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ARC BOOK REVIEW: Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy by Anne Sebba

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  Publication Date:  June 8, 2021 Format:  Kindle Genre:  Biography Publisher:  St Martin Press Length:  320 pages Buy:  Audio  |  Kindle  Synopsis In June 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a couple with two young sons, were led separately from their prison cells on Death Row and electrocuted moments apart. Both had been convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union, despite the fact that the US government was aware that the evidence against Ethel was shaky at best and based on the perjury of her own brother.  This audiobook is the first to focus on one half of that couple for more than 30 years, and much new evidence has surfaced since then. Ethel was a bright girl who might have fulfilled her personal dream of becomi...

BOOK REVIEW: Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

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Publication Date:  April 7, 2020 Publisher:  Doubleday Format:  ebook Pages:   370 Pages Genre:   Biology, History Buy:  Kindle  |  Audible Synopsis: OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease. Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one af...

ARC Review: Daughters of the Dragon by William Andrews

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Release Date:  June 28, 2016 Publisher:  Lake Union Publishing Format:  Kindle Pages:  362 pages Genre: Fiction   Buy:   Paperback  |  Kindle Synopsis:  When twenty-year-old Anna Carlson travels from America to a Korean orphanage to locate her birth mother, she’s devastated to learn the woman is already dead. But just when it seems her search is over, a stranger hands her a parcel containing an antique comb—and an address. That scrap of paper leads Anna to the Seoul apartment of the poor yet elegant Hong Jae-hee. Jae-hee recounts an epic tale that begins with the Japanese occupation of Korea and China during World War II, when more than two hundred thousand Korean women were forced to serve the soldiers as “comfort women.” Jae-hee knows the story well—she was one of them. As Jae-hee’s narrative unfolds, Anna discovers that the precious tortoiseshell comb, with its two-headed ivory dragon, has survived against all odds through g...

Gangs, Guns and Politics

Title: South Phoenix Rules by Jon Talton Publisher: Poison Pen Press 250 Pages Genre: Urban Mystery This book will be released in December 2010.  I received this as an advanced  electronic  galley from the publisher through netgalley.com Synopsis: A handsome young New York professor comes to Phoenix to research his new book. But when he’s brutally murdered, police connect him to one of the world’s most deadly drug cartels. This shouldn’t be a case for historian-turned-deputy David Mapstone – except the victim has been dating David’s sister-in-law Robin and now she’s a target, too. David’s wife Lindsey is in Washington with an elite anti-cyber terror unit and she makes one demand of him: protect Robin. This won’t be an easy job with the city police suspicious of Robin and trying to pressure her. With the sheriff’s office in turmoil, David is even more of an outsider. And the gangsters are able to outgun and outspend law enforcement. It doesn’t help that David a...