The Hotel Nantucket (2022) was Elin Hildebrand’s 28th book and the first one I’ve read that’s she’s written. A good summer choice by my library book group, Hildebrand centers the story on 19-year old chambermaid, Grace Hadley, who died in 1922 in a fire that gutted the hotel and has haunted it since, hoping forContinue reading “The Hotel Nantucket”
Tag Archives: women’s fiction
Wayward Girls
I was completely captivated by Wayward Girls (publication day July 15, 2025) by Susan Wiggs! It’s an epic story of friendship and survival despite the horrific conditions some girls in the United States were subjected to as recently as 50 or 60 years ago. As the book opens in 2020, we know that a fifty-yearContinue reading “Wayward Girls”
The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits
The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits (publication day April 8, 2025) by Jennifer Weiner is the kind of book I typically gravitate to. It’s about sisters, and music, and it has a fat main character, who is also likely on the autism spectrum. One sister is fat and very talented, the other is conventionally attractive butContinue reading “The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits”
The Cemetery of Untold Stories
Julia Alvarez’s newest novel, The Cemetery of Untold Stories (2024) was a delight! I so loved her In the Time of the Butterflies and Afterlife that I knew I couldn’t miss this one. Alma, the celebrated writer known as Scheherazade, is in the twilight of her career, and has boxes and boxes of unfinished draftsContinue reading “The Cemetery of Untold Stories”
The Bird Hotel
The Bird Hotel (2023) is my first Joyce Maynard book, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that she has written a lot of books, and has been a regular columnist and reporter as well. The Bird Hotel follows Irene, starting with her unusual childhood as the daughter of an itinerant singer in the lateContinue reading “The Bird Hotel”
Fat Girls Dance
I was on a roll last month with fat positive books, culminating in Fat Girls Dance (publication date October 22, 2024) by Cathleen Meredith. Semi-autobiographical based on the FatGirlsDanceMovement on Instagram, and told from the perspectives of three fat women in New York City: Liv, Reese, and Faith, it’s an inspiring story that illustrates theContinue reading “Fat Girls Dance”
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
As usual, Lisa See has crafted an engaging historical fiction novel centering on women and their relationships in Lady Tan’s Circle of Women (2023). In the late 1400s, in China during the Ming dynasty, child Tan Yunxian witnesses her mother’s death because of infection in her bound feet and the lack of medical care forContinue reading “Lady Tan’s Circle of Women”
Such a Fun Age
Such a Fun Age (2020) by Kiley Reid was recommended to me a long time ago, so I finally listened to it, and was mostly impressed by the author’s work, and infuriated with the white characters. Reid introduces us to Emira, a 20-something black woman who is a little adrift after college, not sure whatContinue reading “Such a Fun Age”
Lessons in Chemistry
I loved Lessons in Chemistry (2022) by Bonnie Garmus and have no idea why it took me so long to get to it! Elizabeth Zott is a chemist in 1959, at a research firm in southern California. She meets Calvin Evans, the hotshot of the office, when she appropriates beakers from his lab because, asContinue reading “Lessons in Chemistry”
Now You See Us
Now You See Us (2023) is the newest novel written by Balli Kaur Jaswal (Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters) and is just as good as the others of hers that I’ve read, in a completely different way. Set in Singapore, Jaswal tells the story of a murder throughContinue reading “Now You See Us”
Reading While Fat 