Crux: A Cross-Border Memoir, by Jean Guerrero. One World, 2018
Jean Guerrero had a hard childhood. Her mother, a Puerto Rican physician working in San Diego, kicked her father out when Guerrero was 6- for understandable reasons. Her mother’s parents, who at times were the children’s caregivers, had some very odd ideas about child rearing. Her ( Read more... )

The Rules of Magic, by Alice Hoffman. Simon & Schuster, 2017 This is the long awaited prequel to ‘Practical Magic’. In it we learn who the aunts were before they were the old ladies we see in PM- and they had quite interesting young lives! The story of how they grew up, along with their unnaturally beautiful and attractive brother- the only male ( Read more... )

Foxlowe, by Eleanor Wasserberg. Penguin, 2017 “Foxlowe” is a seriously creepy book. You wouldn’t think so; Green, our narrator, thinks Foxlowe is the best place possible for a kid to grow up. Not that she has anything to compare it to; she was born there. It’s a commune, where everyone is equal, things are shared, they live off the land as much ( Read more... )

Unearthed: How an Abandoned Garden Taught Me to Accept and Love My Parents, by Alexandra Risen. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016 Just as the author and her husband buy an acre property just outside downtown Toronto, her father dies. This doesn’t make much of a difference in Risen’s life; in her entire life he has hardly ever spoken to her. He didn’t ( Read more... )

The Witch of Exmoor, by Margaret Drabble. Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1996 ‘The Witch of Exmoor’ begins with the adult children of Frieda Haxby Palmer having a weekend together for the purpose of deciding what to do about their mother. She has, they feel, lost her mind or gone senile. The problem is, there is not one sign that she is incompetent, except ( Read more... )

The Loveliest Woman in America: A Memoir, by Bibi Gaston. Harper Perennial, 2008 The sobiquet of loveliest woman in America was bestowed by the press on Rosamund Pinchot, grandmother of the author. A member of a wealthy family, she was discovered by a Broadway producer onboard a luxury liner when she was 19 and became a star in 1923. Pretty, ( Read more... )

Always a Witch, by Carolyn MacCullough. Clarion Books, 2011 ‘Always a Witch’ is the sequel to ‘Once a Witch’, but despite having not read that book I had no problem understanding what this volume was about. MacCullough weaves the backstory deftly into this story in small bits and pieces, never hitting the reader over the head with it. ‘Always a ( Read more... )