February 2022 New Book Releases: Celebrating Black History Month

Depending on where you live in the world, February can be cold, dreary, and wet. But it’s also an important month of remembrance: Black History Month. If you take a look at the National Calendar website, here in the US,…

October 2021 New Book Releases: Witchy Rom-Coms and Folk Retellings

October is the best month. It’s the perfect time to make your way through a stack of books, whether they’re cozy or witchy in nature, preferably while eating…

10 Best YA Historical Fiction of 2019

Historical fiction is an amazing genre that brings truth from the past to us today. It can be heartbreaking and heartfelt — and sometimes it includes a smidgen of magic. There is so much to learn from through the lens…

Ashes in the Snow Movie Review: Even Bel Powley doesn’t shine bright enough to save this melodrama

Inspired by the harrowing true events dramatized in Ruta Sepetys’s best-selling 2011 novel set in the midst of Stalin’s genocide of the Baltic people, Ashes in the Snow (a title that’s a bit too on-the-nose for its own good, but…

Book Review: Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

If I get to say just one thing about Salt to the Sea, it’s this: Ruta Sepetys’ most recent novel is emotional, thought-provoking, and a must read for people of all ages. In 1945, World War II is drawing to…

Read of the Week: Out of The Easy by Ruta Sepetys

It’s 1950, and as the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets, seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is silently stirring a pot of her own. Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life…