Book Reviews Archives - The Steamy Side of Vegas

Books For Your Spa Tote—Summer reads are supposed to be playful, sweet confections that make us laugh, cry a bit, and leave us feeling good in the end. Here are six — not all of them new — books to put in your beach bag:

The Little Paris Bookshop: A Novel

by Nina George

Monsieur Perdu’s bookshop is housed on a boat moored on the Seine where he “prescribes” books like medications to cure people’s ills. One day he simply lets go —untying the boat and moves down the river searching for his own healing story. The book is filled with questions, characters, unopened letters, and a reminder that what scares us most may be what saves us after all.

Note: another book by Nina George, The Little French Bistro, A Novel, is also a good read.

Amazon Barnes & Noble The Writer’s Block (A Vegas Bookstore)

The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow

by Rita Leganski

This is a dream-like book that takes you into a space of deep resounding silence. Bonaventure’s mute silence is rewarded with hearing so acute he can hear the brush of butterfly wings,” At once sad and beautiful, The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow may take you to a place you’ve never been before.

Amazon, Barnes & Noble The Writer’s Block (A Vegas Bookstore)

A Brazen Curiosity
A Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mystery

By Lynn Messina

This book is funny — sometimes laugh out loud funny. It is written in an almost stream-of-conscious style and you spend much of the time in Beatrice’s head as she alternately chastises herself for being so “brazen,” questions the attentions of Duke Kesgrave, and puts her more than up-to-the-task brain to work solving the mystery. There are now four books in the series and I’m now almost finished with the last one. Have loved them all!

Amazon and Barnes & Noble The Writer’s Block (A Vegas Bookstore)

Julie & Julia
My Year of Cooking Dangerously
by Julie Powell

My Life in France
by Julia Child

These two books should be read simultaneously! The one, My Life in France is Julia Child’s story of being introduced into the world of cooking when, out of boredom, she took her first (and many more thereafter) classe at Cordon Bleu in Paris out of boredom. The other is Julie Powell’s commitment to cook through all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s iconic cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. These women are wickedly funny, honest about their strengths and weaknesses and willing to share their many mistakes. You will like both of them and I believe that without a doubt, they would have sincerely liked each other!

These books are possibly out of print, but definitely still available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and at the local bookstore, The Writer’s Block.

The Night Circus

by Erin Morgenstern

This is a magic book. It takes you into the dark and beautiful world of two young magicians who are locked into a life-long competition of wit and ability. But the men who linked the two never counted on love and the creativity of the human heart. Read this one slowly and savor the incredible descriptions of midnight dinners, magical circus acts, and a relationship where love is only the beginning.

Erin Morgenstern has a new book out, The Starless Sea, A Novel. It will at my door shortly.

Amazon Barnes & Noble The Writer’s Block (A Vegas Bookstore)

Life is too unreliable to plan one’s hats in advance.
Emily, Beatrice Hyde-Clare’s younger cousin, in A Brazen Curiosity