Rosh's Reviews

  AUTHOR:  Louise Beech GENRE: Contemporary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: June 1, 2026 RATING:   4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A dual-timeline fiction featuring three women from three different eras. Two of the women are popular names: Mother Mary and Marilyn Monroe. Creative alternate history. Great historical research. Excellent character development. A bit slow but introspective. Realistic themes, some of which might be triggering. (Nothing devious happens on page though.) Not religious or preachy. A *wonderful* option for those looking for unusual storylines. Plot Preview:  4th August 1962. Hollywood. On the night she should have died, Marilyn Monroe receives an unexpected visitor in her home. The Virgin Mary comes to her with a cryptic message that will end up changing (and saving) her life. 2016. Hull, England. Flora has not had an easy life but does the best she can to survive. The last thing she expects to find in her filthy tenement home is the Virgin Mary bat...

AUTHOR: Glenn Dixon GENRE: Dystopian Science Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: April 7, 2026 RATING: 3 stars. In a Nutshell: A near-future technological fiction. A fair mix of human and appliance characters. Liked the humans, loved the appliances. Creative plot but confused execution. Didn't expect it to be so dystopian and sombre in tone. Too many themes. A few unclarified plot loopholes. Could have been fabulous with a better, streamlined structure. Recommended but not a must-read. Plot Preview: (This preview goes beyond the initial 10-15% as the story is somewhat slow to get going.) In the near-future, retired senior citizens Harold and Edie live in a smart house where the appliances are sentient enough to handle everything for them with the help of the omnipresent and omniscient Grid. Their little Roomba vacuum, who wants to be called Scout after enjoying one of the classics Harold read to the terminally ill Edie on her bed, longs for a greater human connection with her owners but the ...

AUTHOR: Erin Forget GENRE: Urban Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: May 2, 2026 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: An urban fantasy about souls stuck in limbo in a funeral home. Excellent character study with flawed characters at the helm. Unlike what the title and cover indicate, the story is somewhat tense and even tragic, but this is balanced by many moments of humour and bonding. The writing style didn’t work for me but the plot mostly did, though I could have done without the blasphemous elements. Recommended, as long as you aren’t fussy about writing. Some triggering content mainly related to cults. Plot Preview: Ontario, Canada. Official rules require that the dead, even if unclaimed, always be given a proper burial. But in the implementation of this lies a grey area, because of which a few souls find themselves stuck in limbo at the Marigold Horizons funeral parlour. We have an artist desperate for fame even after death, a wrestler no longer in her prime, a sex worker who also was a ser...

AUTHOR: Dawn McMillan ILLUSTRATOR: Ross Kinnaird GENRE: Children's Picture Book PUBLICATION DATE: September 1, 2012 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A children’s picture book with some questionable inclusions. My low rating isn't because this talks about butts, but because I found it poorly written. Plot Preview: Written in first person, the young narrator is sad at having discovered a crack in his butt. He wonders where and when he might have broken it. (He’s fairly certain a fart caused it to split.) He then mulls over various butt options he could try as a replacement, going from the arty to the outrageous. But will these options work on a broken bottom? It is a truth universally acknowledged that kids like good butt stories. And this one seemed to have the makings of one. But I don’t get its appeal. Honestly, the title got me cracking up. I was hoping for a cheeky story about how the boy discovers that all butts are cracked. However, while the story started off excellently, ...

AUTHOR: Lenka Karpiskova GENRE: Children's Nonfiction, STEM. PUBLICATION DATE: January 27, 2026 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A fully-illustrated nonfiction work about how we encounter chemistry in our homes. Aimed at middle-graders and teens. Recommended. This book is a part of a series with three standalone books. I recently read Book One: ‘The Awesome Physics in Your Home’ and found it quite impactful and enlightening. But as Book Two was also about Physics (The Awesome Physics in Your City), I decided to change subjects and try Book Three instead with Chemistry as the focus. Kids are often told in school that cooking is the most common chemistry, but this book explains how chemistry in our daily lives goes far beyond the kitchen. Just as in the Physics book, the content is divided not by chemical concepts but by the parts of the house such as living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and so on. This ensures that we get a practical view of several routine activities where chem...

AUTHOR: Gabrielle Meyer SERIES: Dollar Princess, #2 GENRE: Historical Romance PUBLICATION DATE: June 9, 2026 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A historical romance that is not just a historical romance. Retelling of the classic Hollywood musical ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’. Interesting characters, great historical feel, wonderful setting. Christian fiction. Slightly slow and repetitive in the second half. A nice option for fans of the genre and of the movie. The second book in the Dollar Princess series but can be read as a standalone. Plot Preview: 1884, England. Twenty-year-old American heiress Lily Parker is taken by surprise when the reclusive Duke of Severton, Ames Welby, proposes to her almost as soon as they meet. She knows that he is in desperate need of money to repair his ancestral home, and as she has wealth as well as an interest in leaving the crazy chaos of London, she accepts. What she doesn’t know is that life at Pickering Castle will be just as chaotic. Ames’ four ...

AUTHOR: Samantha Downing NARRATOR: Elizabeth Wiley GENRE: Crime Thriller. PUBLICATION DATE: August 12, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A crime thriller about a retired serial killer forced back into action. Unlikeable but compelling lead. Interesting at the start, slightly repetitive in the second half. Somewhat lopsided in its character development, though there are some interesting side characters. A decent one-time read for me, which is a slightly outlier opinion. Plot Preview: Seventy-five-year-old Lottie Jones lives a calm retired life, talking regularly with her son Archie, rolling her eyes at his upcoming wedding to a girl half his age, and enjoying bingo and gossiping with her friends from church. No one knows that Lottie had a past life as a serial killer. So when a young and ambitious documentary producer named Plum Dixon turns up at Lottie's doorstep wanting to tell her life story, Lottie knows it's time to say goodbye to her retirement from murder, even if P...

AUTHOR & NARRATOR: John Fugelsang GENRE: Religious Nonfiction PUBLICATION DATE: Jun 04 2026 RATING: 4.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A nonfiction that does exactly what the title declares: separates the church from the despicable version sold to us by fascists and fundamentalists. Insightful, incisive, accurate, brilliant. Hard truths delivered with a good dash of humour. The book (as well as this review) might create allergic reactions in certain *Christians*, but to the fellow sane believers out there, this is a must-read. Much recommended! When I see religion-based nonfiction books ( any religion, not just Christian ones ) with titles that call out strongly to me, the first thing I do is check the credentials of the author. Any person who behaves like an extremist on their social media ( most conservative evangelicals in case of Christianity ), who spreads hate against other religions or minorities, who uses demeaning words to refer to people of other faiths, and who misinterprets scri...

AUTHOR: Katherine Applegate ILLUSTRATOR: Charles Santoso GENRE: Middle-Grade Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: September 9, 2025 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fantasy featuring many toys full of heart and one cat full of ‘cattitude’. Lovely story and mostly loveable characters. Great balance of fun and seriousness. Highlights the pain associated with war then and now. Much recommended. Plot Preview: Pocket Bear “became” from a thimble during WWI, when he was created to fit into the pocket of a soldier’s jacket to offer comfort and love. Now, more than a century later, Pocket Bear is the unofficial head of the ‘Second Chances Home for the Tossed and Treasured’, a place where its two humans – a mother-daughter pair who are refugees from Ukraine – refurbish discarded or unwanted soft toys and give them a fresh lease of life with a new owner. Accompanied by his best friend, a cat named Zephyrina who is the prime source of the toys, Pocket Bear ensures that everything in the Sec...

AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR: Cori Doerrfeld GENRE: Children's Picture Book PUBLICATION DATE: February 20, 2018 RATING: 5 stars! In a Nutshell: A lovely picture book about the power of listening and being there. Great concept and outstanding execution. Many wonderful animals. Practical. Much recommended. Plot Preview: Little Taylor had built a wonderful structure using his toy bricks when something terrible makes the entire thing collapse. As expected, Taylor is upset about his efforts going to waste. Many animals come to him one by one offering him advice on what he should do next. But Taylor’s lack of response drives them all away. And then, the rabbit arrives. And sits next to Taylor. And listens. Which works perfectly for Taylor. Often, we find that in times of trouble, there is a lot of unwarranted advice. We are either at the receiving end of endless instructions on what we ought to do, or we ourselves make the mistake of instructing others on their response. But we forget that o...

AUTHOR: Laura Huie NARRATOR: Ethan Fifield GENRE: High Fantasy Novella PUBLICATION DATE: September 25, 2023 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: The story of a dragon and his connection with the people who want him dead. Unlike what the tagline suggests, the writing approach is more like a descriptive biography with flashbacks than like a memoir. Character-oriented, with only two complex main characters. Thought-provoking plot. High fantasy but will work even for non-fantasy readers. A nice read, as long as you don't expect a "memoir". Plot Preview: The dragon Vakandi has watched the people of Vakfored for centuries, seeing them grow from refugees to self-sufficient citizens with an affinity for magic. The people have long forgotten how they first came to settle in the place they call Vakfored. But the dragon remembers. So when an assassin named Sisal comes to kill the “threat”, Vakandi convinces her to listen to his life story. The story comes to us in the alternating thir...

AUTHOR: Sofi Stambo GENRE: Short Story Collection PUBLICATION DATE: June 9, 2026 RATING: 3.15 stars. In a Nutshell: An OwnVoices short story collection focusing on Bulgarian immigrant narratives. Too many stories for a single collection, but each is quite short. The immigrant vibe varies in quantity and quality, with some stories barely containing the theme. Minimal plot. Slice of life in style, which rarely works for me. This debut collection contains thirty-four stories. The number sounds quite high, but each story lasts barely 5-8 pages. Thus the page count of the book isn't that high at 312 pages. Some stories have minor linking elements in terms of place or characters but they still work as standalone narratives. There is no foreword introducing the collection or theme. Even the blurb is fairly vague in this regard. But on reading the stories, certain elements seem to come at regular intervals, the most common being the immigrant experience. However, the immigrant theme is qui...