Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson Susan Wiggs’ “The Ocean Between Us” refers both to the sea itself and to half a lifetime of emotional distance and misunderstanding that has grown up between a career military officers and his wife. Grace and Capt. Steve Bennett still love each other. Steve joined the Navy [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson At last year’s National Book Awards ceremony, Stephen King included Jodi Picoult in a list of under-appreciated writers. Well, let’s see. Picoult’s recent “Second Glance” was a New York Times best seller; she’s had great reviews in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson Valerie Danby-Smith was born to a dysfunctional Dublin family in 1940 and spent 14 years in a convent boarding school right out of Charles Dickens. By the time she was 26, she had traveled from Spain to Cuba and New York with Ernest Hemingway, heard his proposal [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson “Suspicion of Madness” is the seventh “Suspicion of…” novel by Barbara Parker featuring attorneys Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana. They’re in the Florida Keys this time, working for a 19-year-old who is accused of killing a young woman and then attempting suicide. Anthony represented this guy four [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson Rue Dunwitty, a 29-year-old San Franciscan, has just pulled into tiny Amethyst, Tex., on one of her bittersweet hometown visits when she sees a placard in a store window that shatters her comfortable belief that nothing ever changes here. “Have You Seen Dawn?” it reads, giving this [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson “Black Dog” sounds like a villain—maybe one of those nicknames that serial killers are given in novels like this. But it’s not: The black dog is Chicago Det. Lt. Jimmy Parisi’s late-career burnout, the fatigue and frustration of fighting a lifelong war against bad guys that can [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson In fiction, ambition is admirable. At least, it’s necessary. Nobody is interested in characters who don’t aspire to anything. But there’s a point—and don’t we know it, surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam of burst ambition?—at which we may do for success what we would never do [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson This is an event. Ten years ago, Louis de Bernierès’ “Corelli’s Mandolin” was published in the United States and became an unlikely popular success. It was a bittersweet romance that appealed to women and men, placed in an obscure historical setting that did not frighten its audience. [...]