Top Stories
Stories in BookClub that you’ll love, handpicked by our team.
Is it Ethical to Use Bookstores as a Showroom?
There is nothing quite like the joy of wandering around a bookstore. I love digging through the shelves and finding a hidden gem. I love the smell of the worn paper and the background noise of other customers flipping through pages.
By Kera Hollow2 months ago in BookClub
Summer Leaves by S. E. Holz
I'm completely embarrassed, but delighted to share my thoughts on this incredible collection from Ms. Holz, A.K.A. by Vocalites as L.C. Shäfer. Embarrassed, because I'm very, very late in writing this. Delighted, because I had the privilege of reading this wonderful collection and giving you my honest opinion of its contents.
By Dana Crandell2 months ago in BookClub
My Top Five Reads This Year
Introduction I have read a lot this year, far more than I have written, and I feel that the literal soaking that has happened (pun wholly intended) has benefited me enormously as a writer. So, as writers do, I thought I would write about it for no real reason other than to share what I have read and loved, and why.
By Caroline Jane2 months ago in BookClub
Rachel Reviews: What Was Forbidden by Jonathan Bockian
I, personally, love an historical murder mystery. My requirements are that it must evoke the place and the period firstly but that the action and the characters must also be believable. Jon Bockian's book delivers this to a high degree and he has created a novel which is tense, informative, creates investment in the characters and brings alive 17th century Venice - all good.
By Rachel Deeming3 months ago in BookClub
Rachel Reviews: Lost Letters by Tom Hapgood
Tom Hapgood's book is a lot of things. It has history, both twentieth century and prior; it has youth and the coming-of-age; it has, through its characters' situations, a discussion of the health concerns that can encroach as life continues inexorably towards death; and it has the secrets that lurk in the family vault, just waiting to be uncovered and brought to the surface.
By Rachel Deeming4 months ago in BookClub
The Curse of the Sotkari Ta
As you all might remember from my review of Whitney Hill’s The Shadows of Otherside, I have been a freelance editor and beta reader for a few years. In this piece, I wanted to introduce you to another of the fantastic indie authors I’ve worked with and the book series that she’s brought into this world: Maria A. Perez (a new writer to Vocal) and her romantic space opera trilogy The Curse of the Sotkari Ta.
By Stephanie Hoogstad4 months ago in BookClub
And what do you think, Mr. Robbins?
No, I had no idea what the title meant when I picked up this book from the local library. And no, I was not a long time fan of the author when I heard of his death and found that I had two of his paperbacks ready to go: “Another Roadside Attraction” (his first novel), and “Jitterbug Perfume” (catchy titles, I think). But I knew his name. I had seen the books and I knew that someone was actually insane enough to make a film out of his “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” a film starring Uma Thurman as a hitchhiker with a very generous length of thumb (no, it was not a hit). And I stayed away from them all. My feeling was that Mr. Tom Robbins belonged to that interesting clique of writers from the late sixties that once had the ear of the zeitgeist, but soon lost it when people realized that they had nothing else to say (reviewing the remainder pile of the local bookstores has become an unmerciful duty). There was no place in my life for books on hippies, the counterculture that failed, and the false promise of psychedelics.
By Kendall Defoe 4 months ago in BookClub
