by Laura DeNooyer | Oct 25, 2022 | Book Reviews
Even though Dangerous Inheritance is the second book in Sherri Wilson Johnson’s Jeopardized Reunions series, it’s the one I read first. But it doesn’t matter. Each one functions as a standalone. Last time I introduced Desolate Escape. Reading this novel reminded me...
by Laura DeNooyer | Oct 18, 2022 | Book Reviews
Suspense is vital to a novel, but my favorite kind of tension is the interplay of relationships and family dynamics, not ruthless criminals seeking wealth or revenge. Both kinds of stories can keep me up late, turning the pages, but the latter type sets my nerves on...
by Laura DeNooyer | Jan 11, 2022 | Book Reviews
When I first picked up Under a Cloudless Sky, I thought it was about the 1920 miners’ massacre known as the Battle of Matewan, a shootout between local coal miners and the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency in West Virginia. Ten men died as a result of this fight for...
by Laura DeNooyer | Jan 4, 2022 | Book Reviews
Will the real Mack Strum please stand up? While reading Chris Fabry’s A Piece of the Moon, I stumbled across this character Mack Strum, a country singer. The story’s setting is a country radio station in rural West Virginia. Waite Evers, the manager, recites...
by Laura DeNooyer | Dec 7, 2021 | Book Reviews
Like millions of others, I long ago fell in love with the book Christy by Catherine Marshall. I read it in middle school about five years after publication (1967). That was my first introduction to the Smoky Mountains, delving into 1912 southern Appalachia,...
