Gilded Age.  As much as I loved Ami McKay's other works (The Birth House, and The Virgin Cure), this story was just average and I struggled at times to get through it.  The beginning had a nice hook, and there were some others dispersed throughout the story which ended up propelling me to finish.  

Based on a True Story by Norm Macdonald

A special thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Being Canadian, and growing up watching SNL, I thought requesting this book was a no brainer, but it was simply a rambling monologue that ends up being one long joke.  There were nuggets of real stories that were camouflaged with fiction.  After reading this, I realized that the joke was on me.

Sirius by Jonathan Crown

A special thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Delightful and quirky, I absolutely loved the premiss for this book — historical fiction told through a dog.  It reminded me of Forest Gump, but again, with a dog.  He gets himself into some interesting situations and is a lot of suspension of disbelief happening, but if you can get past that tactic, you will enjoy this story.

I was interested to learn that this was a translation, it read in the same tone as what I would imagine to be true of the era.  Very well done.