Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Ann Dávila Cardinal GENRE: Historical Magical Realism PUBLICATION DATE: October 4, 2022 RATING: 1.5 stars. In a Nutshell: An OwnVoices family saga with elements of magical realism. Meant to be Adult Fiction, reads as a poorly-written YA soap opera. The plot had great potential but fails to make a mark. Flat character development. Way too much secret keeping and miscommunication. Way too many subplots. Didn't work for me. YMMV. Plot Preview: Every summer since Isla Larsen Sanchez's father passed away, her mother has been leaving her in Puerto Rico with her grandmother and her great-aunt while she stays back home in New Jersey and drinks. This began when Isla was eight. Now at eighteen, she learns that she has a special ability passed down from the cuentistas (storytellers) in her mother's side of the family: the stories of the dead cuentistas are brought to life and replayed in front of her repeatedly every day. Is this a gift or a curse? Is Isla the only current San...

AUTHOR: Michael Thompson NARRATOR: Ryan Ennis GENRE: Contemporary Fiction, Magical Realism PUBLICATION DATE: May 21, 2025 RATING: 3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary magical realism. Also tagged as romance but I found it tilting more towards general fiction. Good characters, though a bit cookie-cutter. Interesting magical realism. Heartwarming and emotional. This was a fairly strong read for me until the final quarter or so. Still, a good option for those looking for somewhat bittersweet reads. Plot Preview: Dr. Charlie Knight, 38, has spent many years as a GP in the same small town he grew up in. Just as he decides to take a step in a new direction, his life changes. He is suddenly endowed with a mysterious gift, that of knowing exactly how many days his patients have left to live. While this gift is helpful at times, Charlie does not want to know the death dates of his loved ones, and of his ex-girlfriend Genevieve who has just returned from London. Will this new insight turn o...

AUTHOR: Oyinkan Braithwaite NARRATORS: Diana Yekinni, Nnei Opia Clark, and Weruche Opia. GENRE: African Contemporary Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: November 4, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A multi-timeline multi-perspective family saga. Impressive yet flawed female characters, somewhat flat male characters. Decent plot, good writing, good ending. Character-oriented. Unlike what the blurb says, this is not “wickedly funny”. (In fact, it’s not funny at all.) Don’t expect a clever satire like the author’s first novel; this one is more typical in its storyline. Recommended, though not as strongly as I had hoped to. Plot Preview: 2024. Lagos, Nigeria. Twenty-three-year-old Eniiyi has lived her entire life being told that she resembles Monife, her aunt who killed herself just before Eniiyi was born. She even tried moving out from her hometown, but the shadow of Monife was always there. Now she's back after eleven years, returning to the home where she grew up, and to the women who ...

AUTHOR: Heather Webber GENRE: Contemporary Magical Realism PUBLICATION DATE: November 4, 2025 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary Southern fiction focussed on two women looking for healing. Loveable characters (who are a bit too perfect to be believable!), a dash of magical realism, character-focussed writing, excellent use of the found family trope, heartwarming ending. The pacing is a bit slow and the plot somewhat sappy, but it should work well for those who enjoy Hallmark-style stories. Recommended. Plot Preview: After a freak lightning accident results in the death of a beloved family member, Juliet Nightingale decides to take a solo trip to heal as well as to find herself again. Her car abruptly breaks down in an obscure town called Forget-Me-Not in Alabama, where the residents go out of their way to help her, even as they behave a bit oddly once they hear about her car. After a bitter divorce, Tallulah Byrd Mayfield moved to her grandfather’s house in Forget-Me-Not wi...

AUTHOR & NARRATOR: Mitch Albom GENRE: Magical Realism PUBLICATION DATE: October 7, 2025 RATING: 2.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A magical realism novel about a man who gets two chances at everything in his life. Intriguing storyline, decent exploration of human psychology. Flawed lead character, too many plot holes. Needs much suspension of disbelief. Not sure if I can recommend this with gusto, though it will certainly work for many readers. This is an outlier review. Plot Preview: When senior citizen Alfie Logan is apprehended in the Bahamas for allegedly cheating at a casino and winning a huge amount, Casino Detective Vincent LaPorta isn't prepared for Alfie’s explanation that he gets a second chance at everything in life. The detective obviously doesn’t buy such a nonsensical explanation, but Alfie is determined to prove his claim, handing the detective a composition book that tells the story of his life, and of how he simply needs to think of a past time and say the word “Twice...

AUTHOR:  Suzanne Rogerson NARRATOR:  Colette Davies-Kerwin GENRE: Contemporary Christmas Short Stories PUBLICATION DATE: November 17, 2025 RATING: 3.8 stars. In a Nutshell: A sweet collection of holiday short stories. Covering varied characters and emotions. Utterly feel-good and perfect for the festive season.  This collection contains eight short stories. As the title promises, each of them contains “a little Christmas magic”. The word ‘magic’ is used in both its interpretations: figurative and actual. Goodreads shows this book to be a part of the Winter Warmers series, but the series comprises short story collections that are independent of each other and hence can be read in any order.  As feel-good stories set during the Christmas season, the tales are obviously heartwarming. You might even assume that these are predictable, and many of them are. BUT this genre is anyway not meant to be twisty. AND there are a few stories that offer unexpected surprises, so...

AUTHOR: Paul Marriner NARRATOR:  Colleen MacMahon GENRE: Contemporary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: June 30, 2025 RATING: 3.5 stars In a Nutshell: A contemporary fiction with an element of magical realism. Didn’t like the main narrator but the other characters make up for her judgemental attitude. Themes of found family and caregiving explored well. A good option for those looking for a realistic story narrated through otherworldly eyes.  Plot Preview:  2019. Beverley Cooper has been dead since eight years, but she hasn’t yet moved on. She watches over her eighty-nine-year-old widower Kevin as he is struggling through Alzheimer’s and dementia, and her fifty-eight-year-old divorced daughter Philippa as she willingly looks after her ailing father’s needs at the cost of her own requirements. When a new thirty-something caregiver named Kaska enters the household, Phillippa finally acknowledges that it is okay to have some me-time away from her dad. But Kevin’s health isn’t g...

AUTHOR & NARRATOR: Trevor Noah ILLUSTRATOR: Sabina Hahn GENRE: Illustrated Novel PUBLICATION DATE: October 8, 2024 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A illustrated chapter book with two interesting characters and a fable-style narrative. A nice mix of realism and fantasy. Loved the writing and the characters. Adored the thought-provoking bits of wisdom. I wish the ending had extended at least a couple of pages further, but even as is, this is a beautiful book for all, especially but not only for a joint parent-child reading session. Plot Preview: A young boy is tired of the routine chores his mom forces him to do everyday. So when he wakes up one bright Saturday morning, he makes a special plan ‘before chores ruin this special day.’ He takes his best friend – Walter, his teddy bear – and decides to run away from home into the uncut grass beyond his house yard. Walter tries his best to dissuade the boy, but the boy is determined to ‘be free’. What happens next? Most of you would cer...

AUTHOR: Wendi Nunnery GENRE: Contemporary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: January 21, 2025 RATING: 3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A character-driven contemporary fiction with a touch of magical realism. (I would have considered this a spoiler but the blurb mentions it right at the start.) Interesting characters, emotional themes, medium pace. A bit too much telling in the writing. Takes a wildly complicated turn in the final third that is both clever and confuddling. Has a couple of teeny plot holes, but a good option for those looking for unusual and heartwarming storylines. Plot Preview: Hawthorn, Georgia. Despite what others say, twelve-year-old Eleanor knows that her mother is not dead. Vera Black disappeared six years ago, but Eleanor, who now helps her father James run their family bookshop, believes that Vera just abandoned them. When she finds the draft of an old novel hidden in a secret desk compartment at the bookshop, Eleanor discovers a mystery that causes her to question many thing...

AUTHOR: Colson Whitehead GENRE: Historical Fiction. PUBLICATION DATE: August 2, 2016. RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A historical fiction (or perhaps I should say, historical fantasy) set in 1820s USA, focussing on a young woman who slogs her way to freedom. I struggled with this book in almost every way: geography, historical research, characters, plot, writing. The geography issue was due to my shortcoming; the rest, I don’t know. This is an outlier review. Plot Preview: 1820. Georgia, USA. Cora, a slave on a cotton plantation, has already faced every kind of abuse. Though she is a strong woman and able to hold her own against *some* atrocities, she is still tempted when Caesar, a new arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad. Together, they take the risky decision of escaping. But such a plan is obviously fraught with uncertainties, and Cora finds herself handling far more than she had bargained for. The book comes to us in alternate long and short chapters...

AUTHOR: Jenni Keer GENRE: Historical Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: April 27, 2025. RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A historical fiction with mild shades of romance, mystery, and magical realism. Interesting plot spanning multiple genres, good characters though a tad beyond the era in terms of thinking, a slow-but-steady pace, and disappointing romance. The blurb makes it sound like a timeslip story; it’s not. I would have liked some actual timeslip, but once I readjusted my expectations, my experience improved. Plot Preview: When the ill-fated Titanic sinks in 1912, the slightly-spoiled and highly-imaginative thirteen-year-old orphan Olivia Davenport is sent to love with her wealthy godparents, the Fairchilds, at Merriford Manor. Life at Merriford is very different from what Olivia is accustomed to. Though there are more people here, there is much less physical demonstration of love. Olivia feels quite lonely and relies on her imagination to get through the days. But when she hears a...