Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

★★★★☆ The book follows three sets of characters – Deanna Wolfe, Lusa Landowski, and Garnett and Nannie, an elderly man and woman who all live on Zebulon Mountain in rural Southern Appalachia. Deanna is a biologist who lives alone deep in the woods. Lusa is a young farmer’s wife who has just suffered a tragedy. Garnett and Nannie are feuding neighbors.

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

★★★★★ History was always my favorite subject in high school and college. This love for history is probably why I am a fan of historical fiction novels, especially ones that teach me about an unfamiliar part of history. This was the case with Kate Quinn’s The Alice Network, a Reese's Book Club selection based on … Continue reading The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

★★★★★ Elizabeth Zott is a chemist in the early 1960s, a time when it was unheard of for a woman to be in a lab. She receives so little support from the all-male research team at Hastings Institute that she has to resort to stealing beakers to keep her research going. Calvin Evans, the Nobel prize-nominated scientist whose lab Elizabeth pilfers, ends up becoming her romantic partner.