Off the Shelf

I Was Hooked From the Very First Sentence March 27, 2018 By Kristin Harmel

 

A good book should draw you in right from the start. I’ve always felt that way, both as a reader and as a writer. There are simply too many good books in the world—and too little time—to spin our wheels delving into something that doesn’t hook us. That’s why THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE by Heather Gudenkauf is still so fresh in my mind. The book starts with the seeds of a mystery, piquing the reader’s interest immediately. Who is the little girl the narrator is talking about? What’s she doing running through the woods in her nightgown? And why has she neglected to say a single word in the last three years? READ MORE A Quick, Hypnotic Novel from a Literary Legend March 09, 2018 By Nikki Barnhart   “What makes Iago evil? Some people ask. I never ask.” So opens Joan Didion’s spellbinding novel PLAY IT AS IT LAYS, which has my vote for best first lines of a book. It immediately encapsulates the novel’s mood of weary nihilism and the lawless California setting where morality and the debate of good versus evil are beside the point. READ MORE